IS WHAT YOU KNOW HOLDING YOU BACK? ADAPTING TO AN ACCELERATED WORLD : QNET

Adult education experts estimate that up to 40% of what tertiary students are learning will be obsolete a decade from now when they will be working in jobs that have yet to be created. Indeed, the top 10 most in-demand jobs today didn’t even exist 10 years ago. To say that we live in a changing world understates how fast the pace and how vast the scope.

Of course it’s not just technology that’s changing the world. Add to this the social changes in family structure, the globalization of talent and continued innovation in technology, and it’s hard to imagine just what the world and it’s increasingly mobile workforce will look like 20 years from now.

For the three-plus billion people in the workforce it’s not just about keeping up with the rate of change and the nature of the work we do, but how we do it and where. When anyone can work from anywhere, it changes the nature of work everywhere.

While we’re all born with an intense desire to learn, somewhere along the line many of us lose our passion for learning. The pressure to excel in school with its ever-pressing emphasis on test scores can rob the enjoyment from the process of learning itself. Whatever the reasons, once the basics are covered, many people tend to stick with what they know and avoid situations or challenges where they may mess up or be forced to learn something new. They create a safe, secure and comfortable (and confining) world for themselves. In it, they do their best to mold the changes going on around them—in people, events and the general environment—to fit with their current “mental maps.” They may say they’re open to change, but they do their best to avoid it. For a while, that strategy can work fairly well. What it doesn’t do is set them up well for adapting to a future that may well require an entirely new set of maps.

When you resist learning, unlearning and relearning, the options available to you can narrow greatly.  When it comes to adapting to change, delay is increasingly expensive as you quickly lose your place in a world that’s forever marching steadily forward.

Of course it’s not about acquiring knowledge for knowledge’s sake. We can all acquire copious amounts of knowledge just by sitting on Wikipedia all day.  Your iPhone alone gives you access to more information at your fingertips that you can process in your lifetime, much less actually use.

In 1992 Bill Clinton declared that if you just ‘work hard and play by the rules’ you’ll get ahead, have a good life and pave the way for your kids to have an even better one. It’s a nice sentiment but it’s no longer true. In 1992 the internet was only beginning to emerge, few people used email and students still researched assignments using encyclopaedias.  It was a world in which technology had yet to revolutionize business; a world where working remotely was still a rarity and many people stayed in jobs for life. Today, it’s nothing to have a dozen jobs over the course of a career. In fact, most people today have multiple careers.

The rules for getting ahead have changed and changed for good. To succeed today you must be in a constant state of adaption – continually unlearning old ‘rules’ and relearning new ones. That requires continually questioning assumptions about how things work, challenging old paradigms and ‘relearning’ what is now relevant in your job, your industry, your career and your life.

Learning agility is the name of the game. Where the rules are changing fast, your ability to be agile in letting go of old rules and learning new ones is increasingly important. Learning agility is the key to unlocking your change proficiency and succeeding in an uncertain, unpredictable and constantly evolving environment, personally and professionally. There are countless things you may have to unlearn in your job, business and career, even in the course of the next 12 months.

• Unlearn how to communicate best with colleagues.
• Unlearn the technology you use.
• Unlearn how to motivate employees
• Unlearn the media you use to build your brand.
• Unlearn the way you deliver your value.
• Unlearn the skills and knowledge to succeed at  the next level.
• Unlearn who your target market is, what they want and how they like to get it (fast and online!)
• Unlearn how to engage and retain top talent.

Unlearning is not about acquiring, it’s about letting go. Like stripping old paint, it lays the foundation for the new layer of fresh learning to be acquired and to stick. But like the painter who needs to strip the paint, stripping the paint is 70 per cent of the work while repainting is only 30 per cent.

As the global economy evolves and market forces drive competition for jobs to new levels, it’s the people who have proactively worked to expand and diversify their skill sets who will be most well placed. When you synthesize your knowledge and skills well, it turns you from a knowledge expert into a knowledge entrepreneur. Everyone is looking for employees who can do critical thinking and problem solving… just to get an interview. What they are really looking for are people who can invent, re-invent and re-engineer their jobs while doing them.”