Leaders, individual contributors, students, and every individual need to keep stretching their current skills and keep learning new ones to remain relevant in the space they dwell in.
Leaders who are great in one-to-one conversations should start to find opportunities to talk to a large group and do some public speaking. Individual contributors, like analysts, should not just focus on pulling numbers—they need to also learn how to recommend actions based on the numbers, present the numbers, and execute on the recommended actions. Students need to learn how to make money, balance their paychecks, and do presentations.
In an interview with the Harvard Business Review (HBR), Ken Banta, founder of the Vanguard Network, and Orlan Boston, partner at Ernst & Young, advocated the importance for leaders to “enhance their skills, knowledge, and network in a way that benefits their existing careers.”
Learning new muscles doesn’t necessarily mean “any” muscle. Sure, if you have the desire to bake a cake, create pottery, or paint a portrait, learn those muscles as you see fit. However, my proposal is to create opportunities to gain new knowledge and skill that can help you elevate your contribution and value at work.
Banta and Boston recommend taking on “side gigs” outside of your actual work that can contribute to your main profession. If you want to be a better public speaker, consider taking on stand-up comedy classes or start recording yourself for a video blog or a podcast. If you want to be a better writer, start a blog.
Outside of starting these new side gigs, you need to make sure that you supplement that with opportunities to practice that new muscle. It requires disciplined repetition to get proficient in a new skill.
Two years ago, I wanted to take my writing skills to the next level. I’ve been successful in composing short write-ups, like, marketing copy, releases, and announcements, but I wanted to be more persuasive in writing about topics at depth.
To force myself to keep writing, I started a blog externally. It was difficult, and I missed the mark many times, but I make it a point to have one blog post per week. To take that further, I also started a blog internally in our company. Forcing myself to write 600-1,000 words per article made me a much better writer. I started from zero, so “much better” for me means nothing to compared to the standards of the writers I look up to and perhaps many of you reading this.
We live and breathe in an everchanging world—tons of new stuff just around the corner. To have the ability to constantly navigate our changing world, you’ll need to always keep your game up. To be CEO of a global organization 50 years ago only requires that person to be good in reading the financials and great in navigating organizational structures. At our current environment, corporate executives require an immense level of adaptability—to the market, to the consumer behavior, and most especially, to the culture required to keep everyone in the organization working (harmoniously) towards a vision.
To end this post, I’d like to share two examples of organizations who learned new muscles and prevailed, and another who did not and failed:
McDonald’s started operating within the United States. They were doing very well, but they wanted expand their reach globally. Between 1967 to 1987, McDonald’s opened stores in two international countries per year on average. Since 1988, McDonald’s have ramped up its international footprint across all continents, except the Antarctica.
McDonald’s’ global expansion doesn’t simply mean opening a division in Germany, Japan, or in China. The restaurant chain has to educate the people living in the new host country “what a hamburger is.” McDonald’s needs to immerse themselves in education, public relations, and the local society. They needed to develop new muscles on how to communicate to the host country and have the innovation to evolve their menu to entice the taste buds of their new audience.
Blockbuster failed to learn new muscles to adapt to the changing consumer behavior and technology. Netflix founder, Reed Hastings, approached Blockbuster CEO John Antioco to propose a partnership where Netflix would be in charge of Blockbuster’s online brand. Hastings was laughed at and sent packing. Long story short, Blockbuster is no longer in existence, while Netflix is still striving in the video streaming industry.
Learn new relevant muscles that can elevate your value to your organization. Get proficient in these new muscles by repetition—keep practicing. Finally, apply the new muscle to your current profession to add value to your organization and to yourself.
Crowdsourcing FTW
What new muscle have you learned in the past year or so? How did you do that and how did you apply that to your current profession? Do you have tips on how to be resilient in practicing these new muscles? Did you face any roadblocks along the way? Can you share tips on how to overcome those roadblocks? Please share in the comments below.