Lifelong Learning
Education system is created to meet the need of the society. The industrial society need workers to build products based on “assembly line production” principles. That is why students are taught everything they need to work in factories and business offices according to certain rules and principles. Unfortunately, that education system is no longer valid as the need of society changes from industrial to informational. Today, students that have been educated by industrial-age principles will NOT be successful in the information age.
The same thing also applies to management. Current management system is a product of the industrial age with principles such as uniformity, control, standard and centralization. Responsibility belongs to managers who made all decisions. Workers follow orders and implement things according to procedures. Training is limited to specific job skills and positions. That kind of principles works well in the industrial age when things are stable, but it falls apart when company have to operate in the information age for in which everything can change quickly. The survival of every business demands that workers and managers must know how to respond quickly to market change. If managers do NOT understand the difference, they will NOT be able to manage anything and company will NOT survive.
Today technology changes faster than people’s ability to control them, unless they know about them and prepare for the change. People will not know about new technology unless they are always learning, reading, and following trends in technology. Peter Drucker, an author who wrote about the 21st century: “The most successful people in the next 10 to 20 years may not be the smartest today, or know the most right now. The technology they know now will be obsolete by then. Success in the information age will be defined by the ability to learn and continuous learning. Since knowledge will become obsolete so quickly that the only successful people will be the lifelong learners”.
Let’s look at the current Information Technology (IT) industry. In 1995, India exported $24 million worth of software. In 2009 they exported $75 billion and could reach $100 billion this year. Why India is so successful? The answer could be found in their attitude toward training. India’s software companies invest heavily in skills training and continuing education programs to keep up with developing technology. Some companies spend as much as 8 percent of their annual revenues on training, more than any companies in the world. (Japanese and European companies spend 4 percent on their employee education, while U.S. spend only about 2 percent). You can guess which company will be more successful in the future. Since IT is one of the fastest profitable business, many developing countries are also moving into IT as a key export but most of them under-estimate the training and learning aspects. When I look at the training budget of a company or the education funding of a country, I can predict whether that company or that country will be successful or not. Basically, if they do not invest in education and training, they cannot expect to succeed in this 21st century.
In the world in which change happens quickly, the critical skill that everybody must have is the ability to continuously learning. This is not the skill that students are taught in traditional education systems but skill that people must acquire because it is the survival skill. Of course, the responsibility for learning begins with the individual. As I attend college graduation ceremony each year, some students tell me: “No more books, no more tests, and good bye teacher”. I often tell them: “In few more years, many of you will come back to see me”. They all seems surprised but many do come back and take additional trainings after few years working in the industry. These are people that do well and will survive changes because lifelong learners do NOT stop their education when they graduate from college.
As a professor, I often look at students in class to determine who will be successful and who will not based on their attitude toward learning. Good students usually are NOT the smartest in class but they always want to learn. They are people who would ask questions often because they want to know more. Smart students often do not ask since they think they could figure out later. Every time a student does not ask questions, he loses an opportunity to learn. Good students often ask why, or what, or how because they are eager to learn more. As students, you must make the decision to become a lifelong learner or not. Even if you are the smartest who know everything in your subject today, you will be obsolete in few years if you do NOT learn anything new. If you commit to lifelong learning today by reading more, checking technical things on the internet more, and willing to put out time to learn more, you will be the technological leader soon.
If you already working, your success depends upon your ability to work well with others, to expand your competency and capability, and to continuously learn new things. By doing that, you will advance in your career faster than others. If you are the manager or leader of a company, you must recognize that your competitive edge will depend on your ability to train your people to keep up with changes. You must define the learning goals for your company, communicate those goals to your people, and allocate the resources to support those goals. By doing that, your company can compete for more business and be successful. However, if you chose to stay put, not invest in training, it will be likely that you may go out of business before you even recognize it.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University