Recently I’ve attended two business conferences and two smaller gatherings of learning leaders. I’ve spoken with individuals who are initiative stakeholders, technical team leaders, and training directors about many of the same themes, including:
- Workplace knowledge
- Its shelf life
- How to easily capture and disseminate it
- Lateral moves as a preferred professional career path
Advances in the workplace happen so rapidly that if workers don’t continually educate themselves, their knowledge may become out of date. If we, as learning professionals, don’t evaluate and update the organization’s education resources and methods, learners will figure out their own avenues, many of them informal and collaborative.
Years ago I was trained as an engineer and worked in that field for a decade before making a lateral move into consulting. Would I be equipped to return to work as an engineer today after years of doing other work? Probably not, unless I could refresh myself on the basics, and then fold in what has changed. Sounds like either a daunting task or an opportunity, depending on your outlook. But today, I’d have at my fingertips things like YouTube videos and online communities of practice that weren’t accessible “back in the day.”
When building or refreshing your skills, you add layers and build upon your foundational knowledge. Most of us experienced this gain moving from K through 12, and it’s held true for me in my professional and personal life. I draw analogies when I’m learning something new—analogies make the new tasks seem more familiar and easier to absorb.
I heard an energy company retiree say that millennials actively seek out many different experiences in the workplace, versus starting in one organization and building a base of knowledge in that “silo.” They aren’t opposed to lateral moves, and in fact, they volunteer for special assignments. The retiree’s concern was, “Does that type of movement help or hurt the corporate knowledge base?” I would argue that it helps as lateral moves give workers exposure across silos, not just inside of them.
One could argue that is what consultants may enjoy about their work—the cycle of meeting new colleagues, gaining exposure to a new corporate culture, transitioning knowledge back into the organization, and then repeating the process somewhere else.
I know of many people, millennials and other generations, who actively position themselves for future changes—purposeful lateral moves—so that the cadence of their work will better fit with their personal passions and obligations.
So in closing, I challenge you to examine your environment, professional or personal:
- What’s the shelf life of your knowledge?
- What are the measures you have in place to capture and share knowledge?
- What types of moves are you planning (or dreaming about) in the next 5–10 years?
