[2021-10-09] Never stop learning or teaching
Ten years ago, I appeared on a panel at GTEC, a showcase of technologies and service delivery in Canada, particularly the public sector. The moderator asked me and my fellow panelists: "What’s the one bit of advice you would give senior managers?"
"Never stop learning," I replied.
I noted that as we get older, busier and more experienced, it’s easy to feel both overwhelmed and complacent, having neither the time nor the desire to learn about new things such as emerging technology. The reality—then as it is now—is that the world is changing so fast that we can’t possibly keep up with all the developments that are relevant to us. Being open to what we can learn from others—particularly younger workers who have more time, energy and drive to delve into some of the newer domains such as social media—can enable us to learn more quickly than if we tried to explore a subject, technology or platform on our own.
This is the idea behind the concept of the reverse mentor: someone who is younger and more plugged in than we are. These tech-savvy youth are publishing, blogging, tweeting, connecting, collaborating, posting, creating and sharing. And while they’re doing all of this, they’re learning, contributing and changing the world around them. They are eager learners, but equally eager teachers.
I could have added another response to the question on what advice to give senior managers: "Never stop teaching."
Participating on the panel led me to reflect on whether older public servants were taking the time to pass along their knowledge to the younger workers coming behind them. I concluded that we senior leaders needed to do a better job of sharing our views and experience with the younger generation. I wasn't criticizing my fellow senior managers, as I understood only too well the demands that senior public servants were under and the challenge they faced in finding enough time for a personal life when they could spend every waking hour engaged in work.
But I also considered that another factor was at play, impacting senior managers' willingness to share. That factor was modesty—a feeling of not having anything particularly valuable to share.
I often felt that way, questioning whether I had any wisdom that would be of interest to my younger colleagues. But blogging, particularly in Café Jen, showed me that people were interested in what I had to say. I remember one bright, young employee telling me how much he appreciated my posts on a leadership program that I participated in between 2009 and 2011. He noted that my writings gave him an insight into the way senior public servants thought.
I wasn't suggesting that senior public servants had to join the conversation when and where their younger counterparts were engaging in it. I simply recommended that senior leaders take opportunities—in meetings, conferences, email exchanges—to share their thoughts and guidance. One person on the GTEC panel noted that younger employees would benefit from knowledge about the decision-making process. She stated that if young public servants didn't understand how their senior leaders made decisions, they would struggle to get the decision they were after.
In the 10 years following my appearance on the GTEC panel, I saw just how generous many of my colleagues were in sharing their knowledge with younger public servants. We took part in a range of activities, such as mentoring, speaking at conferences, blogging and participating in human libraries (an activity in which individuals could meet one-on-one with a knowledgeable person, like checking a book out of a library).
Looking back at my response to the question posed to the GTEC panel, I could just as easily have been talking about older people as about older managers. Never stop learning and never stop teaching is good advice for all of us.
