I am almost certain that everyone agrees learning is a good habit. Everyone learns on daily basis or hourly basis from everyone around – be it their managers, teams, colleagues or family. Your keep on learning and as you grow older, you tend to regress gradually to learn from your surroundings. You become a lot rigid in your views and slowly the intake decreases from surrounding.
So, as you grow and get into managerial roles, do you require learning? Or you are the boss and you know all the things? In fact, studies show that the most learning is required by the managers as they job role demands them to be flexible and, by natural or the intrinsic way, they are the least flexible workers in the team.
The next question is “how to induce learning”? Some great companies have registered this fact and learning is an integral part of their operations, which is to grow the company. They drive this learning – you can call it forced learning or incentivized learning. The company forces the employees by including the learnings as part of their annual appraisals or incentivizes them with some extra rewards if they obtain new management skills. The employees are also happy to acquire new skills and understand that ultimately it helps the individual to grow their own career prospects. This looks good as long as it is sponsored by the companies.
What about the rest? Is it good enough to put your own money and do the executive learning? Isn’t it waste of time and money? One would argue.
I happened to discuss this question with many managers. And they believe that management programs such as the Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification workshops are only useful till you get the stamp of “PMP® Certified”. They suggest that it helps your future employers to notice the tag and employ, and hence the value of these kind of workshops. Rightly so, be it PMP® certification or Wharton executive program or any other executive workshop, the tag does help to get the required attention. But do you seriously think the employer recruits you just for the tag?
In my humble opinion, the employer recruits you as you have the requisite knowledge to bring about the change the way project management is done or the employee will bring about a solid change in the way management happens. The employer is not recruiting you for the tag but placing the bet on you to improve the company growth prospects.
Learning is never a waste of time and more so, the Executive Learning as it is more required as our thinking becomes more rigid and in contrast, the world around is becoming more dynamic.
Think about it – whether Executive Learning is a good investment for you and your future, or waste of time and money. Your call…
PMI®, PMP® are registered trademarks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.
