Be More Open To Learning
Be More Open To Learning
Some owners do not know how to use their POS (point of sale) system, the basics of inventory management, or other simple tasks. To them, this knowledge is beneath them, or for their management to learn. These are the owners who are unaware that employees are stealing cash and products from them, or who have employees who do not give a care for their products and don’t know about it. These are the owners who are held hostage by their managers but never learn more in order to make changes. Then, when they fail and close, they blame it on “management.”
The belief that there’s nothing new to learn, that certain knowledge is beneath your pay grade, and that you are not capable of learning new things (for whatever reason) are complete bullshit. This is really about you not taking full responsibility for your job or business.
This isn’t about being smart enough or having a high IQ, it’s a belief that information is either beyond your grasp or not worth grasping. This can prevent you from discovering new things about yourself, your industry, colleagues, employees, and competitors. This is not a smart and intelligent move. This leads to a lack of expansion of skills, ability, and desire to learn. It’s about stretching yourself to do new things and dig deeper into those areas that can enrich your life and your understanding of your profession or an area you want to pursue.
To be good at anything as an individual, you need to be open to learning. The learning starts with you. I did not learn about manufacturing in college. I taught myself by benefitting from every work and managerial experience. You must figure out what you don’t know as you go along. It’s not that you have to wait to start something new before learning everything about it, but learning can and must take place “on the job”, in real-time, otherwise, you’ll never get anywhere. You must be open to learning at every moment and accepting that you don’t know it all, and, most important, humble enough to accept knowledge from wherever it comes. I learned from my employees every day.
You don’t think it’s important to know every aspect of your job and the responsibility it takes to make your business work?
How about a guy who owns a taxi? His livelihood depends on the cab, so if he’s good at his job, he knows when to change the oil, and if he doesn’t know how to do it himself, he makes it his business to learn how. If you own a bar, you better know how to make a few cocktails. if you run a clothing store, you better know how to fold sweaters even if someone else does it for you. That is an important point: how can you teach your staff, your partners, your family, or anyone how to do things correctly if you don’t know how to do them yourself? If you don’t know how to send a fax, run a copy machine, or your POS system, you need to cut off that arrogance and start learning.
The attitude that you are above knowing about certain tasks? That’s just being an asshole. It only indicates that you have no real passion or love for what you are doing. In short, you should understand the basic components of your job and industry, and learn more about it every day. It should be a constant improvement because it keeps us on our toes. It’s a mindset that forces us to be conscious of what is going on around us, which in turn opens up exciting new ideas.
Most probably, some of you might be resistant to the idea of constant learning. You may think that if you learn something once, you don’t have to learn it again. That’s not exactly true. Just look at Alibaba founder, Jack Ma. At the age of twelve, Ma would wake up at five a.m. to walk or ride his bike to the main hotel in his city, Hangzhou, China, so he could practice the English he was learning in school with English-speaking tourists. He did this for nine straight years, also offering his services as a free tour guide to these visitors.
Ma realized that what he was learning in school was not the same as what he was learning from the foreigners he interacted with at the hotel. Sometimes what you are learning might not be the only way to know about something and it might not even be true in the first place. The skills Ma gained by talking to native English speakers went a long way toward helping him learn about the world. They provide the basis for this poor Chinese kid, who could not even get hired at his local KFC branch, to start a company that has helped him create a net worth of $193 Billions as of Oct 2022. Yes, that’s Billions with a B.
Constant learning is not only about refreshing what you know. it’s very much about deepening understanding, making connections to form new ideas, and building your expertise. No one knows too much. With over 30 years in manufacturing, I know a hell of a lot about the subject but I would never say that there’s nothing left for me to know or learn. I make it a point to keep up with the changing technology in the manufacturing sector and learn whatever I can to keep up with the latest trends.
And, with the advent of the internet — Increasing your knowledge is available anytime anywhere and it’s mostly free!
That’s all for now, my friend. See you all in my next article.
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