The action: Set up a system of apprenticeship at work.
The long-form: Does your company teach you the skills needed to level up?
You come out of school and everyone assumes you know the skills needed to do the job well. Yes, you’re new and need to learn the culture and ways of working, but aside from that, it’s taken for granted that you probably don’t need any new capabilities. You are left to your own devices.
Perhaps you get a sense that if you only were better at public speaking, at understanding the data, at motivating your team, you could accomplish more. And no-one is stopping you. But it’s not like they are helping you either.
Growing and learning is then seen as an individual responsibility, largely of no interest to the company. But when everyone is left to train themselves, you end up with a huge stretch in the capabilities of your staff. You may have a few self-motivated autodidacts, but also senior employees who still struggle with- (or more often, avoid) some tasks.
Why do so few companies then have a systematic plan for which skills everyone should have?
What if we instead had a systematic way to apprentice new employees?
This might sound far-fetched, but the closest parable I can come up with is from martial arts: When you first join, they give you a white belt. The white belt implies that you are a beginner. You have virtually everything left to learn, and it becomes everyone’s responsibility to help you develop.
As you progress through the ranks, you show your development by earning higher-ranked colour belts. Perhaps you are a white-belt for the first 2-3 years, before moving on to the next level, and the next and the next.
Could we use some of the principles of martial arts training in the workplace?
The belt gives you a licence to learn
There is no need to “fake it ‘till you make it”. No one expects you to know all the techniques at the first level. Therefore, your humility and eagerness to learn is not only expected, but also rewarded. More experienced belts typically punish an arrogant newcomer, but are patient and instructive towards a curious new learner. No one huffs and says you should know this by now or laughs at your lack of knowledge when you are a white, or even blue belt. And humility is the best starting point for learning (see also Commoncog’s excellent piece on cognitive agility).
Contrast this to a workplace where the norms of how to ask for-, and give advice are murky. Some of us try to appear as if we know it all, to avoid our competence being called into question. But how liberating it would be to display a white badge, knowing it gives you the freedom to be a learner! And imagine how it would take down the barriers to teaching others. If they are a learner, of course you could offer to help them prepare for the presentation.
You know what you have to do to progress
It is a rare thing in most workplaces to know what behaviour, skills or attitudes would take you to the next level. Not so in martial arts. There is usually a syllabus for what skills you have to demonstrate to get to the next rank. There is no guesswork, it doesn’t change depending on who assesses you, it isn’t based on how they feel about you. These are the skills you need to have in order to be a blue belt, now go practice for it.
What does the next level on the career ladder require? Should everyone with 2-3 years experience be skilled at difficult conversations, at negotiations, or in SQL-queries? Being clear on what is needed at the next level gives people something to train for.
The belts make sure everyone has the same fundamental skills
There is a common argument in the workplace business that the skills needed in different departments are not comparable at all. To be successful in Marketing is a completely different set of skills to those of Engineering.
I don’t completely agree. There are some skills that are universal, and should be taught to everyone.
There are two advantages to having a set of common skills:
Common culture
By having a common language, and being able to rely on your colleagues to also have those skills, everyone’s interactions will be easier.
As you progress in martial arts, you will develop your personal style as you reach the higher levels. But on your way there, you will have learned the same basic set of techniques as everyone else at your level. You have common ground with people on your level, and although your specialities may differ, you can look to them for inspiration and guidance.
Having a set of common fundamental skills can help instil a company culture. “Here at our company we run our meetings like this, we show our data like so, and this is the way we make decisions.”
No uneven skill sets
I have seen how groups can suffer when senior leaders have chosen not to develop certain skills. Someone who “isn’t a people person” can shy away from developing the coaching skills needed to lead their department. Someone who “isn’t interested in numbers” can overlook more fact-based approaches. Someone who “doesn’t like technology” can make poor IT-purchasing decisions.
If people get to choose what to learn more about, many will avoid topics that are unfamiliar. However, those might precisely be the most useful skills to the company. If people shy away from certain tools, they will end up with less suitable tools and worse problem-solving skills than if they had a broader range. The HR-manager could be placing too much trust in the IT-vendors promises. The head of engineering could be avoiding those much needed difficult conversations. And so on…
What about specialist skills?
There are some roles where you might need expert skills unique only to your job. You might have to do the work yourself of identifying which skills are needed, and how to obtain them, but the trick is to codify that knowledge. Write down what you are learning and which sources of training have been useful to you, so that your successor can build on that learning.
Also, the leader should act as a coach. Be curious and ask, “What do you need to do this job even better? How can I help? What have you learned?”. Help each other out, so the company learns more about what skills are needed, and how they fit with each other.
How to start
- Start with the most universal skills at a beginner level. Agree on what skills would remove the largest obstacles to autonomy, mastery and purpose in people’s lives. What are the skills that would not only raise the individual beginner’s output, but the joint effort of the team?
- What are the skills needed as people develop in their expertise, or leadership roles? Consider making two tracks following the first level: Leader or Individual Contributor
- How can you codify the more specialised skills needed for individuals? Can you train leaders to be coaches so they can support people in finding the unique requirements for specialised roles?
An example
Here is a suggestion on some skills that could be useful for a beginner (based on the inventory from FirstForty):
- Communicate clearly – pyramid principle, bottom-line up-front
- Look for improvement – writing A3s and asking better questions. How to raise improvement ideas.
- Manage up, by saying “I intend to…”.
- How and when to ask for help.
- Give and receive feedback
- Introduction to difficult conversations
- Best practices for Excel data and analysis
- Time-saving tips in everyday computer tools (Excel, Word, Powerpoint)
- Learn time- and task management, such as Getting Things Done.
- How to prepare decision-making material.
- How to lead efficient meetings.
And some beginner leadership skills (with inspiration from Elise, Marie, Torjus, Erik, Torstein, Magnus, Anne Lise, Ole Fredrik, Berit):
- How to get to know yourself – and your team
- How to reduce the barriers to pride in workmanship
- How to ask better coaching questions
- How to negotiate
- How to give difficult feedback
- How to make difficult decisions
- How to delegate/lead execution
- How to prioritise tasks
Just start simple, and give everyone the privilege of being a learner.
See also
First Forty 