QUESTION: I am not your typical student ... I have worked very hard ever since I graduated from college. I have a family (two children) and what I thought was a great job, each day taking me closer to the top. I have been willing to do everything I had to in order to get there. Then all of a sudden, I began to realize that kids straight out of college were suddenly my peers -- at my level -- without having to do all I did to get where I am. As if that were not enough, I was told I must go back to graduate school. It has been the worst experience. My grades are terrible. I read and take notes and reread and still do not get anywhere. I feel desperate.
ANSWER: More adult workers are asking for help, not because they cannot read and are called illiterate but because they are literate and have discovered that working hard is no longer a guarantee of success.
As people of all nations enter into global economic competition, U.S. companies can no longer survive by maintaining business as usual. And U.S. workers can no longer expect to work their way up the corporate ladder through mere longevity. Instead, corporations must adapt to the changing workplace by finding and nurturing employees who are capable of self-development, and employees must recognize that their future no longer lies in performing the same job for the next 30 years.
The "new" workplace needs employees who can embrace change with self-respect, who have the desire to continually improve and who can direct their own self-improvement. The only security in this "new" workplace is the insecurity of change. Employees who learn to adapt to change can ensure success not just by working hard, but by working smart.
Some people have labeled the process "lifelong learning," but I do not believe this term fully explains the evolution of adapting what we have learned to fit in the constantly changing workplace. To succeed in the work force, we must become enterprising learners, who are defined as "marked by an independent, energetic spirit and by a readiness to undertake or experiment."
What to Do
Whatever your corporate title, begin to forget it. Titles are given to people to tell them what they are in charge of. In the work force of the future, being in control will cease to be a skill that provides job security.
The second step is to begin to use a new vocabulary. Here are three thoughts to help lay the foundation as you become an "enterprising learner."
- "I am part of the transitional generation. I moved up the ladder by showing how well I can control people and processes. But I now must transition away from controlling others and enable them to control themselves. The future demands that everyone be thinking, contributing and collaborating if we are to survive and prosper."
- "As I learn, so does my company learn. An organization has no more brains than those of its workers. As I go back to school, I am not in the classroom to mimic the professor's brain but to think, learn and create with knowledge. Going back to school is an opportunity to awaken myself and to enter into enterprising learning."
- "As I begin to create new ideas, I need to help others take risks with their creative thinking. As we all invent, the company will benefit."
As members of the Transitional Generation, we must let go of the paralyzing ideas of the past as we recognize the needs of the future.
Think of the workplace as a crossroads. You may take the comfortable path by continuing the "working hard" attitude of the past, or you may take the unchartered road to a future of working smart.
Think about it.
Source: Scripps Howard. Powered by Yellowbrix.
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