Getting ready for the future:
- Importance of Learning & un-learning
One of the most important traits, which is required in today’s world is the ‘Habit of continuous un-learning & learning’. This is very important for all IT industry workers. They are doing software projects, which mainly involves automating the work of other industry. Like, automating, inventory management, banking operations, etc.
So that naturally beg the question that these IT industries workers, should automate their own internal work also. It means, none of the software engineers, should do work, which he was doing say, six months back. He should have automated that work.
So, what next for this software engineer.
This is where un-learning & learning comes into the picture.
( (2) Current challenges
I see a big problem in our current system. In almost all our colleges, lot of emphasis is given on learning hard skills ( Math, Science, Commerce….). Though these are important, almost no coaching/mentoring happens on soft-skills.
And it’s very hard ‘To learn how to unlearn’.
I will go to the extent of saying that learning math is easy but learning, how to work in team ( where team members are getting changed ) is very difficult.
That is, you know that 2+2=4. It’s always true. But when you are working in a team, you have to adjust your working style based on other co-workers. If your team is always constant, you are lucky. But many times, it is not true.
Your team members will keep on getting changed. The methods you used in your last team, may not work. You may have to learn new skills & change your style, based on new work & based on new team members.
- Skills to focus upon
According to me, these 3 skills are most important. That is ‘Self-awareness’, ‘Learning attitude’ & ‘Pattern finding’.
Self-awareness: Do you really know, yourself?
So If I take my example, I will say that I ( Raktim) am sleeping with Raktim for last 45 years. I know, how I passed my 10th exams, how I prepared for IIT, how I behaved with various persons, incidents where I was telling the truth or hiding the facts. Yes, you get coached by your parents/teachers/mentors/managers.
But think of it. In my 45 years of life ( that is around 4,00,000 hours), together my parents/teachers/mentors/managers may have spent maximum of around 40,000 hours with me. That is, only 10% of my total life. So, I only can be the correct judge of knowing, how Raktim is. The same applies to each one of you. You only can know, things which you are good at, things which you enjoy/hate, your strong areas or areas of importance.
Once you introspect & know yourself, you can decide how you want to spend the rest of your life. Now if you want to perform some task, you know, whether you alone can do this or you want to take help from someone because you are not an expert in that area. Remember, no one is perfect. The difference between successful & unsuccessful people is that a successful person knows himself, takes up work in which he is good at and takes help in areas, where he is not good at.
Learning attitude: You need to have curiosity & the ability to learn. Let me give one example here. Say, there are two-person, John & Robert. Both want to learn music. John spends 9 hours daily practice. Robert also spends 9 hours. But he spends 6 hours practicing & the rest 3 hours taking (brutal) feedback from his mentor, doing retrospection of his work & plan for the next day. Now, as per you, who will succeed in the future? I believe, the answer is Robert. The reason is, that Robert is spending time in learning, doing retrospection of what is going right, what is going wrong & planning accordingly.
Pattern finding: You can call this connecting the dots also. Let me give one example here. There are 3 friends, say Ram, John & Sreeni. They felt hungry on Saturday Night. So they drove to search for a good restaurant. While driving, they saw that restaurant named ‘Tasty Foods’ was open. So they went there and ate.
As part of this, Ram learned that the restaurant ‘Tasty Foods’ remains open late at night. So in the future also, he can go to ‘Tasty Foods’ and eat.
John realized that ‘Tasty Foods’ was near ‘railway station’. So he concluded that shops/restaurants/hotels near ‘railway station’ normally remain open, late at night. So if he goes to another city, if needed, he can go near the railway station in that city & can get a restaurant.
Sreeni realized that the ‘railway station’ is a transportation hub. So, I go to any other transportation hub ( say ‘bus station’ or ‘airport’..), he can get a restaurant, which remains open, late in the night.
So according to me, Sreeni is good at finding patterns and he will be more successful in life.
