From ‘continuing professional education’ to ‘continually evolving’!

Background

Organizations governing the conduct of professionals such as accountants, lawyers, doctors etc., mandate their members to keep themselves up to date with the ongoing developments in their line of work. This is enforced through a prescribed minimum number of CPE hours that the professionals have to earn every year and provide evidence for, in order to retain their membership and license to practice. One of the key aims of such a mandate is to ensure that the professional provides the ‘best-in-class’ service to his / her clients. Even if this had been a voluntary activity, I am quite sure that professionals would have definitely invested resources in continually upgrading their skill sets - at least from a self-preservation standpoint, if not an academic one.

There is, however, one crucial shortcoming in this current approach to earning CPE credits - by its very definition, the skills that do not have a direct relevance to a professional’s present line of work are usually ignored, imperiling the professional’s future.

Through this article I intend to make a case that in today’s age, a professional also needs to invest some resources in acquiring skills that prima facie have no direct relevance to his/ her current line of work.

Why learn what is presently not required?

Given below is a listing of the factors that I think play a significant role in requiring this change in our approach to upgrading our skills.

Technology

Disruptive technologies are increasingly taking over activities that are currently being performed by humans, due to a combination of better quality, scalability and / or costing factors. This displaced human labour then needs to find another occupation in order to remain gainfully employed. It would be naïve on someone’s part to believe that this replacement of humans by machines will be restricted to activities involving physical labour alone. A case in point is the evolution of applications performing ‘sentiment analyses’ to a point where they are actually being deployed to replace some legal staff while sifting through email communication in order to search for prosecutable evidence.

Convergence

Attribute it to increasing competition in the job market or to increased expectations from an employee or to anything else – there is a definite slant towards resources being required to wear multiple hats while executing their day to day responsibilities. This calls for them to be equipped with skills which hitherto would have been considered as far off from their core competencies. For example - the marketing staff of an organization that has IT as its differentiating factor or backbone of its business (think mobile apps such as Uber / Lyft etc.) would be required to know quite a bit about their solution architecture in order to sell as well as keep on improving the user experience.

Synthesizing

Acquiring what may initially seem as a completely unrelated skill, may actually help you in doing your current job better. The human mind is very good at synthesizing past and current knowledge and in coming up with a completely fresh idea or an innovative application of two different concepts. A very good example of this is the perceived influence of the calligraphy lessons that Steve Jobs took in his student days, on the Macintosh which revolutionized digital typography.

Unwinding

If nothing else, acquiring new skills (unrelated to one’s job) offer a very good way of unwinding from an otherwise arduous or monotonous routine. It renews one’s sense of purpose in excelling in their chosen vocation. It also broadens one’s horizons and helps instill discipline which is required in abundance when learning something new.

Epilogue

The time has come for a shift in thinking - from aiming to remain an expert in one field to continually evolving and adapting to the ever changing work environment! Think about it – even if we invest in learning the basics of at least 4 completely unrelated skill-sets in a year – that still adds up to a humongous number over one’s working life.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to receiving your feedback on the above!

Post Script

Inspired by the above theme, I went online and learnt how to juggle with three balls. While this is least likely to become my alternative vocation any time in the future, it has already yielded one terrific benefit – my popularity rating among the kids I interact with has shot through the roof :-)