Want to be Successful? Never stop learning!
Knowledge is power.
We’ve all heard that old chestnut, but successful business owners embrace it. They understand that learning may not seem “urgent,” but without it they cannot keep their company in the forefront of their industry and ahead of their competitors.
I learned a winning formula for learning that promotes success from the ‘Super Owners’ I studied to write The Success Code: learn, apply, measure, and adjust. If you can implement this formula, you will begin to see the results of continuous learning.
But excuses for not learning are abundant: lack of time, lack of resources, and lack of motivation are a few. But there’s a big reason you should overcome all those excuses and keep advancing your knowledge and skills: lack of business.
What are the risks of a non-learning culture?
Ignoring or railing against advancements can’t stop change. Companies whose staff suffers from “we’ve always done it this way” attitudes stagnate. More flexible organizations take advantage of industry trends and new technology, leaving those resistant to change with an ever-shrinking share of the market.
Let’s assess the potential damage:
- Missing the big customer shifts: when your business loses touch with your customers and what they need, competitors can come in and steal them away
- Stale products, sour customers: without continuous learning, it’s hard to come up with new ideas and without new ideas, your products become stale
- Marketing suffers: tired tactics won’t bring in the same volume of leads as up-to-date tactics and your business suffers as a result
- Employee attrition: Another danger of not learning? Employees who aren’t advancing their knowledge and growing their skills become bored and leave to find new challenges
And that’s just a start – being unaware or unwilling to try new ideas impacts every part of your business.
How to nip excuses in the bud and ensure you’re learning
Training and development for yourself and your staff is the single most important growth strategy that a business can have in this competitive and fast-changing world.
Here’s what you can do to ensure you keep learning:
Find the time
The trick isn’t having more time; it’s making more time. It’s doing a better job of organizing the time you have. It’s eliminating the things that suck time out of your day – like meetings, email, and television. Delegate responsibilities so that others in our organization have the chance to grow, and you have time to learn something new.
Find free and low-cost resources
From quick YouTube videos to intense graduate school-level courses, the Internet is serving up new ways to learn almost anything. Here are a few places to look: coursera.com, khanacademy.com, TED.com, alison.com, edx.org, and ocw.mit.edu.
Chambers of Commerce, public libraries, economic development organizations, and business networks can also offer a wealth of resources for business owners.
Don’t go it alone! Coaching and mentors can help
As business owners, we can feel like lone wolves, battling enemies and the elements on our own. Having an advocate in your corner can give you a competitive advantage and inject renewed energy into the business, intellectually and emotionally. That’s why business coaches and mentors are often the secret weapons of the most successful business owners.
Spread the learning
It’s equally important to keep your staff learning continuously and sharing that information. To achieve the full benefits of learning among your team, find the people in your organization who love to learn and make them your teachers.
Make it easy and fun
The goal is to disseminate new information as easily as possible in a way that employees will actually use. Finding methods that work for your company will encourage all staffers to take advantage of the information. Don’t be afraid to try different tools and approaches, and when you find something that works, stick with it.
Also, learning doesn’t have to be a chore; it can be more like play. The secret to making learning stick is to find ways to make it enjoyable within your culture.
Bottom Line
Super Owners practice continuous learning to keep their company in the forefront of their industry and ahead of their competitors. Advancing business and industry skills is not only critical to success, but it’s also very motivating and something everyone can use when times are tougher.
The important steps are to find ways to enjoy learning, encourage company participation, and follow through consistently. And don’t forget the formula: learn, apply, measure, and adjust.
Happy learning!
