How can we create a workforce full of lifelong learners?

https://qz.com/work/1786842/infosys-president-ravi-kumar-on-how-to-develop-a-workforce-of-lifelong-learners/

by sarapeyton • 7 years ago

48 28 7 years ago

"If you pay a man a salary for doing research, he and you will want to have something to point to at the end of the year to show that the money has not been wasted. In promising work of the highest class, however, results do no come in this regular fashion, in fact years may pass without any tangible result being obtained, and the position of the paid worker would be very embarrassing and he would naturally take to work on a lower, or at any rate a different plane where he could be sure of getting year by year tangible results which would justify his salary.

The position is this: You want one kind of research, but, if you pay a man to do it, it will drive him to research of a different kind. The only thing to do is to pay him for doing something else and give him enough leisure to do research for the love of it. "

J.J. Thompson, about 1915

alexpetralia• 7 years ago

This is very astute, thanks for sharing. It really illuminates the value of leisurely tinkering and playful discovery, free from the pressure of well-defined objectives.

commandlinefan4• 7 years ago

year by year tangible results

Wow, he didn’t foresee the 21st century - the “agile consultants” who are running these circuses demand day-by-day tangible results (and then can’t fathom why nothing significant is getting done).

ebiester• 7 years ago

This article asks the question, then seemingly goes on three different tangents unrelated to lifelong learning.

Further, implicit in this discussion is that the worker will continue to learn in the employer's interest without being paid. I can be a lifelong learner of music composition, but I don't think my employer cares about that. They're looking for my lifelong pursuit to increased productivity for their benefit.

(Ironically, that increased productivity makes a lot more sense if I am not selling my labor but rather am building capital for myself.)

That said, employers can encourage lifelong learning by paying for it in wages and time allotted during the workday.

commandlinefan4• 7 years ago

Clearly the best way to create lifelong learners is to cram them elbow-to-elbow in noisy open offices so that they have to listen to one another’s conference calls all day long or try in vain to drown them out with loud music so that they can only dedicate a fraction of their concentration on a task at one time. You should also demand that people with advanced degrees from research institutions who’ve spent years perfecting their research skills clear a set number of Jira tickets every week and penalize them financially for missing their targets. And, of course, it goes without saying, don’t encourage reading or experimentation or learning or any sort of self-improvement.

MarkMMullin• 7 years ago

If this was reddit, I'd award gold for that comment. Only thing I can add is that one should only value paid experience, i.e. the person working a day job doing a banking app and a personal job of adding high quality code to a complex OSS project, well hell, they only know a banking app

commandlinefan4• 7 years ago

And his banking app was written in Java, so he's clearly unable to learn Scala or Groovy.

nathias• 7 years ago

one thing is required above all for continuous learning; leisure time

Iwan-Zotow• 7 years ago

Add Adderoll to drinking water

rectang• 7 years ago

Distinguish yourself from the competition by adopting a four-day workweek.

esotericn• 7 years ago

There are plenty of lifelong learners out there.

The workforce isn't 'full' of them because the workforce isn't 'full' of people who have something that can be called a career.

Being able to self-actualize to some degree is a fantastically powerful ability, everything else stems from there.

You don't need to, and shouldn't, wait for a manager to tell you that. Plenty of companies rely on the fact that their employees have weak hands; it's not in their interests to help you.

generalpass4• 7 years ago

Abolish public schools.

Nothing crushes the desire to learn faster and more effectively than public schools.

sosodev4• 7 years ago

That’s a really bold statement. Are you advocating that people only learn if they desire to? That sounds like a huge step back for society in my opinion

generalpass4• 7 years ago

That’s a really bold statement. Are you advocating that people only learn if they desire to? That sounds like a huge step back for society in my opinion

Are you suggesting people have never learned anything without going to public schools?

I'm not talking about something distant from my personal experience: I spent 13 years in public schools and it was a hugely counterproductive experience.

commandlinefan4• 7 years ago

people only learn if they desire to

Not OP, but I think the answer to your question is yes (but I also don't think banning public schools is a good idea either). I remember hating school when I was in it, but in spite of my best efforts to resist knowledge, some of it stuck around in my brain anyway. Later, when I found myself motivated and wanting to learn, the techniques I got from my education about _how to learn_ were still there, waiting to be unlocked. You can’t make a man learn any more than you can make a horse drink, but you can leave the tools laying around for when he needs them.

tonyedgecombe• 7 years ago

Abolish private schools.

You can be sure that the people in power will make sure public schools are properly funded.

PhaedrusV• 7 years ago

We're already spending more per student on public school than private school, on average. When you factor in low-cost high-benefit options like homeschooling, the amount we're already spending on shit outcomes for public school looks even more ridiculous.

Costs: https://www.gobankingrates.com/saving-money/education/privat...

Homeschooling performance: https://www.topmastersineducation.com/homeschooled/

selfishgene3• 7 years ago

Very simple: eliminate exclusionary zoning bylaws in the most overpriced real estate markets.

"The rent is too damn high."

3-day work weeks will quickly follow.

toomuchtodo3• 7 years ago

3 day work weeks will arrive only when mandated by law. We’re long overdue in that regard [1].

Fixing housing through mandating remote work also would go a long way, so you’re not held hostage to a job through geographic requirements. Kudos to remote first/remote only Orgs contributing in this regard. We can always use more flexible/remote roles ("mostly" remote, flexible enough to still have reasonable amounts of face to face time with colleagues or others in the industry).

[1] https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/15558/producti...

selfishgene3• 7 years ago

On a practical level how would you prevent people from seeking a second job in order to pay their inflated rent?

Fixing the housing supply problem appears to be critical here. Without increasing supply, folks might find ways to work around the "mandate" out of sheer necessity.

Also I think the OP should broaden the question to read "lifelong contributors." The learning is a very important component of this, but broadly construed, that learning should include the practical experience gained from contributing to all sorts endeavors that produce social value. One of the critical problems with today's workforce is that so much of the work revolves around what social anthropologist David Graeber calls "Bullshit Jobs."

There's often very little to learn in these environments except how to play office politics more astutely ... the next time around.

How can we create a workforce full of lifelong learners?

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