In the era of “just Google it,” online schools like Udemy and W3Schools, and online university degrees, you can find any tutorial on YouTube or complete an MBA online. It is hard to believe we live in a world where with only your laptop, you can obtain an MBA and learn how to sharpen a chainsaw. I believe the role of the educator has changed. An educator is no longer always working one on one with students and no longer working just to teach; they are looking now to mentor and help shape their students so they can make the right decisions. (And training will come later).
One thing that we often forget is that people used to learn one on one and that this traditional learning was considered the norm. It is proof to me that learning by osmosis works; it has for a long time, and we should not discredit it. It is probably more important than any formal training or certification where you don’t always have the opportunity to put into practice what you learn right away. Long story short: it’s nothing new (and I don’t want to take credit for it). The point is I think organizations and tech leaders should leverage this strategy in the integration of new employees to ensure they have the most structured onboarding, ongoing training, job shadowing and mentorship experiences.
Learning By Osmosis
Learning by proxy, or being exposed to someone, can naturally achieve an unconscious assimilation of ideas, knowledge and even technical skills. It’s called osmosis. The concept is not so different from animals learning from the herd or groups of teenagers all naturally dressing in the same clothing (or a non-issued uniform). Today, we often overlook or undervalue learning by osmosis in the workplace and favor visual and auditory learning, or even kinesthetic learning. Kinesthetic learning is “learning by
doing,” which includes students carrying out physical activities. Kinesthetic learners learn best when they can move around and engage their muscles.
So what is the link between osmosis and delegation? It’s very simple. Take your busiest employee and — assuming you hired smart people — physically put this superstar with one to two team members who are intelligent but possess minimum skills to complete a task or their job. I’ve seen that at the end of one day, the employees who started with few skills will have learned something new that they can likely do again independently. The idea is dependent on your employees being motivated to try, rather than sitting and watching someone work while they create no additional value.
Learning by being exposed to an expert works with any type of content and is our secret for how our interns learn and how new hires become “billable” in a shorter period of time. One year, we ran out of space at the office, and a new intern sat next to me. In a few short months, he became a strong consultant with a disproportionate amount of expertise for his position. Because we spent time together, the way I work, the knowledge I have and even the coffee I drink impacted this impressionable intern. I believe information was going to the corners of his mind and entered his knowledge base subconsciously. Just overhearing me speaking on the phone prepared him to receive more complex assignments in the near future.
Read The Art of Delegation, Part Two here.
Read the article on Forbes here.
