“Learning is not compulsory … neither is survival.”

W. Edwards Demming, author

How did you like school – or, more precisely, the studying, homework, exams?

One friend from my school days struggled to learn foreign languages. School policy was that everyone was to take exams in at least two languages, but Martin dropped them as quickly as he could. The moment he finished the exams, he invited his friends out to celebrate that he would never have to pick up a French dictionary or Latin textbook again. Hurrah!

But another of my mates, Ian, couldn’t get enough of languages. He took French, Spanish, German and Latin. The school only allowed us to take a maximum of four languages, but he studied ancient Greek and Russian in his own time – and decided to take exams in them too! Unsurprisingly, he went on to study languages at university and completed a doctorate in linguistics.

For Martin, studying languages was something he had to do to get through school. Like having wisdom teeth extracted, it was painful but necessary. For Ian, languages weren’t a chore. They weren’t something he studied simply to pass exams; they represented his passion. He loved to learn.

Martin and Ian represent the two ends of the Knowledge Questing spectrum. Knowledge Questing is a measure of people’s love of learning for its own sake. Some people (like Martin) shy away from courses and formal education. They’d much rather focus on the work they have to do than waste time studying. Others (like Ian) get fired up and excited by reading, going on courses and accumulating qualifications – they can’t get enough of learning. Where do you sit on the Knowledge Questing spectrum?

What kind of person are you?

Knowledge Questing is fundamentally about people’s love of (or aversion to) formal learning and education. Some people are drawn to books, courses, even exams, while others shy away from them.

High-Knowledge Questing people are book-smart and succeed by pursuing traditional forms of education. Low-Knowledge Questing people prefer to learn by doing. Neither is inherently better. Bear in mind that some incredibly successful people dropped out of school or university (including Academy award-winning director Stephen Spielberg, editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, Anna Wintour, and founder of Virgin, Richard Branson).

Whether you scored low or high on Knowledge Questing, remember that people succeed in work and life from both ends of the spectrum. Success and fulfilment come from recognising your unique strengths and finding situations that fit you well.

The Low-Knowledge Questing person: you’d rather do it than read about it

You’re a busy person with lots to do. You can be forgiven for preferring to get on with the stuff you need to do – the work at hand – than go on a course or pick up a book to read about some theory. Sure, in an ideal world you’d have enough free time to study and go on courses. But you feel that you simply have too much to do in your day-to-day job and life.

If you’re faced with a problem, you ask someone for help, you don’t pick up a book about it. You learn by talking it over with someone you know or observing someone in the real world, not by attending a seminar or training programme. Acquire a new computer, mobile, washing machine or any piece of technology and you want to give it a go, not wade through the manual or handbook.

On those rare occasions you do get sent on a course, you want the trainer to get to the point! You probably hate the theory and want to know how you can use it in your day-to-day work. And while you’re there, do you spend a fair chunk of the time thinking about how you’d much rather be at your desk, doing your job?

You probably realise that you’re not a fan of training and formal education. Perhaps the pattern was set in your school days. You hated the rote learning, the coursework and exams of your formative years. It’s hardly surprising, then, that you see formal education as something to be endured rather than enjoyed.

The High-Knowledge Questing person: learn, learn, learn!

You love to learn. You look at the world around you and want to know more about everything. You probably have a dozen books and articles on the go at the same time. Perhaps you have a list of courses or qualifications you’d like to pursue too.

People like you enjoy studying and do well at exams. So perhaps you’re in a profession such as law, medicine or accountancy. If not, you probably find ways to read up outside of your work.

Whatever your walk of life, you read voraciously about new developments and get filled with excitement about them – you want to try them out. You’re often one of the first to become a fan and advocate of new books, ideas, techniques, films and maybe even gadgets. In tech terms, you’re what’s known as an early adopter, the kind of person who passionately embraces new tools and evangelises about them to others. Perhaps not in every field of life or every kind of technology, but you probably delight in being at the forefront in at least certain areas. As a result, you may have developed a bit of a reputation as the expert on those topics.

No one ever has to force you to attend a seminar or go on a training workshop. You value education and see it as a vital part of your development, of keeping up to date in your field or profession. Your only wish would be that you had more time and money to go on even more courses!

Make the most of yourself – for Low-Knowledge Questing people

I can fully understand if you don’t enjoy classrooms and going on courses. If you feel that picking up a book or business magazine is the last thing you want to do after a long day at work, that’s perfectly natural.

But here’s the bad news: it’s a competitive, fast-moving world out there – and it’s only getting faster.

Maybe 20 or even 10 years ago we could rely on taking a job with one employer and gradually climbing the career ladder. On having more or less the same skill set and waiting for our bosses to tell us what skills we needed to get to the next rung. But that’s not the way of the world any more.

Keep an eye on the future

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

Charles Darwin, naturalist

The twin forces of technology and globalisation mean that jobs are changing. Some 20 years ago we didn’t have iPods or DVDs, stem cells or keyhole surgery or even laptop computers and the Internet. There weren’t jobs with titles such as ‘web designer’ or ‘call centre manager’, ‘life coach’ or even ‘pole dancer’! The boardroom didn’t have chief technology officers, heads of human capital management, chief information officers. Another ten years from now, we’ll have another slew of completely new jobs.

Think about your job, your organisation. Research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that most organisations undergo major change at least once every three years. Your organisation has probably restructured or downsized a handful of times in the last few years. Departments get closed and new ones started up. Everyone’s duties and work are thrown up in the air. Perhaps new people are taken on, while people who don’t cut it get fired.

Change is happening – and it’s happening fast. Want to know more? Have a look at some of the following resources by top business strategists and future-focused writers:

• The Future of Management by Gary Hamel (Harvard Business School Press, 2007)
• A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink (Marshall Cavendish, 2008)
• the annual ‘Breakthrough Ideas’ issue of Harvard Business Review (available online at: http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org)
• Fast Company magazine (available online at: www.fastcompany.com).

Over the years, I’ve worked with many successful executives and leaders in their fields. And I can tell you that savvy people keep an eye on the future, on shifts and approaching upheavals in the world. They spot a trend and decide to investigate further. They realise that everyone else is getting excited about the environment, the economy, advances in biotechnology, software, hardware or whatever. Then they take steps to learn more. Because knowing the future will be different isn’t enough – you have to understand it and get yourself there too.

Don’t just take my word for it. Jenny Ungless is an executive search consultant at Ellwood & Atfield. She’s hired by major corporations and government organisations to scout out high achievers with outstanding track records. She said:

In my experience, people who are at the top of their game are better informed. They have interests in politics, technology, history, sport, the world at large and not only their own branch of industry. High performers don’t just deal with the urgent day-to-day stuff that clamours for their attention, such as clearing their inboxes. They set time aside to invest in reading and speaking to a wide range of people, which ultimately pays off massively.

I saw on the Discovery channel that sharks need to keep swimming 24 hours a day, moving forwards all of the time to keep fresh water passing over their gills. They never stop. Fish, on the other hand, are quite content to sit still, switch off for a while and doze off. In the struggle for survival, who would you bet on? The shark or the fish? If you don’t keep moving, you’ll be chewed up, spat out and left behind.

So don’t be so guilty of working in your job – doing the day-to-day tasks that your job requires of you – that you neglect to work on your job. If you don’t work on your long-term prospects, who else is going to?

Look ahead

A friend of mine, Susannah, was recently made redundant. She was a hard worker and good at her job, but profitability had been sliding for a couple of years within the division where she worked. Even a series of new division heads had failed to turn its fortunes around. Ultimately, the organisation’s overlords closed down the entire division, firing the 40 or so employees so they could focus on the rest of the business.

Could Susannah have prevented it? Probably not. But should she have seen it coming and prepared a way to jump before she was pushed? Absolutely.

The lesson? Avoid focusing so intently on the here and now, what’s right under your nose, that you miss what’s coming up. We all get so inundated by our work. We get our heads down to tackle the huge pile of work and can lose sight of the bigger picture. So unlike Susannah, make sure that you lift your head occasionally and look out for new trends tools, techniques, tactics, advances and ways of working to keep ahead of the pack.

Crafting your personal PESTLE isn’t a precise science. At first, the results may seem obvious – you kind of knew what would come out of it all along. Problem is, that stuff is only ever ‘obvious’ after it’s been pointed out. We miss so-called ‘obvious’ events all the time because we’re too busy focusing on the tasks and hassles of our daily lives.

I’ll give you an example. James Deakin runs a ten-strong plumbing business and does an annual PESTLE. Several years ago, when the European Union expanded to include Poland, he realised that Polish plumbers would soon arrive who would be willing to undercut him on price. So he had the foresight to visit Poland to recruit a handful of the most skilled plumbers.

In last year’s PESTLE, he spotted that many Polish tradespeople have been going home. So he took on a couple of young local apprentices. Initially, the apprentices cost him more than they earned, plus they sucked up his time. But now he tells me that there’s a dearth of good plumbers around and he’s nicely positioned, with his nearly qualified team of young plumbers, to grow the business and make a tidy sum.

Doing a personal PESTLE involves thinking strategically about your own life. No one is saying that you have to dream up a grand strategy for your organisation or industry. Unless you’re the boss of the organisation, leave that to someone else. This is just about investing a couple of hours of your time, once a year, to look ahead and make sure you don’t get left behind. Can you do that?

Seek a mentor

I play tennis. I started playing regularly a couple of years ago, but I quickly noticed that I wasn’t very good. I kept losing. A lot. I’d never had lessons when I was a kid. Other players rolled their eyes when it was their turn to take me on as their doubles partner. Never mind, eh?

Well, no, actually. I did mind. I wanted to improve. So I asked one of the better players there, Keith, to teach me a bit. Over several months we met up a handful of times. I booked a court and he graciously gave me his time and his wisdom. And it made all the difference. I learned exactly how high to toss the ball in the air and when to hit it as it came down. I learned to move my feet in one way for a forehand but another way for a backhand. A few hours of advice made more difference to my game than the many dozens of hours I’d been playing.

If you want to get better at anything, see if you can find someone to counsel you. Whether it’s a sport, a technical discipline or a work-related skill, find someone who can point out where you’re going wrong and how you could be better. While High-Knowledge Questing people are often happiest attending courses or picking up books, Low-Knowledge Questing individuals often learn best from other people.

A mentor may be older and more experienced than you. Sometimes not. Sure, I have a doctorate in psychology. But I’ve learned loads about one new field in psychology from a younger psychologist studying for a specialist diploma who has not only the knowledge but also the enthusiasm to bring me up to speed. I once had a mentor from within the same organisation who had only 18 months more time in the job than me. She had more experience, but could still remember what it felt like to be the newcomer.

A mentor can pass on job or life skills or help you to navigate the choppy waters and politics at work. They can tell you about gaffes others have made and what it takes to make things happen, who to ask for help and who to avoid. They can even tell you about gaps in your CV that could hinder your unbridled ascent.

Now, you might be wondering, ‘Why on earth would a busy, successful person agree to help and advise you?’ Well, let me flip the question around. Imagine someone at work says to you, ‘I’ve been reading some of your reports and think they’re sensational. Wonderfully well written and interesting. Could I please buy you lunch and ask you how you’ve become such a great writer?’ Would you send that colleague away or be flattered and try to explain what you do?

You can learn from a mentor and it won’t even feel like work. Trust me when I tell you that you need one. The only thing is, don’t expect a mentor to come knocking on your door. You have to take responsibility for finding one. Are you ready to find a mentor?

A survey by management consultants McKinsey & Company in 2008 found that 34 per cent of executives reported having been influenced by a mentor in their careers. To me, that says that two-thirds of executives are making life really tough for themselves. So the choice is yours. Do you want to make it easy or really difficult for yourself? Stupid question, right? Go get yourself a mentor.

Make the most of yourself – for High-Knowledge Questing people

I’m coaching Laurie, who scored very high on Knowledge Questing. She has qualifications in psychology, hypnotherapy, neuro-linguistic programming, counselling and thought field therapy. A prodigious reader, she consumes two or three books a week and is currently studying for a master’s degree in yet another branch of psychology. When I introduced her to the discipline of psychometric testing, her immediate impulse was to become qualified in that too. Oh, and she does all this while running her own business to boot.

Her approach has its advantages – she definitely knows more about recent advances in psychology than I do. However, all of that learning and her unquenching thirst for knowledge means that she lacks focus. She skips from one topic to the next; she never quite beds one down before getting lured by the next. Her biggest challenge – and I keep reminding her of it – is to turn her academic knowledge and qualifications into useful products with which she can build her business. Knowledge without application is wasted.

You are someone who finds pleasure in learning, reading about new areas and perhaps even accumulating qualifications. You absorb knowledge quickly and, quite frankly, you almost certainly know more than the people around you. But what do you do with all that knowledge?

Beware the curse of knowledge

Our household gained a new, furry-faced family member over the summer – a gregarious schnauzer puppy. We decided to call him Byron. Before his arrival, I read up on the breed. I bought books and read them with a highlighter pen. I joined online forums to ask questions of other schnauzer owners. I made a schedule for his meals, when to take him out to do his business in the garden, when to get his vaccinations, when to begin his puppy classes. I read that puppies have to be exposed to other dogs and new situations before they’re too old (16 weeks of age, to be precise) to ensure they grow up into well-adjusted dogs. I even took time off work to train him in those early vital weeks.

The good news is that he’s become a remarkably gregarious, outgoing dog. Full of life, fun-loving, yet obedient. I take pride in the fact that we brought him up so well.

The downside is that, boy, am I now a know-it-all when it comes to dogs. Probably unbearably so. When friends mention in passing that they’re thinking of getting a dog, I bombard them with information on house training, vaccinations, breed selection, the quality of different puppy foods, vet fees, training practices. The list goes on.

I can’t help it – or at least I couldn’t to start with. I wanted to help, to make sure they made the right decisions. But then I learned to bite my tongue, to shut up. I realised that I was coming across as bossy, big-headed and a know-it-all!

Being too well read or well informed is the curse of knowledge. Like most High-Knowledge Questing people, you frequently do know more. You yearn to steer others in their thinking, tell them where they’re going wrong, help them to avoid pitfalls that you can see so clearly. A walking thesaurus-cum-encyclopaedia, you have an opinion and you’re usually right. However, the truth of the matter, is that most people rarely appreciate advice. Most people would prefer to go on in blissful ignorance than have someone point out their mistakes.

I know that sounds strange to you, but then you’re not like most people. You scored high for Knowledge Questing – you want to seek out more information and knowledge. Most of the people around you are either low or average on Knowledge Questing.

Ever heard of the saying, ‘Don’t shoot the messenger’? Well, the messenger frequently does get shot. If you’re the one pointing out to people that they’re making a bad decision, you’ll get both barrels emptied into your chest. Maybe not directly. They may tell you that they are grateful you pointed out the issue so they can fix it. But secretly, they may resent you, believe you’re interfering and think you should mind your own business.

I know that sounds harsh, but unsolicited advice is rarely welcome.

Leave the learning behind

Don’t expend too much of your energy on staying up to date in your field and working to improve your technical brilliance. The higher up the career ladder you climb, the less your technical expertise matters. I work with a leading law firm and the partners willingly admit that they know less about the law than the younger lawyers who work for them. As they move from being junior associates to senior partners, they say that the work changes from being one of deciphering technical legalese to managing client relationships and leading the team.

Rodney Marsh, who heads an educational think-tank, puts it this way:

I know this makes me sound like a loser, but my ideal Monday morning would be reading White Papers and journal articles. But when I’ve got 40-plus people looking to me for guidance, I know that’s not the smartest use of my time.

That’s probably true in most professions. Move into management – whether you’re managing a team of engineers or nurses, salespeople or computer programmers – and your greatest challenges are increasingly to do with other people. Your job as a manager and leader is to supervise, delegate, coach and manage relationships, to develop your team and liaise with the outside world. Leave the technical stuff to the team.

While reading more and going on courses are worthy goals, consider how else you could more profitably invest your time. You only have 24 hours in the day. An hour poring over a technical manual is one less hour you have in the day. Think about putting your time to best use. Rather than wading through a technical or business journal for an hour, could you spend it strengthening relationships and finding out about customer needs? Or having coffee with a colleague and figuring out how to work together more effectively?

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS

Learning and bettering yourself is a good thing – in moderation. Low-Knowledge Questing individuals could do a little more, but High-Knowledge Questing people could do a little less.

Here’s a reminder of how Low- and High-Knowledge Questing people broadly differ.

Low-Knowledge Questing	High-Knowledge Questing
Shy away from courses and classrooms.	Put themselves forward for courses.
Avoid exams and qualifications.	Enjoy exams and gaining qualifications.
See studying as a chore.	See studying as a pleasure.
Prefer to learn by doing and observing others.	Prefer to learn through traditional forms of education.
May focus too much on today’s demands.	May focus too much on the far-flung future.
Need to read and learn more.	Need to do more hands-on activities.

If you scored lower on Knowledge Questing:

• Recognise that our rapidly changing world throws up both threats and opportunities. The skills and knowledge you need tomorrow may not be the same as the ones you have today.
• Look for ways to learn in short bursts rather than go on long courses. Definitely steer clear of professions that expect you to study for exams!
• Analyse the world around you by considering the PESTLE trends and changes that could affect your life and ability to earn a living. What are the gaps in your CV and how might you go about filling them?
• Find someone you respect to mentor you. Keep asking until you find someone (or more than one person) who can guide you, help you with some of the bigger decisions and point you in the right direction.

If you scored higher on Knowledge Questing:

• For long-term success and fulfilment, seek out situations that allow – or even insist on – continuous learning and development. Avoid jobs that expect you simply to repeat the same way of doing things day in, day out.
• Bear in mind that no one likes a know-it-all. Yes, you are probably right more often than not, but people resent being told that they’re wrong or not as clued up as they thought they were.
• Be aware that telling people the answer means they lose the opportunity to develop their problem-solving skills and knowledge. Learn to hold back your advice so that others can learn and grow.
• Consider the opportunity cost of books and articles, courses and seminars. Classroom and book learning are essential in the early stages of a career, but should increasingly give way to hands-on involvement with customers and colleagues as you progress upwards.