MODERN LEADERSHIP
weakness, and is to be kept hidden
from others (especially your
parents) at all costs.
irrelevant. It’s how you make sense
of that information, and how you
act, that is important.
How and what
This linear process starts from a
broad base of subjects when we are
younger but over time progressively
narrows until most people finish
with a very specific and often
technical skill set. In addition to the
narrow specialty of this technical
skill set, the skill set has generally
been learned through the lens of
how and what: how to do what is
being learned and what that looks
like in detail.
Education is not a finite game,
especially if you’re a leader
In today’s world we often think
of education as being something
that stops once we’ve got a job.
We very much see education as
being a finite game. And that’s a
problem. Because in the new world
order, education must be seen as
an infinite game. If it is not, then
the finite game you are playing is
already over.
Very rarely is the lens of why used.
Why
But as the world evolves the
question of why will be more
important than questions of how
and what. Knowing how to do
something and what to do used
to give people a competitive
advantage, whereas in today’s
increasingly uncertain and complex
business world it is a pre-requisite.
With the ubiquity of Google and
Wikipedia, holding information is
These days, by the time you
graduate from a three- or four-year
degree at an old world university,
the stuff you have learned in the
first half of your degree will be out
of date. Likewise, the how and the
what that you learned in your MBA
might also soon be out of date.
Even if adults in the workforce are
given the chance to learn, note
that it is called adult education,
implying that education is primarily
for non-adults. (The phrase even
seems to have a stigma associated
with it, perhaps implying that if the
adult was very good at education
the first time around as a child, they
wouldn’t need to go back again.
That type of thinking is as ridiculous
as it is old and entirely outdated for
the new world.
So if you’re a leader of an
organisation in this new world of
work and you’re not learning, you’re
wasting everyone’s time.
Patrick Hollingworth consults to
organisations globally, helping them
implement the light and fast philosophy
and methodology into their organisation.
He’s an accomplished mountaineer,
having climbed multiple 8000m peaks
unguided, including Mount Everest. He
is also author of the recently released
book The Light and Fast Organisation:
A New Way of Dealing with Uncertainty.
Visit www.patrickhollingworth.com
July 2016
ModernBusiness
51