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“Well, you have your degree. Now you’re going to get an education.” One of my professors said that to me the night I graduated. She was correct.
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A few weeks later I had moved with my new bride (who is now my not-so-new bride but exciting nonetheless) to Northern Arizona for our first post-college, degree-enabled job. Four years of formal education delivered by some of academia’s finest minds would lead one to think that graduates of the program would be equipped for very good work.
Our first morning there, I stepped outside, looked up into the clear Arizona sky, and said right out loud, “I have no idea what I am supposed to do.”
I figured it out eventually.
Fast-forward now several decades to a Harvard commencement program. My son completed a master’s degree, and we were there to witness and bask in his accomplishment. The commencement speaker, a Harvard grad, began to speak, and what he had to say remarkably paralleled my own story. Years invested in higher education, launching into career post-graduation with no idea of what to do, eventually figuring things out and making a successful life along the way. We both got the bulk of our education after receiving degrees.
You are wondering, what’s my point?
Employers emphasize education and experience for good reason. Education alone seldom prepares you for work and life in the real world. It does expand knowledge. It does provide information, both general and specific. But it does not, it cannot, map out the thousands of nuances and insights that come from living life and interacting with its many opportunities and curve balls; nor can it provide the street smarts that come from working in your field.
There was a young executive who asked his mentor, “How did you become a success?”
“Good decisions,” replied the mentor.
“But how can I learn to make good decisions?”
“Simple. That comes with experience.”
“How do I get experience?”
“Simple. Bad decisions.”
No doubt most parents have been subjected to a friend or relative who informs them about how to raise their children. But her words don’t resonate for one glaring omission. She never had children.
A friend once told me, with a completely straight face, that he was the best husband to his wife that he had ever known. When I asked how he knew that, he remarked that he attended a marriage seminar, and what he learned there assured him he was.
What he learned was probably true, accurate, and worthwhile. But education’s power to transform is limited until it encounters the catalyst of real life. Why? Because life is full of “Aha” moments, those instances when what you were taught and what you’ve become aware of collide to produce truth and reality. Education is great at filling the head with information, but frankly, it is of limited appeal (and therefore limited use) to practical leaders until it has been tempered in battle and shaped by the exigencies of life.
This article is more than an exercise in examination and opinion. There is a point.
When I was interviewing potential associates for business, I asked if they had ever owned a business. Most had not. One person told me he had been in business. When I asked the nature of the business, he said he had a small shop in an outbuilding behind his house where he made custom molding for the occasional special order received at the company he worked for every day. Technically, he was a business owner, but it was not a business that could, by any stretch of the imagination, be equated with a stand-alone business that finds customers, fills orders, maintains a payroll, makes lease payments, and handles the dozens of other business responsibilities. His was a “business” for tax purposes only and met the criteria for tax reporting that allowed certain deductions.
One employee who left my employ (I fired him for unsafe shop practices) and started out on his own told me later he had no idea what a challenge cash flow was, that he was used to getting paid regardless, but as an owner he got paid last, if at all. Well, duh.
So here’s my point. Neither of those guys had the complete package. One had experience in the field but completely lacked both business knowledge and experience. The other had some limited knowledge but had never embarked on the unknown sea of commerce; his was a boat in a bathtub, but he fancied himself a blue water sailor. (The last I knew, this fellow was marketing himself as a business consultant.)
When I was in college I noticed that a large number of alumni had gravitated back to the school to teach. Then I checked into other institutions of higher learning and found the trend was the same. I asked my professor (the one who predicted when I would get an education) why this is so. She said, “Because those who can, do. But those who can’t come back here and teach you how to do what they could not.”
There are many consultants who offer their services to help you solve a problem, build a business, or make a life. No doubt they have good things to say, and their advice might be worth their fee. But before you hire a consultant, ask what he has achieved in his field. Beware the naked man who wants to give you fashion advice.
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Comments
Higher "teaching" ...
... more than "learning". To the extent Economy is customer to Education - and vice-versa - it seems they don't speak the same language, they don't effectively communicate. True, Education's rules may be more technically or ethycally oriented than Economy's - but they have to balance, to be effective. The more complex Technology grows, the larger the gap between Schooling and Economy becomes. It's really sad to realize that Education, always thought as of a lighthouse, sails in darkness. Thank you.
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