I Tried Education Days, Didn’t Work
I once introduced the
concept of education days.
Every employee in the
company was entitled to a number of days per year (we started with twelve)
that they should use for
self-education. It didn’t matter whether they spent it on reading a book,
attending a conference,
experimenting with a new technology, or building a prototype
of some crazy idea. Anything was fine as long as they learned something.
It was almost the same as
vacation days. But instead of spending those days exploring
bars and beaches, we expected people to
explore techniques and technologies.
It touched upon intrinsic motivators such as mastery, curiosity, and freedom. I thought it was a
good idea.
Well, it was. But it
didn’t work.
Education, Not Vacation
The idea was worth trying
because apparently it does work in some other
organizations.
Google has their famous 20 percent time. Employees are allowed to spend 20% of their time
working
on any idea that interests
them. This not only works as a good motivator; the practice is also a generator
of many fresh ideas.
Products such as Gmail and AdSense were conceived in 20 percent time.
Unfortunately, my
organizational reality proved more stubborn.
Software developers argued
they always had more urgent things to do. They had project deadlines to
consider, customer demos to prepare, and meetings to attend. (And probably also
some games to play.)
Therefore they saw no
opportunity to make use of their education days, they said to me.
I replied that this was
strange,
because the same people had no problems making use of their vacation days.
A more logical explanation
seemed to me that they
didn’t consider their education to be as desirable
as their vacation. Education was in their eyes just another task to be
prioritized by management.
Important maybe, but not
urgent.
Important, Not Urgent
Experienced knowledge
workers know that important things and urgent things rarely overlap.
Doing what’s good for you,
and developing useful habits, takes motivation and discipline,
like flossing your teeth,
eating vegetables, and going to the gym. People need to grow into it.
(I’ve managed the first
one, but I’m still working on the other two.)
Because organizations cannot really change
people, a good alternative is to
tweak the environment
so that people change
themselves and start developing the desired habits.
One way to do this, is
with the introduction of Exploration
Days (or ShipIt days or FedEx days or Hack days or Hackathons). They are a small but significant improvement on
Education Days.
http://noop.nl/2012/12/i-tried-education-days-didnt-work.html
You can TCR software and engineering manuals for spontaneous recall – or pass that exam.
I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times
faster and remember what I’ve read.
I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.
Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:
All aspects of regular, each-word down-each-line
reading and education.
Turbo Charged Reading uses these skills
significantly faster.
www.innermindworking.blogspot.com gives
many ways for you to work with the stresses of life
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com just for fun.
To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more
things you will know.
The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”
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