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While doing so, I feel that they have lost considerable momentum by blindly trying to catch up with other companies, sacrificing organizational focus and learning as a whole.
Of course, many organizations are interested in what other companies are learning. However, what each company needs to learn will vary by its industry, age, employee composition, strategy, and culture. Thus, in order to become a truly profitable company, an organization must have a learning culture and know what is important for it to develop. According to Deloitte, learning-centered companies are 92 percent more innovative, 37 percent more productive, and 42 percent faster to be first-to-market.
With that in mind, how can organizations pursue a learning culture? The secret lies in employees and managers possessing a growth mindset. As the World Economic Forum concluded in 2018, more than 40 percent of core work competencies will be replaced with new skill sets in 2022. This means that the business skills that are essential today will become less useful in just a few years' time. If we do not learn something new today, we will be obliged to cede our current place to those who are doing so. I heard the same thing from a PhD who earned his degree in the US in a promising field and has been working for one of the largest companies in the world. He emphasized to me that the knowledge and skills that he learned during his PhD program became obsolete 4 or 5 years after he came back to the workplace. That is the reason that you should strive to learn new things every day. He, too, stressed life-long learning and a growth mindset.
What gets in the way of creating a learning corporate culture is an organization's current culture. We can think of two perspectives that discourage learning culture in particular. The first culprit is a risk-averse culture. Many foreign employees that I have met so far have told me that they are discouraged by the tendency that Korean corporations have of being conservative and trying to avoid what's new and uncertain, which prevents them from learning new things and becoming innovative. The second culprit is a top-down culture. Many experts from other countries stated that a culture in which employees need to do only what they are told hinders them from learning new approaches and skills, which leads them to remain doing what they have always done instead of innovating.
Leaders are important for creating a learning culture. For example, leaders need to participate in verifying what their organization in particular should learn instead of being interested in current trends and phenomena. At the same time, leaders should help their employees think about how what they learn will apply to real-life situations. 3M, Facebook, Disney and IBM are good examples of corporations that do this. In addition, leaders' ears and hearts should be open. If leaders do not try to learn about what's new, their employees will remain conservative and resistant to new things. Finally, leaders should encourage their employees to be not afraid of failure and to become risk takers. Without risk, corporations cannot create a truly innovative culture in which people can experiment with new ideas and approaches.
Leaders can also play other roles in creating a learning culture. They can work as facilitators, trainers, or mentors. It is especially helpful when they recognize those employees who are actively participating in creating a learning culture because cultures cannot grow without leaders' encouragement and approval. However, what I would like to emphasize is that leaders need to become learners first. The best way to execute leadership is to become a role model. Being a leader in creating a learning culture is no different; thus, if you become a learner first, your employees will follow suit. Learning culture and learning leaders go hand in hand.
Kim Jong-nam is the founding CEO of META (www.imeta.co.kr) and the author of three books on corporate culture and leadership. He works as a global organizational development consultant.
