Which is better in today's world: being the expert or the quickest to adapt? For years we knew that answer. We sought out to be the leading expert in our field, assuring ourselves of great success. Is that still the answer? We now live in a world where change is happening at an ever-increasing speed, and while principles never changes, practices do. We still need to do the same things, but we are doing them in constantly changing ways.
Let's take a quick look at economic history to see the changing landscapes. For centuries we defined the time by which technology dominated. We have had the "Stone Age," the "Bronze Age," the "Iron Age," and more. In those times, change happened so slowly. People were born, lived and died all under the same age. Things have sped up, as you may have noticed.
Here is some local economic history from not so very long ago. In 1930 there were 30 million American farmers who were barely able to produce enough food to feed the American people. By 1980 there were only 3 million American farmers who were producing so much food that the government paid them to not farm all their land. This happened over a fifty year time frame, allowing a great deal of the farmers to get old, retire, or die off, while most of their kids had to look for work in the cities, many at factories. Also in 1980, there were 250,000 people in the Mid-West making carburetors. By 1985 virtually no one was doing so, because the technology had changed and all cars were using fuel injectors made elsewhere. Many of them went to work in Indiana and Ohio pressing vinyl records. In fact, by 1985 there were 250,000 doing so. The greatest number of vinyl records were made and sold in 1989. Bad news just one year later. Virtually none were being made in 1990 as Compact Disc technology took over, putting all those people out of work.
These jobs didn't disappear because of politics, they didn't disappear because of recessions. They disappeared because of new technology - a new technology that made them obsolete. Our times require a very different approach than before. Change happens faster and faster the more connected we are as a society; the faster information is exchanged, the faster things change. Entire industries come and go almost overnight. I recall interviewing a fellow for a job once, and I wanted to meet him at his home to get a better understanding of him. I noticed his house on Geist was for sale as was his Mercedes in his driveway. He started to complain about the economy under George H.W. Bush. It seems he was national sales manager for his tech company that tested microchips, and it was failing. He had once had 100 sales people reporting to him, but now only three. His income followed that trajectory. I asked if they were making less machines, and his answer was, “No, but where a circuit board used to have 10 microchips now they might have one, and that one self–tested." He was looking for a job with competitors and not having any luck. But he was so close to the forest, he couldn't see the trees. He was likely in the very best "buggy whip" manufacturer in his industry. His industry was gone.
What is required today is not to be the most experienced or the most knowledgeable, but to understand where and what to learn and to stay cutting edge. When I was hiring sales people for a builder, one of my favorite questions was, "How many years experience have you?" Then I would ask, "What have you learned new this year?" Most only really had one year's experience repeated by the years they had worked, but didn't continue to push themselves to learn.
Learn to learn, make it a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly practice. The day you say you know it all, or even think you do, is the day your career starts to die.
