Don’t Wait for Someone to Train You

15	Aug
	2013

Future of Learning

*This story is an excerpt from the forthcoming Ferrazzi Greenlight book titled The University of You: How to Become a Continuous Learner and Change the Trajectory of Your Life. To explore what The University of You has to offer, check out the framework of the book.

When I was growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1970s, my dad, who had worked for the same steel company for 25 years, got laid off without warning. His company found itself unable to compete in a business environment that was changing too fast for management to fully understand. A lack of foresight, complacency, and the failure to invest in new technologies allowed unanticipated global competition to eclipse the U.S. steel industry. Many families in our part of the country suffered from these significant, strategic miscalculations.
For years, I held onto the desire to return to Pennsylvania after learning at business school how to be a “smarter industrialist” so I could help the families in my state and play a role in rebuilding the failing economy. But more importantly, I felt for my dad. He had been going along happily under the assumption that the old, unwritten, long-term contract between employees and their workplaces still stood – and that his company would reward him for being the best worker he could be. My pop was the kind of guy who put 150% into everything he did, and I'm sure he felt that it was going to pay off for him in job security. He also believed that’s what we were supposed to do – give all that you can and do the job right.
Six months after being laid off, my dad was hired back as a “new man”– his pension gone. And he never really recovered from that setback. He retired some years later with nothing but his last paycheck to show for his long service; he relied on Social Security and odd jobs until I graduated and was able to help – not what my pop had wanted for the end of his life. We barely had enough money to bury him.
But what if dad had not left his life in the hands of managers who appreciated his hard work, but still saw him as an easily replaceable cog? Not only did they fail to coach him and inspire him to be more, they dropped him all the way back down the ladder with a "That's just the way it is, Pete" shrug. What if he had been encouraged, or just made aware, of the opportunity to learn new skills rather than simply run in place, getting nowhere, as a tow motor operator until the plant closed and there were no more pallets to move?
My dad used to hold his scraped and dirty hands out to me and say, “See this? I don’t want you to work this hard.” He would tell me how much he regretted that he didn’t learn math, which held him back in officer training school in World War II. Dad knew deep down he could have continued his education after the war, but he struggled with behaviors and barriers that held him back.
Watching the ups and downs, the exemplary work ethic and extraordinary disappointments in my dad’s career brought me to the critical, head-clearing realization that forms the core of this book: We are not going to be taken care of by our managers.
The disappearance of lifetime employment brought with it the allure of free agency and tremendous job mobility–and that meant one thing: It was critical for me to control my own career path. While my dad realized it too late and never spoke about it, I knew I was an independent agent. I understood that I needed not only to get an education, but to never stop getting my education. I needed to do my best work at every job – not just because it was the right thing to do, as my dad taught me, but because it was an investment in my future and in the future of all those I cared about. And this was true even after I started my own firm!
There was no way I would wait unknowingly for my fate to just happen or for someone – anyone – to recognize my efforts. I'd learned from my dad's mistakes.
As a kid, I watched entire towns crumble to nothing as the steel industry collapsed and the coal industry shrank, leaving behind hundreds of square miles of devastated, polluted land. During the 1980-82 recession, the mills in Steel Valley, where I lived, laid off over 180,000 people. There was almost nothing to keep people going other than unemployment insurance and blocks of free cheese from the Agriculture Department. For thousands of people, the circumstances were obvious. They realized they’d lost the skills race and needed to change. Families moved to suburbs or smaller towns. Adults got whatever re-training they could afford, secured whatever new jobs they could find, and scrapped and fought for a way to get their kids into college to learn higher-order skills.
In the 2000s, Pittsburgh revived, becoming a center of higher education, financial services and high-tech. It’s an entrepreneurial city, and a highly educated one.
But I can still take you today to towns along the Monongahela River where older people who never left – and for a variety of reasons couldn’t get the new skills and education they desperately needed – remain mired in poverty, living in broken-down homes with little hope. These individuals weren’t prepared for the learning shift. They couldn’t and didn’t “upskill” themselves. In fact, I visit some of them every holiday when I return to see my mom. This is what we all face if we fail to understand the learning imperative.

*To make The University of You as impactful as possible for organizations intent on moving to intentional, self-directed learning for their employees, we will customize the book with stories and examples drawn from the learning paths of the leaders and individuals in each organization. Contact us at info@ferrazzigreenlight.com for more information.