From Geek to Star #30 - Learning journeys: waste of time or compounding effects?

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🗓️ This Week – Episode 30: how learning journeys can develop your SHINE 

I recently spent 5 days, week-end included, in Shenzhen (China) and Hong Kong, part of a group of 25 people in a learning journey organised by Singapore Hotel Association around innovation, robotics and sustainability. 

It is actually the first time I participated in such a learning journey: it takes both on your personal and professional time, in the meantime your backlog piles up, and when I was working in corporate environments, I believe I restricted myself, even when being in C-level positions: being on the tech side, I censored myself thinking the cost of a learning journey may not justified. This time I decided to go for it - having just recently opened my own venture, I was my own boss to make the call 🙂. It did cost me my personal money but it turned out to be not a cost, but a good investment. 

If I could turn back time to when I was still in corporate environment, I would not hesitate to push actively to be part of such learning journey, and I am going to explain you why in this newsletter. 

To give you more context, here is how this learning journey unfolded:

• Group: in addition to the Singapore Hotel Association (SHA) staff, you had board members of SHA, staff from Singapore Tourism Board, Hotel General Managers, Hotel managers.. So not very tech people as you can see. 

• In Shenzhen, we visited the China high tech fair, Huawei headquarter, a startup in Robotics (my takeaways here) and in Hong Kong we visited 3 different hotels showcasing diverse initiatives around sustainability and inclusivity (my takeaways here). 

🛣️ Learning journeys: it's more than just learning

A learning journey obviously allows you to open your eyes on environments you are not familiar with. As a matter of fact, it is as much about the site visits you are doing and the explanations given there than observing all the environment you are not used to. For example, I have not been much to China so far, and even though I’ve been hearing / reading on how China is moving fast, I was really taken aback by what I saw in Shenzhen. You see, Shenzhen is known to be the industrial region in China just opposite Hong Kong so I was expecting a rather dull large scale industrial city. It was very different from what I thought, Shenzhen turns out to be a modern city, with much newer infrastructure than many Western cities in the world.

Another aspect I did not expect which turned out to be a great surprise: the connection with people in the group during commute time. We had frequent commute times by bus from one place to the other, which could be between 30 minutes to 1 hour a few times a day. Every time I had the opportunity to mingle with a different person, and ended up having great conversations giving more insights on the people and the industry - creating better relationships not only for the trip but also for the future. 

It was not the intent of my participation to the journey, but looking back at it, it has a positive impact to my SHINE: developing my Soft skills through day to day casual conversations, my Industry knowledge through the site visits as well as through the discussions with my peers in the group,  my Network with more time spent with people in the group, and my Experience by witnessing first hand what is happening elsewhere.  

🛣️ Learning journeys: getting into action

A foreword: not all learning journeys may be of the same quality obviously, so you need to do your homework to see if it's worth it. But overall, if you are a senior tech leader (typically VP level or above), do look at relevant learning journeys in your industry and in your region (ask your business peers) and ask to participate to one: present this as an opportunity to better know your industry, the business and therefore have more impact in your job on seeing how technology can better drive the business. It will actually show that you are not just a tech leader just able to look at tech topics but actually a leader who can consider things in a more holistic way.

If you are not a senior tech leader, but more of an individual contributor, this may be a bit more tricky to get approval for such trips - except if you are also at a high ladder. In this case, you can still look at industry conferences happening in your region. This may not be a full learning journey but still valuable.  

An advice when you come back from your learning journey or from your industry conference: send a short note to the people you connected well with, and also share your takeaways (short note to your colleagues, post on Linkedin…): doing this intentionally is also a way for you to reflect on what you learned and reinforce it. 

🙏 I’d Love to Hear From You

What industry are you in and which industry learning journey or conference would you recommend?

Reply to this email, I read every note.

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✨ May the SHINE be with you!

From Geek to Star by Khang | The Way Forward