How to Learn from Your Colleagues to Improve Your Skills
Learning at work can help improve your skills and be an effective and productive employee. Ongoing development of your skill set is a must to keep yourself marketable and for career advancement.
You can follow one of the numerous training models out there, but learning from experienced and seasoned colleagues can offer insights that training models can’t provide.
In my project management roles, I had the privilege to learn from my many colleagues because I needed to interact and collaborate with many teams.
In most organizations I worked for, peer-to-peer learning and mentorship programs were not in place.
Nor did I ask my colleagues to coach me formally. I learned by observing, listening, and asking questions.
While working with Account Directors, I had the opportunity to watch and learn how to grow customer relationships and negotiate. Working with the legal team taught me how to write and review contracts. Working with the security and risk teams enhanced my knowledge of software security risks. Developers taught me what they do as a preventive measure to strengthen software and system security.
Not everyone can easily access diverse colleagues to learn from, but there are ways to accomplish this.
