Love of Learning Gets Poor Grades When It Comes to Work

America was never an nation with an intellectual bent. Even Harvard, which the Puritans established in 1636, had a utilitarian purpose: to train ministers.

Now in this era of cost-efficiency, technological upheaval, stepped-up competition and uncertainity as standard anything less than a total focus on results - not theory and pondering - could push you into the loser box. That's despite the pile-on elite academic degrees and even stints at prestigious management consulting firms.

On Reddit Consulting there is the observation:

"Lots of people ... just enjoy the learning part, and end up with a resume full of degrees but just can't actually get into the work. Don't be that person. They have a lot of debt and are annoying to work with ..." 

That is, love of learning in itself can be a downright turnoff in the real world of work. Neither superiors nor colleagues want you to gush how you love learning about generative AI. Instead they want to bear witness to how you are applying it for making the team look good.

The antipathy toward learning for the sake of learning is not new. 

After the market for university professors in the humanities collapsed in the early 1970s, we Ph.D. students in that discipline had to ditch the academic persona of questioning and being lost in thought. That took time. 

So in addition to the time "lost" matriculating for an unmarketable degree we lost more before we got it that we had to approach earning a living by developing and pitching skills that would achieve the results employers needed. It was a brutal process of resocialization. 

Currently that necessity to reset a personal brand from functioning on some kind of macro level to messaging you can do hands-on work that increases revenue, enhances the brand or more has become the new usual. 

For example, colleges are folding at the rate of one a week. That means professors have to reskill for what society decides it will pay for. They will have to talk the new talk.

Likewise management consultants have to prove that they can implement organizational transformation or even solve a specific time-based problem rather then operate 30,000 feet up. 

Professional anonymous networks for the legal sector such as Fishbowl Big Law and Reddit Big Law tell the same story over and over again: JDs from elite law schools will be forced out unless they can get the hang of writing motions or participating in a merger according to what the partners/third parties require. Irrelevant is what they "think about the processes."

In addition, those who succeed in practicing law are able to figure out the power dynamics and navigate relationships. Players who got to the top such as Dentons' Joe Andrew, Jones Day's Stephen Brogan and Paul Weiss' Brad Karp have been skilled politicos.

A high school English teacher I coached for upward mobility into administration developed a stellar reputation for conducting her classes  in terms of skills development. For example, turning in assignments on-time represented the skill of recognizing the importance of deadlines and meeting them. Proofreading a paper developed the skill of attention to detail.

Takeaway: In a job search or in accelerating progress in a career show what you can do. Not what you think. 

Life is hard. Business is even more difficult these days. Get answers – and relief. Jane Genova is a results-driven intuitive coach, tarot reader and content-creator related to careers. Complimentary consultation (please text/phone 203-468-8579 or email janegenova374@gmail.com)