Three steps to teach you how to improve personal and team competitiveness!

In the past, human resources, especially human resources in traditional enterprises, were often not taken seriously. People simply viewed them as "human resources" rather than "resources." However, the current Internet environment is changing too fast, and the competitive environment is constantly changing. More and more business owners are beginning to care about employee training. If a company is to withstand the test of the times, its employees must first be able to withstand the test. So in our daily work, what methods can we use to improve the competitiveness of our employees and even the entire team? Here are three experiences from our team.

First, know: cross-border learning and expand the boundaries of knowledge.

In many traditional industries, the nature of "stability" in work dictates that people in the entire industry only need to steadily do things that remain unchanged for decades. As a result, most people will stop growing after working for two or three years, will no longer be able to accumulate abilities, and will be unlikely to acquire truly effective new abilities. However, when the barbarians outside the industry began to subvert the industry, most of the original people in the industry became unable to adapt due to the lack of accumulation of new capabilities over a long period of time. This is the cruelest reality of this era.

This is an era that keeps getting better. Because mobile Internet has made the cost of information flow lower and lower, the possibility of a person's abilities being buried is approaching zero. The more capable a person is, the faster they acquire information, and therefore become stronger and stronger. The differences between people cannot be seen on the surface, but the actual gap is very large, even infinite. This is the characteristic of this era.

In this era, learning ability is no longer an advantage, but a necessary attribute. When I talked to many business owners, they said that the only criterion for their recruitment now is learning ability. Because, for startups, many things are creative, and almost everything has never been done before. There are no examples or standards, and it is entirely up to the employees to rely on their own perception and learning ability to get things done.

In the future, there will be more and more jobs without standards because the work itself is creating standards. This brings new challenges to human resource management. For example, many things our team does are completely new and unprecedented, and rely entirely on the team's creativity, imagination, and learning ability. This is the norm for innovative companies today.

So, how to cultivate learning ability?

Many people know that learning is important, but they don’t know how to learn, so they simply don’t learn. This may be caused by our education system. We need others to give us a clear goal before we know what to do. During the exam, we need the teacher to highlight the key points for us so that we know what they are. This kind of education method is very disadvantageous for us after we enter the workplace, because without anyone to give us goals and without exams, our learning ability suddenly disappears. The education system abroad is relatively more mature. The teacher gives the direction of the project, or even no direction at all, and the students discuss it in groups, then find information on their own, divide the work and help each other, and learn together. Such an education system is not designed for exams at all, but to cultivate students' way of thinking.

After I started working, I found that the way of thinking I learned from foreign education was a treasure for my growth. I don't need my leader to give me work or study goals. I will arrange a lot of things to learn for myself, and then rely on books, magazines and the Internet to build a general knowledge framework. Such a knowledge system only contains theoretical knowledge and has not been tested in practice. It is easier to appear "superficial". Then, I would talk to relevant people through my connections or take their courses, so that I could build a complete knowledge system. Here are three of my own methods for “hooking up” with people.

Reading Notes to hook up with great authors

Some people ask, what if there is no relationship like mine? Actually, I didn’t have it at first. but. I am really grateful for the Internet age. Let us be very close to the big guys. I have a habit that after I finish reading a book, I usually mark it on Douban and then post a Weibo post. Sometimes, the author of the book will take the initiative to repost my book review or give me a like. If there are some books that I think are particularly well-written, I will send a private message to the author on Weibo or Zhihu to tell him my feelings after reading the book, and the author will usually reply. This way you can have an in-depth exchange with the author. If the chat goes well, they will even add each other on WeChat directly.

The correct way to ask questions to experts on WeChat

Here I would like to remind everyone that after adding the author on WeChat, please do not harass him frequently or ask him trivial questions directly. Generally speaking, the time of great people is very precious. So, you can organize your questions systematically and ask the other person all at once at a dedicated time. After asking, don’t forget to send the other party a red envelope to express your gratitude to the author. The amount doesn’t matter, paying is a sign of respect for the author. Just quietly follow the friends circle of great people and read more of the articles they share, and you will naturally get closer to the author's field.

Use micro lessons to deepen communication

In this era, there is also a very low-cost way of learning, which is micro-courses. In order to promote their new books or theories, some experts are willing to give lectures in WeChat groups . The cost of each class is very low, usually less than 100 yuan, and you can listen to the experts for about an hour and interact with them. It is very convenient.

I would like to remind everyone here that you should study on your own before taking these courses. Otherwise, even if you communicate with others, it will be limited to some introductory questions. Only when the questions are more detailed, the benefits will be higher. For users in traditional enterprises, if you directly ask some Internet experts how to transform, you generally won’t get a particularly good answer. This is because these experts may not be very familiar with your industry or your products, so their answers will generally be broad and not inspiring enough. Therefore, when asking questions, you must think clearly and shift your confusion to similar questions in the other party's industry, so that the answers others give will be more informative.

Learning is a very broad behavior, and we should not learn for the sake of learning. From my experience, cross-border communication is often the most rewarding, and the effect is even more inspiring than direct communication among peers. Moving the good things from other industries to your own industry often has a "dimensionality reduction" effect, and this is the greatest innovation.

Linkedin found that the best employees generally have the most external interactions, which is most likely to trigger cross-border transactions.

Second, use: turn theory into skills, and practice new skills in actual combat.

The first point mentioned above is to give everyone new ideas and new thoughts, but this alone is not enough. We need to test these new things in practice, especially in our industry. What should I do then?

Of course, it is to formulate your own work plan based on what you have learned and make your work a testing ground for your own ideas. For example, if you have recently systematically studied what social media marketing is, then you need to find a way to use social media in your work and build your own community. Otherwise, it would be a waste of time if you have no place to put it into practice after studying for a long time. Learning is just a process of knowing, while practice is the real use.

The new knowledge framework combined with one's own industry practical experience becomes something new. Many disruptive innovations are generated under this idea.

• Why can’t the marketing methods of WeChat businesses be transformed into the marketing methods of enterprises? Who says that WeChat businesses can only be individuals?
• Why are internet celebrities just personal performances? Who says companies can’t become internet celebrities?
• Why do operators sell their data packages as traffic, and why can’t the data packages themselves carry content?
• Why are all products on the Internet currently pursuing personalization, and why are we still pursuing standardization?
• Why does every business hall look the same? Why can’t we have theme stores?
• Why do front desk staff in the system all dress seriously? Why can't we cosplay?
• Why do we spend money on events, why don’t we do joint events?
• …

The horizon is infinite, as long as you can see it.

Third, teaching: Cultivate a team. Only when you can teach well can you truly learn.

The improvement of one person, even until death, is only the power of one person. However, the improvement of a group of people is considered a battle. The ultimate goal of personal improvement should be the improvement of the team. Only when the team is truly on the rise can you be truly combat-ready.

In the Internet age, sharing is a quality, sharing good things with more people. The ability to know something yourself and the ability to let others know something are two orders of magnitude apart. So, when you feel the benefits of learning yourself, share it with those around you to make them stronger. Don't be afraid of competition. Because the process of sharing itself is a process of enhancing competitiveness.

Only when everyone around you is strong will you have the motivation to become stronger. So, when you have achieved something, don’t be complacent, share it with others, and then start again. Competitiveness in life is not something you just need to have for a while, but something that lasts forever.

alright. That’s all I have to say about competitiveness. Today is Friday. Let's think about what we have learned this week. What's different from last week? Have your working ideas changed? Have the working methods changed? Has work efficiency changed?

If your answer is no, then I suggest you go back to the first point of this article.

Good luck everyone and have a great weekend!