Faced with knowledge blind spots, how should operations staff quickly learn while working?

In sociology and economics, there is a commonly used term called the Matthew effect, which refers to the phenomenon that the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker, which is what we commonly call the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Recently, I have vaguely felt that such a phenomenon also exists in the operations field: when facing the same new field, experienced operators (not referring to operators with long years of work experience) can obtain more comprehensive information than new operators, and thus make diversified solutions.

You may think that the main reason is that the old drivers have rich experience. Compared with newcomers, they have encountered more problems before and can naturally think of more solutions.

However, experienced people also have blind spots. For example, if you let an experienced person who is engaged in content operations do ceramic production, the reason why he can do better than a newcomer is that I personally think the deeper reason is the difference in learning methods. The experienced people in operations have mastered systematic learning methods and learning resources to cope with new fields.

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What is the difference in learning between experienced operators and new operators?

When faced with areas they are not good at, I believe that more than half of the newcomers will immediately execute based on their feelings, and then wait for their leaders to provide complete guidance, because in the minds of new operators, they will more or less think like this: I am a newcomer, it is normal to make mistakes, not to mention that the boss also said to give me the opportunity to make mistakes.

Some newcomers who are aware of search quotient (the ability to acquire knowledge through tools and platforms) will try to find some information to learn, and then stand on the shoulders of giants to carry out their work. The work results they achieve will be better than those students who do not learn from the experience of their predecessors and just start executing as soon as they receive the task.

(How new operators learn to work)

But sometimes, the projects we encounter are so new (or extremely complex) that you don’t know what keywords to search for online to learn. This is when the learning ability and priority of learning resources of experienced operations veterans are reflected.

First of all, experienced people will clarify the background and purpose of the project, and use past experience to judge the authenticity, priority, feasibility and measurement indicators of the project's requirements.

Secondly, since it is a project in a brand new field, learning is essential. Compared with new operators with search capabilities who directly search for knowledge units on platforms such as Baidu or Zhihu, experienced operators will be more inclined to figure out the execution path of the entire project, convert the path into a learning framework, and then search for knowledge units. The difference at this step, in addition to the level of awareness, experienced operators also have learning resources that new operators do not have. For example, they can very quickly (post a message on WeChat Moments for help) find people with relevant experience to help them figure out the project execution path.

Then, combine the comprehensive information obtained to write an implementation plan, because experienced people know that when they immerse themselves in execution, the scope of integrated thinking may become smaller again. As the saying goes, if you are obsessed with work on overall planning, your consciousness will tend to fade day by day. Spending some time on planning in advance will help you think about the plan more comprehensively.

Finally, it comes to the execution of the plan and the sedimentation of the methodology. In this part, the advantage of experienced operators is really their experience. They can complete the work in a more efficient way. Of course, they also have higher requirements for details, so the results will naturally be much better than those of new operators. Coupled with the methodological accumulation habits of the old drivers (the ability to review and structure), they become old drivers in new fields.

(Work and learning methods for experienced operators)

“For whoever has, to him shall be given double, and he shall have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.” For new operators, in order to avoid letting the parable in the New Testament of the Bible, Matthew, fall upon us, how should we break the impasse and strive to catch up with the pace of the experienced operators?

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How can new operators learn when faced with new fields?

The overall learning routine of new operators can refer to that of experienced operators. The most important part of the work and learning process is how to break through one's own cognition and quickly establish a cognitive framework in a new field.

Apart from the fact that newcomers can search for articles on major information platforms for learning as mentioned above, I personally think the most effective way to quickly learn in a new field is to master learning resources like a veteran operator - to be able to find knowledgeable people to ask for advice and learn.

There are many methods. If your boss is familiar with this field, you can ask him. If he doesn't understand it either, you can actually use current knowledge sharing platforms like Zaixing and experts in this new field to quickly break through the limitations of your cognition.

Let me interject here. I don’t recommend that newcomers take excessive online courses, because when newcomers have not yet established their own learning framework and judgment ability, our learning will be disordered. Of course, it is not recommended to use Fenda to learn, because the learning framework is quite difficult to explain in one minute. People who can finish explaining the learning framework in one minute are not on Fenda because they are busy with practical operations.

Back to how to find knowledgeable people, in addition to looking for them on knowledge platforms, it is actually more about daily accumulation and maintenance (not just adding friends everywhere and joining WeChat groups ). In the age of self-media , everyone can attract other people who are willing to share by sharing knowledge.

There are two things in the world that become more numerous the more you share them: one is love, and the other is knowledge. In 2016, Xiaoxian had a profound experience in connecting more people through knowledge sharing. I have persisted in writing a public account for a year and continued to share on knowledge platforms at a relatively low price. Because of these two channels, I got to know many leaders of startup companies.

These founders themselves have a high level of cognitive ability, so every communication is a two-way process for mutual growth. I share operations with them, and they teach me experiences in other fields.

The most typical example was that in October, when I encountered difficulties in promoting the shooting of my video program, I was able to obtain timely and convenient help from the two founders of "Ju Neng Wan" (whom I met at the China APP Growth Alliance event organized by Mo Chuang), and they provided very down-to-earth one-on-one guidance. Adhering to the principle of knowledge sharing and mutual benefit, after understanding some of their promotion bottlenecks, I also gave them some ideas and suggestions on how to acquire users on Sina Weibo .

If you don’t like writing articles and are not good at sharing output, how else can you find these people besides being an expert?

In fact, another way is to learn from communities in related fields. As long as it is a community in this field, there will definitely be many knowledgeable people in it. Just like I highly recommend that new operations people go to my "Operations Research Club". Although the topic of daily discussion in the community is operations, there are also experts in other fields. For example, there is a photographer who used to work for National Geographic magazine, and there are big names in PPT design and catering... You can find someone who can solve your problem anytime and anywhere.

Okay, the last part is about the learning session on execution and methodology accumulation. There is no shortcut for new operators. You just need to be down-to-earth and do more, then summarize, accumulate and share more. Of course, it would be better if you could find an experienced person to learn from, because then you can grow in a more targeted way.

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The author of this article @陈维贤 is compiled and published by (APP Top Promotion). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!