A lot of people are hungry to learn new skills. For example, they want to take a new digital marketing course or maybe they’ve recently become a manager and want to learn how to be a better manager.
I see two main flaws with this approach. One, courses like this often only solve for a small portion of what people are looking to learn. And often the lessons in these courses are generic best practices for a given industry or vertical. Say you’re in CPG but learning how to market a SaaS B2B product, chances are that the specifics you are covering won’t help you too much.
The second problem and the bigger one, is that taking a course never solves for not understanding how the business works. If you don’t understand how the company you work for makes money or how they achieve their growth, all the courses in the world on “managing conflict” don’t mean a thing. Allowing employees opportunities to understand how the business works on the job is key. Maybe allow a marketer to collaborate with a finance team member on an upcoming project about ad spend and tracking customer acquisition cost and LTV. This will provide that marketer with real-world experience in applying the hard skills they want to learn with the strategy and approach that finance (and often senior leadership) takes to the business.
I’ve learned way more by being a “doer”. Discovering ways to creatively applying new skills to help the business achieve its objectives is the best way to learn.