Continuous learning is the habit of growing your knowledge and skills every day, long after school ends. For a leader, it keeps you sharp, credible and confident in your decisions. It works best as a simple cadence: read first thing each morning, give your team one lesson a day, and close the loop with a quick check-in.
- Leaders have to stay the most informed people in the room. Knowledge is where confidence comes from.
- Build a daily habit. Thirty minutes of reading first thing in the morning compounds for years.
- Give your team a learning cadence and an accountability loop, or most people will skip it.
- Invest in your people even if they leave someday. The alternative is a team that stops growing.
What is continuous learning?
Continuous learning means you keep expanding what you know and what you can do, on purpose, for your whole career. For a leader it runs in two directions. You develop yourself, and you build a system that develops the people around you.
Leaders are learners.
My co-host Arturo Gomez has led teams for 25 years, and he is always looking for better ways to understand his industries and the people he leads.
Why is continuous learning important for leaders?
Picture yourself as the least informed person in the room. That is a hard place to lead from. Your job is to coach, inspire and mentor, and you can only do that with a strong emphasis on your own development.
- Credibility. Staying sharp and informed is part of earning the position.
- Confidence. As Arturo puts it, knowledge brings the power to act and make decisions with confidence.
- Connection across generations. The age gap between a leader and the team widens every year. Leading people in their early 20s means immersing yourself in what that generation needs.
How do you build a continuous learning habit?
- Invest in yourself at a new level every year. That has been one of my mantras. It can feel scary as the stakes go up, and it is the gift that keeps on giving, because you are the product.
- Learn first thing in the morning. When something is important enough, you find the time. The morning is the one slot that is always there.
- Start with 30 minutes of reading. For more than a decade, the first thing I have done every day is read a book for 30 minutes. It guarantees I am better today than I was yesterday.
- Study the people ahead of you. Early in my entrepreneur life I kept hearing that the average CEO reads 60 books a year. I was reading zero, so I got on it.
The same daily reps sit at the heart of a growth mindset.
What gets in the way of continuous learning?
Usually an excuse. Each one has a simple answer.
| The excuse | The answer |
|---|---|
| "I don't have time." | If it matters enough, you will find the time. Use the first 30 minutes of your day. |
| "I can't afford it." | Get a digital library card and borrow ebooks for free. |
| "My people will just leave." | Imagine what happens if you never make them better. |
| "We have no budget for programs." | Little simple things work. A good learning culture can cost very little. |
When I lived in Chicago, I signed up for a digital library card and read on my Kindle. Every time someone recommended a book, I checked the library first. If the ebook was there, it was free.
How do you build a culture of continuous learning on your team?
Give people access, then give them a structure. Every new person on my team got my personal growth program, Design Your Best Self, a series of short videos on vision, identity, mindset, habits, routines and your relationship to time. The ask was simple. Watch one video a day, then post in Slack one thing you noticed or learned.
It might take someone two months to finish, and that was fine. The root of it is consistency. My one-on-one clients went through the same program, so the team leveled up right alongside them. You can try one of the lessons in the free Growth Mindset lesson.
Should you invest in employees who might leave?
Yes. Some leaders worry they will train people up only to watch them walk out the door. Arturo answers with a sports picture. Imagine a coach who holds a player back because he might go to the NFL. It would be a bizarre scenario. True coaches invest everything they can to make the team better.
- Retention People start looking for the exit when a workplace stops being a place of learning. Everybody wants to grow.
- Championship Arturo sees his company as a stop on someone's path. When a person is ready to spread their wings, it may sting a little, and he is still their biggest champion.
How does continuous learning help you lead in the AI era?
The tools your team uses now change every few months, so learning has become a daily leadership job. Go first. Put in about 20 hours of hands-on practice with AI and you will know enough to lead the conversation. Let AI draft and summarize, keep the judgment human, and share what you learn with your team. Start with AI for leaders.
Everybody wants to learn, and they all want to evolve.
Arturo Gomez, Episode 54
Do this today
- Close the loop. Give your team one thing to learn, then ask each person to share the nugget they took from it.
- Audit your resources. Look at what your organization offers people who want to grow. If something is missing, make bringing it in your next project.
Listen to the episode
The Value of Continuous Learning
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Questions people ask
What is an example of continuous learning?
Reading a book for 30 minutes first thing every morning is one, a routine Rob Cressy has kept for more than a decade. On a team, it can be one short lesson a day with a quick note on what each person learned.
How do you hold a team accountable for learning?
Close the loop. Ask people to report back one takeaway after each lesson, in Slack or in a meeting, so the learning actually happens.
Does continuous learning help with employee retention?
Yes. Arturo Gomez has seen people leave when a workplace stops offering ways to learn and evolve. Giving them tools and resources keeps them growing with you.
How can small companies support learning on a budget?
Start small. Free library ebooks, a shared reading list and a simple daily lesson cost very little. Big programs like paid MBAs are optional.
Full transcript
Episode 54: The Value of Continuous Learning
Welcome to Leadership DNA, a podcast for those who aspire to be a better leader. Alongside Arturo Gomez, I'm Rob Cressy. Today's topic, the value of continuous learning and development for leaders. In Arturo, we're recording this at the beginning of December, and for so many of us, we're wrapping up 2023, looking forward to 2024, and on my mind, and something that I am so passionate about, is always learning, always getting better.
And I'm curious to hear from you and especially with what you're doing, how are you continuously learning and developing yourself as well as others? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I'm always looking for better ways to understand, certainly the industries that I'm in, and you know, the individuals that I'm leading, but I think, in general, I think, in general, the idea of continued learning and development, I think for leader, when it's, it's insanely important for everybody, but I think, especially for leaders, I think you have to retain credibility, and you have to be sharp and informed to be in that position.
You know, imagine, you know, you being the most uninformed person in the room. Like that's not a great position to be as a leader. And so, you know, your responsibilities is to coach inspire and to mentor these individuals. And so how do you do that without having a strong emphasis on self development? And so that self development for me is always trying to get better.
It's always trying to get sharper, it's always trying to learn. And I think, you know, the idea of making a heavy personal investment in yourself as a leader, I think increases your own value, your own personal strength, but also the perception of what you potentially are and who you are from the outside looking in. And so it's hard to be a great leader lacking confidence.
And so, to me, knowledge is what brings that power and that ability to act and make decisions with absolute confidence. And of course, you're going to make some mistakes, and there's going to be some decisions that aren't necessarily the most, you know, the ones that people wanted you to make, but if you have, if you have information, and if you're truly trying to absorb, you know, the movements of the business and your team, then I think you can do that in a really good and a really good positive way.
To me, the other thing that requires this, another reason that there's a heavy requirement on learning is because of time and age. You know, I think that as we're getting older, there's, you know, at least in my instance, you know, there's certainly people that, you know, the generational gap or the widening of, you know, the people that I'm leading is increasing year over year.
And yes, there's other people on the team that are getting older with me. But, you know, this idea of being an effective leader later in, you know, in your 50s and your 60s. What is that? What is that require? Well, if you're, if you're constituency or the people that you're managing are in the early 20s, you better have a good firm understanding of what that, what that demographic and what that group needs.
And so, you know, that's a whole different, you know, that's not just reading a book. That's really trying to immerse yourself in understanding culturally the needs of that specific generation. And so for me, this has been one of the, it hasn't really been one of the challenges because I feel like I still have very connected, broadly, across different age groups.
But, you know, that is, that is a form of learning and that is I think being observant and just making sure that again, that you can fulfill the needs of the organization and the team by continually making sure that you have information. Yeah, and this is a topic that I'm very passionate about because I pretty much dedicated the last decade of my life to helping people with personal growth and development on a regular basis.
So there's a few things that you said that I want to yes in with you. One of the quotes or the mantras for myself the last few years has been investing myself at a level I never have before every single year. So I go into the year and I'm like, I'm looking to invest in myself in a way I never have before.
And this can feel kind of scary sometimes as you're jumping up these levels and the things that we're learning doing experiencing or paying for. But it's something that is the gift that keeps on giving because you are the product you are the leader and we as leaders create other leaders. So we're going to set the tone for our own development so that we can then help develop others and I believe one of the biggest opportunities that is out there.
Is how organizations develop their own leaders with their personal growth and development? And I'm going to share something that I do as my team and my businesses that has an absolute game changer that is the simplest thing in the world. Whether you're working with entry level employees, virtual assistants or all the way up to executives. So I've got a personal growth program called Design Your Best Self and it's a series of short-form videos around vision, being an identity mindset, habits, routines, autonomy, relationship to time.
So many other things that help turn you or design you into the best version of yourself. So every time someone comes on board with our team, I not only give them access to the platform but we create a cadence and a structure for their ongoing learning. And this doesn't have to be hard. So what this looks like is, you know what?
I just want you to watch one video day. And when you watch the one video, I just want you to comment in Slack, hey, what is something that you notice are learned from this? And let's say it's going to take them two months to get through this. Well, this is the same program that my high performing, one on one clients are going through and I'm giving this to my team to level them up.
And it's such a simple structure in the root of this is consistency. What are we doing as leaders to create consistency of growth and knowledge for ourselves or our team? And one of the best things that I ever did in my entire life, because I was not this person 13 years ago. I did not ever grow with mindset and I was not self aware until I quit my job and went all and then being an entrepreneur.
And when I ought to do the success happens to the most successful people in the world, one of the things that I kept here and over and over again, the average CEO read 60 books a year. The average CEO read 60 books a year. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, I'm reading zero. Crap, I should probably get on this.
So something is important enough you will always find time to make it happen. When is there always time, first thing in the morning? So I created a reading routine for the last 13 years where the first thing that I've done every single day is read a book for 30 minutes. Why? Because it guarantees that I'm better today than I was yesterday and cool you do it for one day.
You do it for one week. Check in 13 years later and you see what happens. And this is just a simple structure or a way of thinking about it. So I would encourage everyone listening right now to say, alright, what is my cadence for designing consistent growth mindset or learning for myself? Or my team? And if you don't have a personal growth and development plan for your team, just ask yourself, hey, let's design that roadmap.
What do we want them to learn or consume and help guide them along the way? Yeah, listen to me. I think it's the way that I started this pot. It was really more primarily about the leader like how they're continuing to educate themselves and learn. Yeah, I mean making sure that you have a program for the people that you're managing to learn and what type of resources are available.
I think is insanely important. I think what you're going to find is it's going to help with retention. I think people will look to start leaving if the environment or the place that they're at is not a place of learning. So, you know, what people don't really understand is that everybody wants to learn. And they all want to evolve.
And so, if you're not giving them tools and resources to be able to do that, then that's a major, that's a major, that's a downfall that needs to be corrected. You know, you have some organizations that go to some extremes where they're going to pay for people to go get their MBAs. So they're going to do, you know, there's various ways to do it.
And I think small organizations can certainly do it. It doesn't need to be with the price tag of, you know, a postgraduate, you know, education. But I think little simple things are really important and I think so when you're looking at this thing holistically, it's. Yes, leadership needs to continue to stay sharp. They need to continue to evolve and make sure that they're informed in all areas of the business.
But I think you have to also look at your, at your squad and make sure that they have the tools that they need as well. Yeah, and I love what you said about little simple things. So I'm going to share a very simple thing. So I'm an active reader as I just established. And one of the things that costs no money is the library.
So I don't actually go to the library, but when I live in Chicago, I signed up for a digital library card. I read books on Kindle. The library allows you to check out ebooks for whatever you want. So inevitably when I'm listening to a podcast or talking to someone like you and a book recommendation happens, here's what I do.
Step one, I go to the Chicago Library website. I type in that book. Do they have the ebook version? If so, congratulations, I get it for free. If not, I go to Amazon and buy it for $12 to $20. Well, in the process of doing that, I can read four books a month for free. And then you've written a repeat this over and over again.
And you said simple, well most people don't think that this is all-why in the world do I want to go to the library. Let's just be smart about this because a lot of people will use the excuse of I don't have the money to spend on my personal growth and development. And one thing that a lot of companies, not saying this is the right thing, but they'll say, Arturo, why should I invest in all of my employees?
Because all they're going to do is get good and then leave me. And the answer becomes imagine what happens for your employees if you don't make them better. Now you're going to be cannibalizing your own company of not installing that growth mindset. And it's a very simple, powerful approach of make your people better in Arturo. You've even talked about this before on we are not the final destination in the company that if someone works with me, I'm going to invest everything I can into your personal growth and development so that we can be the best team because growth mindset is part of our DNA and core values.
And when you're ready to spread your wings and go somewhere else, yeah, I might sting a little bit, but I'm a champion for you and I want you to succeed. Yeah, I mean it's 100%. I think that's leadership mindset of not wanting to train in a form of imagination if that were the case in sports. As a coach, this guy is going to leave to the NFL so I don't really want to make him that great.
But what what a curve there, it'd be just you know, just a totally bizarre scenario. And so coaches are expected to invest true coaches, true leaders are supposed to be our supposed to be investing everything they can to make the team better, motivate them, inspire them and evolve them. So you got to have the right tools, you got to have the right resources to be able to do that.
So critical part of having well functioning teams and happy people. Yeah, in one of the biggest opportunities that I've started to work with a lot more clients on is so many leaders have the knowledge and they have the experience, but they've never scaled that knowledge or experience more specifically around a course or some form of content. And it's like, well how in the world does that work and so many people that I'm experiencing legitimately want to help, they've got such a good heart and they've got 20 years of experience that can immediately level up everyone on their team or everyone in their industry.
But they say, Rob, I just don't know what to do because I've never created a course before. And if this is you, I'm going to encourage you to reach out to me, RobCressy.com and Arturo, it's one of the things of why you and I are doing this podcast. Because we as leaders, the way that we can create the greatest impact is by taking the knowledge and the things that we've learned, create a system or a process or a structure for it.
And not letting the excuse of I've never written a book. I've never launched a podcast. I've never created a course. Stop us or making it happen because everybody starts at zero. Just find the right who the person who can help make that happen. And this is where you scale your impact, this is where you scale your knowledge like we're doing here.
Yeah, 100%. I think it's, it's, you know, that's part of the educational process, right? Investigating how to bring these resources one to yourself and two to your team. Cool. So now time for the action item or take away and I've got two on my end. So one of the action items is actually all around accountability. And I learned this being a coach that people can't, you can give everybody the courses, the books, the materials to read.
And if you say just go and do it, the majority of people aren't going to do it. It's why on our end when someone watches the one video, they check back in and Slack and say, here's the nugget of information that I learned from it. So creating an accountability structure, enclosing that loop to guarantee that they're learning that thing, not just for you, but for them.
It's a very simple system and process. And then once again, this is an area that I specialize in and I love helping people and companies around this. So hit me up if I can help you and your team create a plan because it's a game changer of all game changers. Arturo, what about you? What's your action item or take away?
Oh God, I think it's, you know, again, it's just the focus in the desire to make sure that you continue to, you know, that you stay sharp as as a leader and informed in the particular areas that you being asked to lead in. And you know, doing evaluation of your organization. If the resources are not there, it's something. It's a great project to dive into trying to bring some of those more, some of the additional resources to the table.
And I think this isn't just for leaders, right? It's it's for anyone in the organization that thinks that maybe there's there's potentially some deficiency of available resources to improve. I think it's okay to bring ideas to the table. I think that, you know, if you're, if you're in a healthy environment, I think all these things will be.
Should be welcomed. You know, we've certainly got gotten better and different and different, you know, cross different industries with different teams by allowing people to bring ideas to the table that. And we've got to know how to create efficiencies, how to create better understanding as a whole. And so I think, you know, just do a little bit of an audit is it's a good time of year to do it and that's never going to, it's never going to hurt.
I want to hear from you and this is a very simple one. What is one book that you read this year that had a positive impact on you or your team, or as one of your favorite books Arturo, I'll ask you this for me. One of my favorite books that I read this year was 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Benjamin Hardy, absolute game changer. He's got a series of books with Dan Sullivan Who Not How, The Gap and the Gain, but 10x Is Easier Than 2x.
Absolutely loved it. What about you? Do you have a book there, resonate with you this year that you enjoyed? You know, they're more marketing books. There's one that's focused on luxury marketing, luxury at the highest levels. Last of a self-help leadership type of book. I guess the help is in the retention and the value of the information that I certainly took from it, but I would, I want to hear what people have suggestions in terms of leadership and self development books too because I'm looking for some great books to pick up for the holidays.
So I know marketing, both the greatest marketing book I ever read. This is marketing by Seth Godin. It is the marketing book of all marketing books. There's some books you read where you're like, I actually don't want to work today. I just want to read this book. It's one of them because of just the perspective if you've ever read anything from Seth Godin. This is marketing is just next level.
So hit us up. You can make sure to connect with us on the leadership DNA linkedin page and let us know what's your favorite book that you read this year or a book that you read that had an impact on you. Arturo, working everybody connected to you. It's going to be LinkedIn, Arturo Gomez. And for me, you can hit me up on Instagram or LinkedIn.
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