The Career Value of Learning From People Who Do Work Completely Different From Yours
It is natural to spend most of your time learning from people who do the same kind of work you do.
If you’re in marketing, you follow marketers.
If you’re an engineer, you talk to engineers.
If you’re in finance, you learn from finance professionals.
That makes sense.
People in your field understand the tools, problems, language, and career paths you’re dealing with.
But there is another source of professional growth that is easy to overlook:
People whose work has almost nothing to do with yours.
A conversation with someone in sales can change how you think about customers.
A conversation with someone in operations can change how you think about efficiency.
Someone in customer support can show you what customers actually experience.
Someone in finance can teach you to think differently about costs and trade-offs.
Someone in product can show you how decisions are made when not everyone can get what they want.
You don’t have to switch careers to benefit from these perspectives.
Sometimes, understanding how someone completely different from you approaches work can make you significantly better at your own.
Different Jobs Train Different Ways of Thinking
