In my first year at university, I had first-hand experience of how the act of helping someone else to understand something also develops your own skills.

I had enrolled on a Philosophy course with a good friend. I was following the reading and assignments pretty well but she was struggling. So to help her prepare for the final exam she asked me to help her by going over the revision notes with her.

The result? She passed the course, but I was blown away with my exam result: 90%. Not only had I helped my friend to pass an exam she feared she was going to fail, but I’d also significantly improved my own grade. In my assignments for the course, I’d been averaging 65 to 75%. I’m certain that this improvement was directly the result of the shared revision sessions.

Why it’s important to learn even after formal education is complete

I strongly believe that continuing to learn throughout life is essential not only to build and thrive in a career, but also to make life fun and challenging. Technology is changing so quickly that anyone who feels that they have ‘learned enough now’ will be left behind very quickly – whether this is at home or at work.

In an earlier post I looked at how challenge is a way of keeping your brain active and developing knew outlooks and horizons. Challenging yourself to continuously learn and develop is an excellent way to do this.

For anyone who isn’t convinced that learning doesn’t stop with formal education, here are 4 fantastic reasons:

• Earn more money. If you keep up with new developments in your field, you will be more attractive to employers.
• Live a longer and more active life. Ok, this isn’t proven, but lots of people advocate keeping your mind active to improve quality of life as you age.  (Read Exercise for the brain? by Age UK.)
• Build resilience and adaptability. If you are continually learning, you are likely to be more open to new ideas, making it easier for you to cope with change.
• Reduce stress. Learning something for fun can be a great way to switch off from problems at work and help you to relax.

Why does teaching something new help you to deepen your understanding of it?

There are 4 stages of competence, as illustrated in the diagram below.

Unconscious incompetence. You don’t know that you don’t know.

Conscious incompetence. You now realise that you don’t know.

Conscious competence. You have got a grasp of it, but still need to really think about it.

Unconscious competence. You no longer need to think about – ‘you’ve got this.’

And as we all know from learning times tables at school, the way you progress from one stage to the next is repetition and practice. It’s not enough to be told that 6×4 is 24 once. You have to repeat it over, and over until it (finally!) sticks.

Making connections and seeing things from different angles is also essential in moving through the stages of competency. Using the times table analogy again, everyone experiences a lightbulb moment when they realise that 4 x 6 is also 24. Remember one and you also have part of another times table under your belt.

Going back to my story about helping my friend at university, in terms of competency I was probably somewhere at stages 2 and 3. I had a lot to learn, and I still had to think deeply about the subject.

By helping my friend, I was both repeating the material, and, by thinking carefully how best to explain the concepts to her, I was also making new connections and deepening my own understanding. Not only this, but she asked questions that I hadn’t thought of. I had to re-examine what I knew and made new connections for myself in explaining it to her.

To help someone understand, you need to change your point of view

When you explain something to someone else, so that they can understand it, you not only have to put your own thoughts in order, but you also have to try to see it from their perspective. This is what makes it such a powerful way to deepen your own understanding.  

You start questioning what you know about the subject, you then realise what you don’t know, and it pushes you to discover more. This can either mean going back to do more research, or even just the simple act of having to think more deeply pushes your boundaries and allows you to make those new connections.

If you are fully engaged in explaining, or teaching you have to listen to other people and their questions. Not just listening to be polite or seize your chance to get your opinion in, but to actually take on board what they are expressing so you can synthesise it and respond to help them build their understanding. In this way, both can learn more.

Why is learning relevant to marketing?

On a personal level, learning about new developments will help you in your career. Being open to new technologies and new practices not only gives you useful skills but also shows that you are committed.

If you also offer to teach and explain new things to colleagues, it will help you build your network but establishing connections with others. Getting a reputation for being ‘the person who can explain x y z’ is a good way to raise your profile and carve a niche for yourself.

On an organisational level, learning is also central to the practice of marketing. The company (and its marketers) need to understand their customers and their needs. They need to educate sales personal and others about the products – and by listening to the questions asked, will gain a far deeper understanding of the products, markets and competition. All of which should be fed back into the product development cycle.

Being curious to discover more helps develop creativity through looking at the familiar from different perspectives. Being able to see things from a colleague’s or customer’s perspective makes implementing change or promoting a product far more effective.

How can you start to implement this now?

Here are 3 simple steps you can take now:

1. Volunteer to help colleagues to learn new tools or procedures. Throw yourself in from the beginning, rather than waiting for someone to tell you how to do something.
2. Look for opportunities to collaborate with people on projects. Even if you’re not teaching, talking thorough the subject will also help to cement it in your mind.
3. Use the technique of internal dialogues. This is a good technique to use if you don’t have a colleague to teach. Posing yourself the problem as a series of questions which you then set out to answer will help you to break the issue down into manageable chunks. Either pointing the way to the solution or for you to focus your attention on where you need to build your knowledge.