Professional Development

Tough Things First

It’s not enough to succeed at first. We must continue to excel. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn talks about the need for constant self improvement and professional development.

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Rob Artigo: So I guess the question here is when is it okay to neglect skill building and updating knowledge, your knowledge of work or whether just self-improvement? I think that based on what I know about you, the answer is you should never stop. Right?

Ray Zinn: Yeah, exactly. I mean, you stop living too, and that’s kind what it is. I mean, if you want to be considered wise in your profession, it’s coupling knowledge and experience together. You just can’t have just experience because if experience would do it, then you wouldn’t need knowledge. I mean, the trades type things, Walters Carpenters and so forth, that’s a trade okay? And if you’re just going to rely on your experience to create your product or your output, then you’re going to be stagnant. You’re not going to advance yourself. As an example on welding, they started out with stick welding, which is using a stick along with metal, I mean a welding router along with your welder to create the joint that you want to create with that weld. But now they got lasers. And so without that knowledge, without keeping enhancing your knowledge on welding and the technology available, you’re going to stagnate. Just having purely experience is not going to help you grow. You need that knowledge to advance yourself. As they say, you got to stay up with the times. That’s how you get it through knowledge or education.

Rob Artigo: The technology changes. And if you are working only on the old technology, when it’s time for you to work or keep up with everybody else, you’re not going to be able to do it. I remember my father working with AutoCAD, but before he worked with AutoCAD to design circuit boards, he used rolls of tape that were a varying thickness, and he would line them out on that. He would use a drafting board, and he would create this poster basically with all these lines showing where all these different items went. And so he’d create for amplifiers for example, it has different resistors and whatnot all around it. And so he would design these things using tape, and then if he never went to AutoCAD, which is a computer-based form of doing that same thing, when the technology was just emerging, he learned how to do it.

So when it was happening, he was learning it. If he didn’t do that, he would’ve just been left spending hours rolling these tapes out, whereas the technology allowed him to do it much faster and he had to keep up with that. So it sounds to me like the value in telling people you need to stay up on knowledge is very broad and the value is there across the board. But if you just take it down to the fact that, hey, if you’re using this technology in your work right now, chances are it’s going to change in the next year or two years or three years. You should be aware of those changes as they’re happening and stay up with it if you want to show your value to your employer.

Ray Zinn: Well, it’s even more critical now than it has been 50 years ago because technology’s changing on a monthly or daily basis. I’ve been out of semiconductor industry for 10 years now, and I’m already losing it. I’m already falling behind because the technology has advanced so much in the last 10 years that I have no idea what they’re talking about now even though I was an expert in that area in my younger years. It is just that being out of the industry now for 10 years really caused me to fall behind. So don’t underestimate the need for staying up to date, whether it be computerization or whether it be some other skill set that you need to enhance your skill set.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, I mean, we’re talking about your bottom line. It’s going to go to your pocketbook, it’s going to go to whether or not you stick around at a company. Really, one of the problems that people have is they’re not motivated to do it. They go, “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t care about that. I don’t want want to take any more classes.” I think… How do we motivate people to recognize the value in staying up to date? I mean, like you said, it’s changing so rapidly. It’s an imperative that you pursue knowledge to stay up to date.

Ray Zinn: Well, they say there’s no substitute for experience, and I agree basically with that. But there’s also no substitute for knowledge. Just relying on experience only will stagnate you. So the combination of knowledge and experience will get you wisdom. And that’s the key is to strive for wisdom with staying up to date technology wise with the knowledge and learning, but also keeping your experience close at hand. So use it or lose it as they say it.

Rob Artigo: Yep. Yeah, it definitely worked out for me in radio, I mentioned my dad already once, but I’ll mention him again. He would go to the National Broadcasters Association conference every year. And when he was there one time in Vegas, he came back and he bought me a Compact Disc player. And this Compact Disc player was a recording device. So when I did interviews for radio, I could do the interview in the street on the street or whatever, and I could actually splice the video up or the audio up so that I can line up sound bites one, two, and three, and I could plug a speaker in and then play the sound over my phone in succession. So sound bite one, sound bite two, sound bite three.

And then that set me apart, so much more advanced than the other people who were still using tape decks that it led to me getting jobs because I was ahead of the game. I was bringing technology that other people hadn’t even thought of using into the workplace. And so I was an easy… people wanted me to work for them because I was advanced. And I think that that was a lesson that always stuck with me that I should always try to be ahead of the game if I can. And so learning was always a priority for me.

Ray Zinn: I remember talking to a friend of mine who was in his 70s, so he got a new phone, new mobile phone, and he was saying, “Well, I’m going to have to get my grandkids to help me get this thing set up.” And I thought, “Well, you can’t do it yourself. Well, no. Well, these kids know this stuff and I don’t know it.” And you probably heard that before, that the older generation is not keeping up to date with technology and they’re being ridiculed for not even knowing how to operate a computer.

But our younger generation, our kids, they know that stuff hands down because they got that knowledge. I mean, that knowledge was passed through them through schooling or through their friends or other ways. They gained that knowledge that the older people just are not staying up to date with the technology and they just don’t know how to use it. I also know a fellow who’s in his 80s who’s never had a mobile phone. He just uses this landline, but now in his area where he lives, they’re oscillating the landline. You can’t get landlines. So I said, “Well, now how are you going to communicate?” And he says, “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll have to start writing letters again,” he says. I said, “Well, once you get a mobile phone…” “Ah, I don’t [inaudible 00:08:29] device [inaudible 00:08:31].”

But technology is now advancing to the point where he’s not going to be able to communicate because his landline is going go away. And landlines are a thing of the past now almost.

Rob Artigo: Yes. I don’t even have one anymore.

Ray Zinn: Well, there you go. You know what I’m saying? Now you either keep up to date or you’re going to lose capability, so anyway…

Rob Artigo: And then technology changes and does make itself obsolete too. I mean, that mini disc player I was talking about, if you buy one, you have to buy it used, and it’s an old one to get the same productivity out of it that I got, but it’s so outdated that they don’t even make them anymore. So it was so great back then, but it’s not helping me out now.

Ray Zinn: Well, I mean the first car was you didn’t even have a starter motor. You had a crank in the front.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, you had to crank it.

Ray Zinn: And you cranked it to start it, and then you would advance the throttle and the way it would go. Now the cars are so complex that you have to have some basic knowledge of a computer or you can’t even drive it.

Rob Artigo: I know we’re running short on time. I was watching a TV show called Banacek, an old TV show from the 70s, and he’s an insurance investigator who goes and looks for lost or stolen items and recovers them so the insurance company doesn’t have to pay the whole $3 million for something. And one of them was a smart computer where you put in symptoms for medical information and it would spit out the diagnosis and the treatment. And the funny thing was is the computer took up the entire room and my wife and I were commenting that our phones can do the same thing with 1000% more accuracy.

So yeah, great podcast, Ray. Thanks a lot. I should tell the listeners that if they’d like to continue the conversation, they can at toughthingsfirst.com. If they have questions or comments, they can submit them there. I know Ray, you get them and you answer them so you can follow Ray on X and Facebook and LinkedIn and the books are out there, Tough Things First and the Zen of Zinn one, two, and three. On sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills and Attributes and Fundamentals that Make up the Essential Leader. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks Rob. Good to be with you today.