With the start of the new year, I have been learning to make cioppino, the San Francisco-style seafood stew. Mastering the combination of garlic, herbs and red pepper flakes has been great fun. In fact, learning anything new is fun – whether discovering new knowledge through research, acquiring new clinical skills, or experimenting with a dish that tastes like the sea.
I became a lifelong learner years ago. And I’m not alone – nearly a third of adults consider themselves lifelong learners. In today’s evolving world, learning new skills is more valuable than ever as people are living longer, and as a result, are working longer.
Being a leader in health now and into the future requires mastery of “hard skills,” such as science, technology and engineering, along with “soft skills,” like communication, empathy, compassion and authenticity. As an academic health institution, how do we prepare and inspire faculty, students and staff to embrace lifelong learning (and in turn, further their success)? And how can we ourselves stay committed to the practice?
Stephen R. Covey, famous for his book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” would say we must first “begin with the end in mind.” This is a time for “blue sky thinking,” so to speak. With an endpoint, you can define clear measures of success and a plan to achieve them. At UCSF, our end is training future leaders. We envision UCSF graduates as lifelong learners, highly trained in their profession, advancing science and dedicated to improving patient care.
But in today’s world, which is changing by the second, it can be difficult to know where one’s endpoint will be. The one thing we know for sure is that we cannot afford to stop learning.
Lifelong learning aligns with Covey’s seventh habit, “sharpen the saw.” A person who “sharpens the saw” seeks continuous improvement and renewal professionally and personally. Learning something new helps achieve mental balance, one of the ways to sharpen your saw. One good thing to come out of the pandemic is realizing that learning can happen anywhere – not just in a classroom, but on laptops at home, outside exploring nature, or in some exotic locale.
Learning can be personal and professional. In either setting, I love to surround myself with people who ask great questions and then try to find the answers. The willingness to seek knowledge, fail quickly along the way, and stick with the question excites me. This is a valuable component of my life and brings me happiness.
I’m also struck by how continuous learning motivates and empowers teams. A recent study by the Harvard Business Review found that employees who learned and grew showed the “passion of the explorer” by having three key elements: a long-term commitment to achieving impact in an area that excited them; the ability to face unexpected challenges as opportunities to learn and achieve more; and the ability to seek out and connect with others when faced with challenges.
As a leading academic health institution, how can we transition from scalable efficiency to scalable learning to encourage innovative thinking at a whole new level? If instead of focusing on executing routine tasks, we inspired everyone to discover the “passion of the explorer,” I can only imagine how much we could advance together.
With that in mind, I think I will try adding more fennel, basil and thyme while I stew on how we lead the university forward.
Michael S. Reddy, DMD, DMSc
Dean, UCSF School of Dentistry
Associate Vice Chancellor, Oral Health Affairs