There are many things about my current employment situation that I can rave about. It is a great situation to be in all the way around, and the biggest reason is how much I have grown in nearly a year and a half there. It checks basically every box I could want. But through all of that, I have been introduced to something I now wonder how I ever went without, and am telling others they should engage in at their company: the lunch and learn.
Professional growth can come from a few places, especially while employed. The obvious is when you get tasks that require you to stretch your current skills or develop new ones, as well as training, whether provided internally by the company or taking a course at a college or seminar by an outside agency. If you can go to a conference, that can be another opportunity.
Hopefully some of these, if not all, are available to you if you are employed. They have been for me, for the most part. But whether they are or not, you can grow from a lunch and learn, and it’s something you should avail yourself of along with some co-workers.
There are a few ways to utilize this. I’ve seen it used to introduce employees to an internal tool that can help them, as well as to introduce newer employees to parts of a large software system/ecosystem. It is especially useful for the latter in the case where a software system is especially large, to the point where one can be overwhelmed by it. But maybe the best use is to learn a new skill or enhance a current one, perhaps through a book that you and some co-workers go through.
At my job, several of us did this recently with TCP/IP Illustrated, Vol. 1: The Protocols by W. Richard Stevens (who left us far too soon when he passed two decades ago). It is the seminal book on the subject, and one of interest to me because I had the book but had never gone through much of it. I also knew that if I didn’t gain a better understanding of the subject than the rudimentary one I had, I was bound to plateau in my career. So when presented with the opportunity to join a lunch and learn on the book, led by a couple of long-time experts on the subject, I jumped.
You don’t need to have experts to lead the way, but it sure doesn’t hurt. Those who have experience in the subject of what you are learning can share experiences with the concepts involved, including some they have encountered on the current job. They may have ways of explaining things that drive home the concepts better than the book as well.
Even without an expert and/or someone with much experience participating, getting a group of people together to go through a book can be a great growth experience. Choose a subject or, ideally, a book on the subject. Limit the group to about 4-6 people, then choose a regular interval for the lunch meetings. Everyone is to read a selection (usually a chapter, or multiple chapters if there isn’t too much material to cover from that), and one person leads the discussion of what the material covered. Rotate through each person in the group – a prime reason to limit the number of people – so that each person gets equal time and has an added stake in the learning.
The person leading is doing just that – leading. The idea is that they talk about what they gathered, including raising questions they have if something is not clear, and allowing others to add in a question or comment that goes along with it. Perhaps someone else gained a better understanding, so this is where a healthy exchange starts to take place as questions are asked and attempts to answer and explain follow. Someone might look up the subject elsewhere, or make a point of doing so for the next meeting, in case it might be clarified elsewhere.
As noted, I was part of a group that did this with a book which just recently concluded. We went through the entire book, and I think all of us feel as I do in feeling like we know much more about the subject than we ever did. The concepts also clarified so many other things for me that have some similarities. In many ways, it was every bit as valuable as taking a college course. While it helps in my case that a primary project of mine at the time was a real, live implementation of TCP/IP and I took a Udemy course on it, there’s no question this lunch and learn had a big role in the jump I made. It also helped me as I worked on the project on a day to day basis.
Now I am about to lead one of these, with the subject being the Linux kernel. We will go through an entire book, with a couple of more senior engineers ready to share some of their experiences while I share mine along the way. I also have many other references handy to enhance what we discuss from the book I chose for it. While I have a good deal of experience with the kernel, I am far a guru, so this will also be a growth opportunity for me aside from the experience of leading one of these.
What’s more, this can even be done if you are in a job transition. You can gather a few others in your field who are likewise in transition together and go through a book in a setting like a library. In these days of a pandemic, an in-person gathering like in a library might not be possible, but options like Zoom and phone calls are still there. It’s one way to show prospective employers that you are continuing to grow in your field while trying to find your next job, and what you are learning gives you another conversation piece in an interview.
Having just experienced one of these and being ready for another, I look forward to being part of more in the years to come. And I urge any of you reading to think about this at your place of work, on a subject relevant to it. Regardless of whether you have the options to grow via a college course, online course or conference, as well as first-hand work on a project, a lunch and learn is a great way to grow along with some of your colleagues. Not only will you gain in knowledge, but you will also form and enhance working relationships, including with colleagues you might not have met before doing this. In due time, you might wonder how you could go without having this in your growth toolbox, just like I have.