How much of the knowledge you know now you knew three years ago?

"Focus on high-leverage activities.  Leverage is defined as the amount of output or impact produced per unit of time spent."

From the Quora question "What is the single most valuable lesson you have learned in your professional life?"

Companies like to use as an innovation performance metric the percentage of current revenue that comes from products that did not exist three years ago. This gives an indication about how successful in the market have been the products that the company has ideated, manufactured, and shipped to the market recently.


If we make the assumption that innovation is fundamentally a learning process and that the right new knowledge will allow us to be more innovative, the same innovation performance metric could be applied to individuals. How much of what you are doing today at work is based on new knowledge you have acquired in the last three years? How much of what you are doing today at work is based on knowledge that is related to recent developments?

If the resultant percentage is really low that could mean your current knowledge is going to be more irrelevant very soon. If the percentage is high that means you have learned many new things and adapted to a quickly changing environment, which also means that you are current and have knowledge  that is not that widespread and that not that many people have. 

Metric of professional relevance: % of knowledge you use nowadays that you did acquire in the last three years.

The time variable can change. For companies in fast changing industries, instead of 3 years it could be 1 year, and for slow moving industries could be 5 – 10 years.

Regardless of the environment you have to work in, investing time in figuring out what is worth knowing more about and then learning about it is the best way you can ensure professional relevance and differentiation.


Photo: Kilian Eng