The Best Things I’ve Learned at Work Weren’t Part of My Job

Sometimes the most valuable lessons are the ones you weren’t looking for.

There are two kinds of things you learn at work.

The things you’re expected to know.

And the things you stumble across almost by accident.

The second kind has started becoming my favorite.

Last week, mine was the ADKAR model.

I’d never heard of it before.

It came up briefly during a team review, followed by something along the lines of, “You can check it out later if you’re interested.”

I was.

So I did.

If you’re unfamiliar with it too, ADKAR is a framework for understanding how people adopt change. It suggests that successful change isn’t just about introducing something new. It’s about helping people move through five stages:

• Awareness: Why is this change happening?
• Desire: Do I want to support it?
• Knowledge: Do I know what to do?
• Ability: Can I actually do it?
• Reinforcement: What helps the change stick?

What caught my attention wasn’t the acronym itself.

It was the way it framed change.

When people talk about change, the conversation is usually about the new system, the new process, or the new way of working.

ADKAR looks at it from a different angle.

It asks what the people experiencing that change need in order to actually adopt it.

That shift in perspective stayed with me.

It also reminded me why I enjoy learning at work.

Some of the most interesting things I’ve learned weren’t part of my role description.

Nobody assigned them to me.

Nobody expected me to know them.

They appeared in conversations.

In meetings.

In passing comments.

Someone mentions a concept you’ve never heard before.

You look it up.

One article becomes three.

Three become ten.

Before you know it, you’ve spent an evening learning about something you didn’t even know existed that morning.

I think those moments are easy to underestimate.

Not every rabbit hole changes the direction of your career.

But each one changes the way you think, even if only a little.

Looking back, I can trace a lot of my interests that way.

Documentation.

Systems thinking.

Process improvement.

Implementation.

None of them appeared all at once.

They grew because one idea led to another, and I kept following the questions that seemed interesting.

I’m beginning to think curiosity works like compound interest.

One question rarely changes much on its own.

But enough questions, followed consistently over time, can quietly shape the kind of professional you become.

That’s one of my favorite parts of work.

You never really know what conversation, framework, or passing comment is going to send you down your next rabbit hole.

And sometimes, that’s where the most valuable learning begins.