Invisible learning: creating an economic ecosystem that energises employment

Learning through the professional environment

Freedom of knowledge is important. Everyone should contribute to it, be freely invited to it. But let's stop playing the game of citations to give ourselves legitimacy. My approach is simple: I share my arguments coherently, without limiting myself to ridiculous knowledge hierarchies like academic writing or "PhD" notifications.

Personally, a classroom has never inspired me to excel. On the other hand, getting concrete results, getting up early and going to bed late for work that I'm passionate about? Never been a problem.

I still played the academic game: high school diploma, then a detour through higher education. The experience quickly confirmed my doubts: listening for hours to a teacher reading their course while waiting for us to fill in blanks on their slides. No thanks, I need autonomy.

In reality, I dropped out of school at 19 and found myself in security work. Nordine crushing my hand to know if I'll help him when he's played the tough guy too much at the end of the evening. But it was Amel you had to watch out for, because she beats up all the little guys who talk like her, before launching tear gas.

Despite everything, I had good times. I realized that many people agree to blow into a walkie-talkie to pass the breathalyzer test, and that there were other sectors besides events.

Like the industrial sector: following procedures, developing my work autonomously. Lower promotion chances, like the possibility of getting a long-term contract.

So I tried other jobs. I met Amaury, contemptuous sub-supervisor, 23 like me, ready to sell his mother for a promotion. Obviously concrete muscles since he pushed 20kg in bench press. I already knew the Patricks who watched what you did, without ever telling you how you could have done better.

I was fed up. I was chasing contract proposals, I wanted responsibilities and for people to listen to my suggestions. So I went back to school, for 6 years.

My detour through university and fast food

I changed jobs, worked as a delivery driver, sold my Golf for a scooter. I enrolled at university: sociology and anthropology. But I didn't see how to convert what I was going to learn into business needs.

So I changed orientation. I kept the social dimension but to help businesses evolve, in e-business. Some courses were interesting but I realized I no longer felt like I needed a diploma.

Maybe also because Patricia who sold Xerox printers and tells us about Paul her son, a video game fan, who proposes traditional marketing in an e-marketing course... Or Louise, economics teacher who gives answers to fill-in-the-blank slides for 3 consecutive hours... weren't really offering me appealing content.

Covid arrived. I had evolved through all positions in fast food, which allowed me to become a manager. Starting from the bottom up is the ideal formula to progress if you think hierarchy is inseparable from business. It allows you to have empathy and understanding of each position's challenges.

But everything has an end, especially when you ask for salary balancing. And suddenly, Alzheimer's showed up, followed by Machiavelli.

I hadn't arrived where I wanted to be initially, but I listened to myself. I wanted to do a "short" training in web development. But honestly, it wasn't great. I realized it was "subsidy first", not a turnkey booster: there was still a lot of work left and companies need to continue training, otherwise you have to continue alone.

The hierarchy of knowledge is bullshit

Generally speaking, not everyone will have the same interests for a debate: between an influencer clash or a philosophical debate, I don't wonder which will get more views. It's simply because one is lighter than the other, the language is common and accessible.

It's something I don't appreciate: companies that make a big deal out of an ultra-simple concept, or an acronym. We all know at least one.

In IT, there's this democratization of knowledge: everyone can learn. I sometimes have the impression that this vision is much more advanced than ours. Or rather was, because it's still not accessible to everyone: there's over-engineering added but little or no under-engineering that allows everyone to have clear and simple documentation. Yet everything repeats almost constantly. I come back to our model, there isn't really free learning, there are learning conventions.

The OECD takes this more seriously by being more systemic. They clearly say there's a structural mismatch between the education system and labor market needs. All jobs are formative and provide experience. The OECD asks for recognition of informal learning and to stop demanding overqualifications.

Let's look at stigmatized professions like cleaning staff. There are enormous prejudices. But see them as resilient personnel, who do their tasks even the most thankless ones. How many executives would be ready to get up in the morning and scrub the floor before starting their day?

This division reveals an implicit hierarchy: the further we move away from manual work and "dirty" tasks, the higher we climb on the social ladder. Anne-Marie Arborio analyzes this perfectly in "Invisible Personnel. Hospital Nurses" - but I lived it.

For my part, I dropped out of school before returning and learned enormously thanks to the professional world. The school environment is failing: it removes autonomy, curiosity, and especially cohesion.

We all know characters close to Machiavelli, ready to make you eat dust for a raise. These are traits that Anthony Storr identifies in his work as specific to capitalism and its competition mechanisms. Is this the mentality we should continue to promote?

Some will look down on me because I don't have a PhD? Yet authors say exactly what I'm experiencing.

Companies must be trainers (and paid for it)

For me, companies must play a training role and be paid for it. That would give meaning to these beautiful phrases "if you do nothing, go to work".

Don't lock yourself into training to be a carpenter because you're "bad at school" - that's false, talent is needed there too. School tells you: succeed or "non-intellectual" vocational training. I say that's false, because everyone can learn, but not in the same way.

David Eagleman has shown that experiential learning creates much stronger neural connections than passive learning. Our brain loves solving concrete problems, not memorizing slides disconnected from reality.

The upside-down economy

From an economic point of view, it would be more logical for companies to receive subsidies directly to train their employees, rather than funding "training centers" led by professionals disconnected from the field.

Currently, we train students whose first skill becomes job searching. Or worse: we train researchers instead of operational workers. What if this approach reduced what David Graeber calls "bullshit jobs"?

There's something more perverse: it's easier for someone with my profile to create an activity in the gray economy than to access a permanent contract in a traditional company. You need an engineering degree to do web development, but no degree to run a psychoactive substance distribution network.

Mariana Mazzucato shows us that our way of defining "value" in the economy is biased. Recognition of informal learning could contribute to a more inclusive economy.

Kate Raworth with her "doughnut economics" proposes a framework that respects both a social floor and an ecological ceiling. Applied to work: creating systems that guarantee professional fulfillment while reducing environmental impact.

What interests me about Mazzucato is that she denounces that we've moved from a system where price was determined by value to a system where value is determined by price. The workers who kept our countries alive during lockdown are the lowest paid.

My path from security to web development illustrates this logic: I don't just code, I recombine skills from different sectors to create solutions that developers with purely technical backgrounds wouldn't imagine.

Innovation is born from the recombination of heterogeneous elements, as Schumpeter anticipated. Mastering several professional "languages" allows these value-creating connections.

Do you wear a mask at work?

After more than 10 years, Sennett could say my path illustrates job insecurity - and he's right. I juggled between different jobs, went back to school, got diplomas. But I hated the relationship with authority, whether at school or at work.

From my point of view, the worst thing is authoritarianism in companies. Even with rules in place, it doesn't prevent abuse: false dismissal reasons, employee isolation, harassment... That won't retain employees.

How many of your colleagues wear a mask at work and become completely different people once they leave?

Goffman analyzed this as the "presentation of self in everyday life", where individuals appear as "puppets" or "manipulators behind social masks". This reveals the unhealthy character of authoritarian environments.

I made my choice: I want to work with a collaborative vision. Hierarchy should be based on needs, not skills. You can't impose a leader on a team.

Sorry Byung-Chul Han, because for him I'm doing self-exploitation by valuing individual adaptation. But I see this flexibility as resistance to rigid hierarchies.

Meta-reflection: when I fall for my own criticisms

Something interesting happened while writing this text. Discussing my approach, I realized I was reproducing the mechanisms I criticize: self-limitation based on traditional "legitimacy" criteria.

Faced with the question "should I create a service to value this approach?", I first hesitated. As if I didn't have the "right" to propose my perspectives.

It's fascinating: these knowledge hierarchization mechanisms are so internalized that even someone who analyzes them can self-censor.

The analogy that came to me: "don't try to be a fish seller but the fish market". Rather than positioning myself as a simple actor, becoming a convergence point between different worlds.

This realization opens up possibilities I wasn't considering, precisely because I had imposed the same limitations I criticize.

It's almost meta: I just did to myself the type of sociological analysis I apply to structures.

Conclusion: do you want to keep wasting talent?

Drawing lessons from ecology, we could see work organization as an ecosystem. The most resilient ecosystems prioritize diversity and interconnection rather than strict hierarchy.

All jobs provide experience. This richness forges a unique approach you can adapt. My unconventional path gave me a multidimensional vision that integrates economic, social and ecological considerations.

Autonomy and adaptability are the true drivers of professional evolution in a changing world.

Fundamentally, it's not superhuman vigilance that matters, but the right tools at the right time. It's not solitary expertise, but networking and mutual aid. It's not perfect discourse, but authenticity in exchanges.

Kate Raworth demonstrates this well: we need a system that respects both planetary limits and fundamental human needs, including professional fulfillment.

The devaluation of certain paths is not only socially unjust, but also economically inefficient and ecologically unsustainable.

I invite everyone to reflect on their own learning experience and value what they've acquired in non-academic contexts. These "invisible" skills are often the most valuable in a world that demands adaptability and creativity.

Are you going to keep wasting talent or are we changing the game?