Today, while I was reviewing the ClassesUSA site, I found an interesting article about how online learning can help you in your job. 

For those of you who do not know ClassesUSA, it is, according to their site, the Web’s leading online higher education portal, enables professionals to find an online degree or certificate program best suited to advancing their professional goals. Each month, approximately 1.5 million adults visit the site, which boasts more than 100 accredited college and university partners. I really like the people at ClassesUSA but for today, that is enough promotion of their site.  In the next week or so, I will be reviewing their site as well as a couple of others. 

Vicki Salemi wrote an article entitled “10 Ways Online Learning Can Help On the Job”.  I have included a couple of her conclusions but for those of you who are interested and have the time to read the article, it can be found at http://www.classesusa.com/rc/featurearticles/tenwaysonline.html

I found these two points the most interesting in the article:

• Online Learning enhances your critical thinking
• It builds your time management skills

These benefits are important in themselves but the real reason why I found them vital was that they help in the ultimate goal of being more focused on execution.  As with any project, there will always be distractions and other matters that require your attention and the ability to think optimally and manage your time will be the difference in achieving your goal.  In the end, you will be judged on whether you achieved your goal and not on why you failed.

In the current corporate environment, nothing is more important than being able to focus on execution, which is the ability to get things done on time.   Execution is the key differentiating characteristic on why businesses succeed or fail.  But more on that for another day.