Never Stop Learning: Interview with Cisco Executive Par Merat
I recently went one on one with Par Merat, VP of Training and Certifications at Cisco.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Par: I was born in California of Native American, Mexican, and Iranian descent. In 1977, my entrepreneurial father packed up our family and we left everything behind to travel by car and boat to Iran to start a business and a new life. As exciting as the move sounded, it came at an incredibly inopportune time as shortly thereafter there was great unrest in the country that led to the Iranian Revolution and a regime change, and my family had to quickly move back to the U.S.
However, things were not quite the same when we came back to the U.S. After leaving a politically unstable and chaotic environment in Iran, when we returned to the U.S. we faced extreme racism given the U.S./Iran hostage crisis, and this made it difficult for my father to secure a job. In order to support my family, I worked different jobs all through high school and junior college. My cultural and socioeconomic background left me in a position different from my peers, but despite all of the challenges I faced I managed to build a career for myself and I did it very differently than most.
I really credit my success to the training opportunities that I was fortunate enough to have throughout my career, as well as the love of learning my parents instilled in me. One of my first trainings was intensive management and technology training at Xerox where I worked in the mainframe computer printing division, and later I participated in entrepreneurial training at startup Vovida Networks that was acquired by Cisco in 2000. These opportunities paved a unique career journey that has led to my leadership role today. Now, as the Vice President of Learning & Certifications at Cisco U., I am very passionate about creating training opportunities for others, as many of the training programs I was able to experience are not as available within corporations today.
Looking back on my career, I will say that those early challenges and all of my personal and professional experiences shaped me. And it also created a foundation of emotional intelligence, which really looking back allowed me to see opportunities that others may have passed up.
Adam: In your experience, what are the most important things anyone can do to rise within their career?
Par: Speaking from my own experience, the best thing anyone can do to advance their career is to be eager. Be eager to learn and expand your knowledge and skills. When organizations offer training programs that can help advance one’s skills or develop new skills, employees should jump at those opportunities because it’s a great way to get ahead.
I would not be where I am today without the training opportunities I was afforded. With the workplace currently at an impasse, as more emphasis is placed on skills over pedigree, now is the time to keep learning, upskill and remain competitive.
Knowing how valuable it can be to undergo training programs and upskill, it's my vision to create career opportunities for all through Cisco U.’s personalized, AI-enabled, skills-based training programs to accelerate career possibilities for anyone at any stage of their life and career. When challenges are met with emotional intelligence, it’s very possible to create equal opportunities and technology can be a great enabler in that pursuit.
As important as skills are, it’s also important to have a professional support system that consists of a mentor and an advocate. I always recommend that your mentor is different from your advocate. In my experience, having a mentor is important because I can talk to them about different things that are going on. Likewise, having someone that I consider an advocate, who's helping me advance my career and who I feel has my back is also really critical as you seek to advance your career. You want that person who can attest to your strengths and capabilities. I always tell young professionals sometimes it's not the “what but it is the who it is.”
Which is why I am a fierce believer in having and creating a network that you're cultivating intentionally. Your network shouldn't just be an echo chamber. The key to a strong network is to really expand it, make sure you're covering lots of areas both personally and professionally. It’s critical to take advantage of different connections and broaden your knowledge. One of the first things that I did in my current position is I leveraged my network because my network had played such an important role in leading me to my current position.
With Cisco U. we are also connecting community to our platform of training, which will provide an opportunity to learn, share and feel supported within the community.
Adam: What are common pitfalls you see and how can they be avoided?
Par: I have always been a believer in the idea that people are a business’s biggest asset. Employees are the heart of every business and I think many times leaders can overlook their people and it's a major pitfall.
As we saw in the last year with the Great Resignation and quiet quitting, employees who don’t feel valued are less likely to bring value to a company. I think giving back to employees should be part of every business strategy and one of the best ways to give back that is mutually beneficial is through investing in training programs that allow employees to upskill, reskill and continue to learn. Employees have an opportunity to develop and grow their careers in-house, while companies benefit from the expanded skillsets and knowledge of their workforce.
Companies do themselves and their employees a disservice by not investing in critical training programs. Many of the programs I was fortunate enough to experience and that have helped me grow in my career, are not often readily available within organizations. Now more than ever, with talent shortages and layoffs, companies need to be able to do more with less, which is why having a highly-skilled and easily adaptable workforce is mission-critical to a company’s success.
Adam: What do you believe is the future of work?
Par: For the first time in a while, we are witnessing a workplace revolution. Today, the speed and scale of innovation require more agility, adaptation, and real-time readiness at every career stage. We have already caught an initial glimpse at what the future of work will look like, as organizations begin to place more emphasis on skills over pedigree.
In my opinion, this trend of emphasizing skills will continue and the future of work will rely increasingly less on legacy long-lead education models and more on certification-proven, skills-as-you-go learning, all of which will be based on flexible, personalized programs that adapt to what learners need and how and when they need it. Organizations are already changing how they recruit, hire, and reskill. Now, we need better ways of learning to solve for the combined challenges of training access, skills gaps, and labor shortages. That is why I’m working at Cisco U. to empower an inclusive future for all.
Adam: What are the most important trends in technology that leaders should be aware of and understand? What should they understand about them?
Par: Over the last three years, the workplace has nearly become fully digitized. Now, in order to survive and thrive, leaders need to ensure their companies are able to quickly tie data insights directly to business outcomes or risk losing out to more innovative competitors. Technology is no longer a tool to support strategy, it has become a critical aspect of every business strategy. While this is a new trend, it’s one that’s not going to dissipate especially with the onset of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).
As businesses work to come out of the pandemic, while grappling with a struggling economy, there is not much room for error. That is why predictive technologies, like AI and ML that move us away from using isolated data analysis to real-time decision-making, are becoming keys to success. Major aspects of business, like hybrid work and inclusion, resilient supply chains, sustainability, and the journey to net zero in pursuit of solutions to climate change, will all depend on these types of technology.
Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?
Par: My leadership style has and always will be that of servant leadership, which means that you really put your team and the individuals on your team first. I truly value my position as a leader because in my career I’ve had some truly impactful leaders that forever left a mark on me and others that I vowed to never become. Now, as a leader, I make it a priority to ensure I see everyone I work with and really hear them. Everyone deserves to be seen as an individual, not just a cog in a machine.
Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
Par: Throughout my career, I've always made it a priority to work with people that I could learn from, that could raise me up, and that I found to be super collaborative. I always talk about how important your network is, especially as an aspiring leader but it’s important that your network is diverse. Diversity always includes diversity of skills and thought, as well as gender and race– all of the things you would typically consider–but that diversity of thought is really an area that is very important for me because it brings a different perspective. It’s that diverse perspective that is critical to being a leader because as a leader you’re responsible for leading a wide variety of people and you need to be able to be understanding.
Beyond that, leadership is not the ending of one’s career. Many view leadership as the finish line, but it’s far from it. Leaders need to continue to learn new skills, keep up with technology and skills and trends, and take advantage of trainings like Cisco U. and those willing to help pay for advanced education.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to anyone in the workforce?
Par: We sometimes do not realize it, but the workforce makes up such a major part of our lives. We all work in some capacity and where we work matters. I think regardless of where one works it’s important to remember the following:
Expose yourself to diverse opportunities and job experiences/roles. Adaptability is a critical but often overlooked attribute. You do not want to be a one-trick pony. I learned this from my time working at a start-up. The ability to wear multiple hats makes you so much more valuable to any team. This also translates to a large enterprise organization. A person who has had a diverse set of working experiences enables them to work more collaboratively with others because they have a greater understanding of other roles beyond their own and can often adapt to the needs of a team more easily.
Soft skills, such as listening and communication, are as important as technical expertise. For example, someone may be an excellent coder, but you need to be able to communicate with your team. As skilled as you may be technically, one’s ability to communicate with others will always stand out and open the door to more opportunities.
Have confidence in yourself and your abilities, and be able to articulate your value. This requires that you truly know your value, which so many fail to do. Knowing one’s value is critical, especially for individuals who may not have had the opportunities others have or a traditional career path. They may not have had the role models or personal experience that instilled confidence when growing up. Therefore, building confidence and trust in yourself is so important to develop. It takes real work and self-reflection to get to a point where you know and can articulate your value, but once you achieve that, so many more opportunities become available.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Par: This is a great question and very relevant for me today. With the Cisco U. launch fast approaching, recently, my friend and family have been advising me on the importance of creating synergy or balance between work, community, family, and myself. Even something as simple as taking the time to breathe is a new skill that I am learning. I have always been a hustler and have worked endlessly, but part of being a good worker means taking the time to step away from the work to care for your own mental, physical, and emotional health. I’m always grateful to my loved ones for reminding me to take that time and it truly is S the best advice I have received because it is life-changing advice.
Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?
Par: I always encourage those around me to never stop learning. Just because you have been doing something for a long time, does not mean you cannot learn a new skill or something new. Learning is fun and it’s part of life. In my opinion, learning is what makes life so rewarding.
Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.
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