My arguments follow…

1) The moment you put a learning model you are putting boundries(Reffer the model) to the various opportunities thown up by life uncertanities.

2)The challenge in the Information Industry ( Not Software industry) is in synthesing information in a way that others cannot. Most of the people have access to the internet.Then why do some people appear smart then others

3) If at all I would choose to refer to your model then instead of having fixed modele with three layers I might have 3 dynamic layers. as and when I grow I would discard the core and compress the adjustent shell as the new core.

All this depends on what is your concept of Growth.If you concept of growth is Technocrat the above model might help. But if you are looking are rising up the ladder the inner CORE has to perish at some point or other.

You might want to read on Charles T Munger and his ‘latticework of mental models’ needed for worldly wisdom. This guy is just mind blowing IMO.

Any good model should consider the realities of the environment that finally support sustenance. One in which the customer wants something and the other where there is a drive within a given organization to align with what group(s) of customers would want. At the end of the day it would all boil down to how money would be spent and how much money each of the players want to make.

An individuals learning, therefore, gets bounded by these factors and any so called model that supports career development would finally hover around the opportuntities that are generated around those who want to consume and those attempting to fulfill such consumption requirements. Everything else as you have rightly observed is just for fun ….. in other words, purely academic.

However given today’s complex needs, the canvas becomes pretty large, so much so, that there is significant opportunity to draw out a unique blend of how different consumers and suppliers would be involved with and within this space try to chalk out something that is broad enough as well as certain unique things, which as a combination would provide the ability to take up marketplace opportunities and also align it with what an individual is interested to do. Obviously the cycles are going to be long – say 6 to 8 years.

If I were to look back at my career over the last couple plus decades, the cycle time more or less seems to be true. In retrospect this cycle time seems to correspond, on average, the time that one takes to reach the next stage of maturity and starts looking for a change. So the model is subject to swings; that get severly influenzed by the position of the individual at a specific point in their careers in relation to the supplier-consumer cycle. This has again been true for me.

But at the end of the day, it is how much of value that you are able to add to your customer that really matters. Does your model support this?

I vividly recall the dialogue between Alice and the cat from ‘Alice in Wonderland’:-

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to
Alice: I don’t much care where.
Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.
Alice: …so long as I get somewhere.
Cat: Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.

If you were to follow the advise of the cat and walk long enough (i.e. with a sustained focus) you are sure to find something real good as well!!

A few words of wisdom from me ‘keep a tab on the consumer and the supplier’ whatever be the model that you want to follow.