Yesterday at dawn we cast off in a small boat on the Gulf of Saros—my son Yiğit Eren, my father, and a few close colleagues. As the sun turned the horizon amber, Yiğit Eren asked, “How will I know when the fish bites?” A seasoned teammate demonstrated the knot; I added tactical advice. Three generations, three perspectives—yet a single objective: to learn together and pass our experience forward. In that moment it became clear that apprenticeship today is no longer confined to one-to-one interactions; it is a multi-generational, cross-functional flow of knowledge. The tableau on the boat offered an instructive map for professional learning.
1 Reading the Water—Transferring Insight
Locating fish beneath the surface parallels detecting market insight. Rather than displaying data on slides, exemplary firms embed novices directly in the field. A heritage confectionery producer walks interns through the journey from raw sugar beet to final packaging, while a global consumer-goods organisation accompanies junior marketers into consumers’ homes to observe actual purchase routines. A single day of experiential immersion often outweighs a ten-page report.
2 The First Cast—Creating Safe Experimentation Zones
Novices will make mistakes; the task is to structure controlled risk. Allow a junior copywriter to manage a brand’s Reels feed in a “shadow account” and debrief metrics together. An international lighting manufacturer adopts a similar philosophy, assigning young engineers micro-budgets to solve authentic client problems—where both success and failure are equally instructive.
3 The Knot—Documenting Tacit Knowledge
What is narrated but uncaptured soon evaporates. Completing a post-mortem canvas after every campaign ensures the next apprentice starts with a ready template. A leading content-focused SaaS company follows a “wiki-first” mandate: a process must be written into the shared knowledge base before it is debated in chat channels.
4 The Shared Net—Cross & Reverse Mentoring
Knowledge should flow not merely top-down; the fresh capabilities of younger staff must also move upward. In our team, “Cross-Function Fridays” pair colleagues from different departments for a 30-minute exchange of their latest insights. A major technology enterprise institutionalises the same idea through reverse-mentoring programmes whereby Gen Z employees coach senior executives on artificial-intelligence practices.
5 Landing the Catch—Making Success Visible
Early victories build confidence when they are celebrated publicly. We created a “fresh-catch” channel where the first achieved KPI wins an immediate round of applause. Similarly, a multinational consumer-products firm elevates young innovators on its internal network whenever they deliver a sustainability breakthrough.
6 Releasing Undersized Fish—Learning from Error
Failure resembles an undersized fish: catch it, study it, release it. A leading streaming platform makes this philosophy tangible with a “fail wall,” displaying mis-steps to convert embarrassment into institutional learning. In our own practice, a junior revisits the same goal through a smaller-scale experiment after each post-mortem.
7 Upgrading the Tackle—Remaining Perpetually Current
Equipment evolves, and so must expertise. We draft creative concepts with the aid of large-language models and refine them via human judgement. An East-Asian e-commerce giant convenes mixed senior-junior teams for monthly “trend sprints” to sniff out emerging market waves before competitors do.
Concluding Reflection
A single boat carrying multiple generations reminded me that masterly patience, apprentice curiosity, and the right tools together yield the most bountiful catch. In organisational life, the same equation applies: authentic experience, systematic documentation, and continuous renewal move knowledge seamlessly from one cohort to the next.
Call to Action This week, allocate a bounded yet meaningful project space to a new colleague; flank them with one senior guide, one peer collaborator, and an enabling technology. Share your observations—let us widen our collective net.
Fair winds and fruitful fishing to all!
