For over a decade, we have been developing the "next normal" career cycle model focusing on the individual instead of the organization; harnessing the forward momentum of our evolving economy and technologies to address their changing needs and prepare them for a lifetime of adaptation and adoption.
For example, I am 54 years old. My daughter is 21. Given my family’s proclivity for long life - my grandmother is 98 and my great-grandmother lived to 99 - I could effectively live my daughter’s entire life twice before I die. Basically I have two opportunities to hit reset and try again.
In fact, if you were born after 1970, given our current economy you should plan on working past your 65th birthday. This means you will probably need to upskill or reskill yourself 4 to 8 times over your career.
To support this continuous education dynamic, we need a system to accurately track and protect learner owned credentials throughout their careers, regardless of where they go or what they do. When I started talking about it a decade ago, I called it a blockchain learning management system. IBM now calls it blockchain for education.
We live in a connected society where a majority of adult learning comes from peer networks, streaming how-to videos, serious games and online learning – both formal and informal - this requires a different skill set to access and apply – one not typically learned in school.
At all ages we want to learn how to learn and how to learn from each other. Now we must also learn how to work with AI, robotics, and human performance augmentation so our teams can adapt and maintain relevance. And, for those of you worried about losing out to a machine, keep in mind, those who learn how to code or at least understand how to control technology are less likely to be replaced by it.
Sugata Mitra shared in his Future of Learning TEDx talk in 2018, “Children can self organise their own learning, they can achieve educational objectives on their own, can read by themselves. Finally, the most startling of them all: Groups of children with access to the Internet can learn anything by themselves.”
This is absolutely amazing. What is even more amazing is that we treat adults as if they never had or can have this ability in our organizations. As a whole, businesses treat adults as less responsible, capable and intelligent than young children.
Is it because most programs teach perfect answers, procedures, methods, policies, information, etc? This is well and good and meets the checkbox requirements of regulators and compliance, but does it teach people how to make the right actions, better decisions, more reliable choices, and handle catastrophic errors that don’t fit neatly in the box?
Most of the time, it doesn't. This often results in slow or no actions, failures in judgment, errors in decision making, and impulsive or risky actions.
Returning to our cycle, employees are looking for a change that includes some or all of the following:
The counterpart to the "next normal" or transhuman career cycle is the cross-industry and public-private talent management cycle that is vital to meeting our business needs while aligning to needs of the individual.
Due to pure numbers, Millennials must take on leadership roles ten years earlier than previous generations due to the disproportionate size of Gen X to the retiring baby boomers. And, if they are to lead, we must find a way to get them to stay. This may be difficult since 79% of executives agree the future of work will be based more on specific projects or gigs than roles. To hire and retain the best talent, you must upskill, reskill and inspire.
One silver lining to COVID-19 is the clear demonstration of what jobs can be done on your couch, home office or the beach.
For those of us in learning & development, the transformation has been startling and fast. Organizations that once said, “it can’t be done,” “our training must be in person,” “we will never have a virtual workforce” have pivoted to stay in business.We have converted classroom training programs virtual ILT or other learning formats in record time. The stars finally aligned and virtual is the norm. When, and if, we start going back to the office, the rules of the game have changed forever because we proved we can do it.
These newer generations are all about global impact. Create incentives for employees to come forward with personal career stories, experiences and successes for various social causes.
We must help schools promote skills, diversification and adaptability instead of the dominant model of “teaching to the test” where college is the "only option." Google, Facebook, IBM and E&Y have all dropped the degree requirement for many roles within their organizations. Over the next decade, college degrees for many jobs will not even be required.
Unfortunately, many of our current corporate learning methodologies are no better. They are costly and ineffective; focused on teaching the information. Why do we do it? Knowledge training is easier to deploy and measure.
Instead, we should be focused more on what Ken Hubbell calls the "Seven Seas (Cs) of Wisdom":
These seven parameters allow us to assess the combined knowledge, skills, behaviors and experiences (along with a lot more) into a value that can be used to evaluate the individual and your organization. We are part of a movement called the Wisdom Quotient™ where Ken and Nikolas Kairinos of Soffos.ai are spearheading the drive to make the concept of WQ as a common currency amongst corporations, SME’s and institutions across the world.
In this digital age, learning to be human involves a significant investment in your people; and a lot more than just a 45 minute eLearning course. Human skills need repeated immersive experiences in person or through hands-on practice, immersive games and, more recently, virtual reality to truly transform behaviors. Fortunately, one outcome of our current quarantine situation is we are rapidly identifying amazing virtual coaches, peer mentors and online training facilitators. These superstars can now broadcast to massive audiences leaving local teachers and guild masters the time to provide hands on training and apprenticeship in person.
We are in a zero sum game. It is critical humans work, for if we eliminate human workers, there will be no one able to buy all the products created by the robots.
The net of “next normal” is not a question of are business functions changing, but rather, how long will it take for us to catch up with the changes that are already here and continue multiplying exponentially?
Enterprises larger than 1000 employees are in a difficult position. The scale of change, the scale of technology implementation cost, the scale reaction time, the scale of risk, the scale in general continues to make pivoting in today’s talent market very difficult.
Now, add human augmentation, artificial intelligence, robotic process automation and cobots to the mix and the nature of corporate teams takes on a whole new definition.
We are at a time where AI and robotics are not dystopian replacements for humans, but rather teammates working with us to create products and services previously too costly, too dangerous, or too physically or mentally impractical to achieve before.
We believe learning to work with the machines will make us better people and allow us all to make a better world.