KEITH KEATING – CRYSTAL BALLING WITH LEARNNOVATORS
ABOUT KEITH KEATING:
With a career spanning over 20 years in learning & development, Keith Keating holds a Master’s Degree in Leadership and is currently pursuing his Doctorate in the Chief Learning Officer program at the University of Pennsylvania. Keith has experience in a myriad of areas ranging from Performance Improvement, Instructional Design, Leadership Coaching, Operations Management, and Process Transformation.
More recently Keith has been leading clients on the design and execution of their global learning strategies. Regardless of the role, at the heart of everything Keith does centers around problem solving. He studied Design Thinking at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and found Design Thinking was a perfect tool to add to his problem solving “toolkit”. Since then, Keith has been utilizing Design Thinking to help clients tap into understanding and resolving unmet customer and future workforce needs.
ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW SERIES:
Crystal Balling with Learnnovators is a thought-provoking interview series that attempts to gaze into the future of e-learning. It comprises stimulating discussions with industry experts and product evangelists on emerging trends in the learning landscape.
Join us on this exciting journey as we engage with thought leaders and learning innovators to see what the future of our industry looks like.
THE INTERVIEW:
1. LEARNNOVATORS: We are great fans of you, Keith. You are a learning leader who has been continuously influencing organizations across the world on the significance of reimagining the ways we have been approaching workplace learning. It’s an honor to have you here today to discuss the past, present, and future of workplace learning.
You are considered to be one of the leading authorities on design thinking for enhancing workplace performance. You have been trying to help the community better understand ways to apply this science in learning design to make its solutions more ‘human-centered’. As a practitioner who has vast experience using design thinking methodology to drive learning through cultural transformation, what does your experience say about the changing nature of workplace learning based on the science behind design thinking? How is L&D presently faring in leveraging its power to understand business priorities and help take the company to the next level?
KEITH KEATING: When I reflect on the L&D industry, I come back to the ideology that we are problem solvers. Solving problems starts, or should start, with understanding about the human at the other end of the problem and establishing an understanding of them. This concept is often a challenge for us in L&D as we are not always given access to our learners but, instead, given an order to execute without much information. In many cases, L&D still struggles to have a seat at the table and is, instead, an afterthought. I believe we have strong intentions but, as an industry, we still lack some of the focus necessary to build trust with our business partners. We are often considered to be order takers and given only a glimpse of the larger, holistic picture, limiting our ability to drive change. One of the biggest challenges we face is navigating the balance of establishing the trust with stakeholders that we have the capabilities within our toolkit to solve the problem while simultaneously convincing our stakeholders the importance and value of using tools (such as design thinking) to ensure we are solving the right problem. When we take orders without doing the due diligence of understanding the problem, we do a disservice to the business by potentially wasting their money. We do an even bigger disservice to our learners by not providing the right solution to solve their challenges.
Design thinking is a structured—but not too rigid— framework we can leverage to engage with our business partners and our learners, keeping our focus right where it belongs: on the learner. Design thinking helps us take a step back and start with problem finding before moving into problem solving. A lesser-known use case for design thinking is continuous improvement. We should always be asking ourselves “how can we be better”, “what else do our learners need”, or “how can we help learners achieve the organizational goal”. Design thinking is a great tool to leverage for finding new opportunities of improvement.
All of this to say – in many organizations, the L&D division is still considered an outsider, an afterthought, and an order taker. Until we can narrow this gap and have the business partners recognize us as Trusted Advisors, we will continue to struggle to support the execution of organizational goals while supporting the learners. This is where design thinking can be leveraged as a tool within our L&D practitioners’ toolkit that can help us evolve from being order takers to Trusted Advisors.
2. LEARNNOVATORS: You are a big proponent of putting learning in the ‘flow of work’. You advocate for changing from the traditional ‘event-based’ mindset to a ‘workflow-embedded’ one. We wholeheartedly agree. Formal training interventions can only partially help in transferring knowledge to the workplace. Hence, our real focus should be on opportunities to enable learning beyond formal training courses to support our people in their ‘flow of work’ (or on ‘Workflow Performance Learning’ as advocated by Dr. Conrad Gottfredson). In this context, we would like to hear from you: What are the challenges that L&D is facing with respect to putting learning in the workflow? And, what would be your advice to achieve the needed shift in mindset to design such learning?
KEITH KEATING: It would be impossible to address this question without acknowledging the evolution of our work environment as a result of COVID. Pre-COVID, there was a clearer understanding of the “flow of work”. Assumptions could be made on when / where / how work activities were executed and where the support was needed. However, now that we are closer to stabilizing in a new environment – that environment is best described as hybrid. We may not know the working hours, the technology tools, or the location of workers. In some situations, we may not know “how” work is getting done (though we have established that work can and has continued successfully in the chaos). I’m not sure if “learning in the flow of work” is accurate anymore; I find “learning in the flow of life” more meaningful and relevant given it’s hard for us to separate the two since many are now “living at work”.
I think the first challenge is trying to account for the new variables associated with how you define “learning in the flow of work”. I’d like to think broader and make tools available based on when/where the needs are for the learner which may be beyond the traditional idea of “work”.
The second challenge I see, which existed long before COVID, is the lack of understanding of the difference between performance support tools and knowledge transfer – is the intention to teach a new skill to be retained / mastered or a tool to support at the moment-of-need? Many people within the industry struggle with the delineation between the two which leads to a larger challenge of our industry.
The L&D industry has an inclusive characteristic – anyone can label themselves an L&D practitioner. The challenge, however, is that not everyone is an actual practitioner. A practitioner is someone who is qualified and actively engaged in their field of work. Being “qualified” in the L&D industry can be subjective. Although certifications and standardizations exist, they are not required. And active engagement is more than simply “doing your job”. In the L&D industry, active engagement means investing time and understanding into the academic and theoretical side of learning, not just the application. This includes focusing on learning frameworks, theories, and strategies on an ongoing basis to ensure you are grounded in research-based methodologies and approaches. Many L&D practitioners are well-versed in their area of focus but are often siloed and not connected to the larger, underlined principles and theories of L&D, the principles that empower us with the credibility and the tools to drive performance support, behavior changes, and provide meaningful solutions to our learners.
Lifelong learning is not something we want just for our learners; we, L&D practitioners, also need to be lifelong learners. As L&D practitioners, we have the potential to impact the lives and futures of employees. And that means we have a responsibility to our learners to ensure we are holding ourselves accountable to the same standards we are trying to set for them – to be lifelong learners and to close our skills gaps. Being a practitioner takes work but as a result of the work, you are rewarded with a stronger solutions toolkit, credibility, and the honor of calling yourself a learning & development practitioner.
3. LEARNNOVATORS: This pandemic has taught us many great lessons, one of the most significant ones being around re-skilling our workforces in place of looking out for talent. According to the World Economic Forum, “85 million jobs will go away and 97 million new ones will be created in just the next four years”. McKinsey predicts that “as many as 375 million workers globally might have to change occupations in the next decade to meet companies’ needs.” Organizations across the world are alert to this shift, and many companies are moving towards making re-skilling a key focus of their talent development strategy today (as evident from this LinkedIn Learning 2021 Workplace Learning Report). If re-skilling is the future of workplace learning and an integral part of the future of work, what would be the role of the learning leader in this scenario? What strategies would you propose for L&D to handle the opportunities and challenges for successful re-skilling in this hybrid workplace that comprises both employees and gig workers?
KEITH KEATING: The speed at which change is occurring is faster than ever. Companies are facing an increase in the need to be agile and adaptable in order to combat disruptions and increased competition. In turn, the workforce needs complex skill sets enabling them to thrive and survive in this changing landscape. Unfortunately, many employees lack the needed skills, resulting in a growing skill gap within organizations.
Learning leaders play a critical role in the future of work by advocating for and creating equitable opportunities for talent to develop skills, whether it’s reskilling or upskilling. We can also play a key role by helping to foster conversations about roles that are at-risk for redundancy and creating opportunities for second-skilling. Second-skilling is about building new skills now before being made redundant, before being on the path to redundancy, or before talent are so scared about the future of their job that they shut down and are no longer open to learning or preparing for that next transition.
Before we can focus on the future of work, it’s imperative we know where we are today, right now. Ask yourself this – do you know what skill gaps exist today in your organization? If you cannot answer this question, how can you properly prepare for closing future skill gaps? The first step to helping our talent prepare for tomorrow is ensuring you know where they are today. Conduct a skills-gap analysis or a skills heatmap to identify where the gaps exist. Next, I believe it is our responsibility to stay connected with the research on the Future of Work through reputable research firms like the World Economic Forum or McKinsey Global Institute. We need to curate this information and use it as a core part of our learning strategy planning. We need to be creating opportunities to upskill through apprenticeship programs, job shadowing, and internships (both internally and externally). For example Gloat, a talent marketplace platform, worked with Unilever and created InnerMobility, an AI-powered marketplace that finds the right people for the right job. By accessing the platform, Unilever employees can work on projects for a small or large proportion of time, increase the depth of their expertise of a current skill or build new skills and experiences. Through the power of AI, people are suggested opportunities that match their profile and aspirations, and at the same time, giving full visibility to all career opportunities available globally across all areas of the business, ultimately democratizing and giving transparency to the way the company recruits and develops talent. As of June 2019, InnerMobility was accessible to more than 30,000 employees across 12 business areas in 90+ countries.
Internal gig marketplaces allow companies to retain their workforce and ensure that their workforce is motivated to learn, productive and engaged. Research has also shown that employees learn best by experiential learning. An internal gig marketplace enables employees to try out new roles and skills within the company.
We stand at a juncture where skills are valued more than ever and the market has turned into a skill-based economy. As a result of the ever-changing, fast-paced business environment, the shelf life of many skills is shrinking. With a gap in skills, organizations may not be able to grow or compete, and may not be able to prepare for the future of work. Talent must remain proactive with skill development, and organizations must remain vigilant in providing opportunities for talent to upskill or reskill if the business hopes to remain relevant and competitive in the future.
Another strategy that we can utilize is helping talent recognize their transferrable skills. Transferrable skills, also known as portable skills, are a core set of skills and abilities that can transfer to a whole host of other opportunities, regardless of the industry, organization, or job title. Many people worry about the future of their job and understanding that you have skills that go beyond your job title is empowering. When I grasped the concept of transferrable skills, it helped me feel more secure about my future.
4. LEARNNOVATORS: You say, “our web-based training resembles textbooks: small print, bulleted lists, and an occasional static image. These design choices limit our audience to those who learn successfully from traditional materials.” We, too, believe that online learning cannot be too ‘distant’ from the other online experiences of our learners, and our e-learning interfaces should be in sync with the transformational changes happening in the other applications we use in our daily lives. In fact, we feel that this should also ‘mimic’ the positive qualities of our other online experiences, and couldn’t agree more on this thought that our online learning offer has to be as simple to use as Google, recommending like Amazon, and as comprehensive as Wikipedia. What is your recommendation for learning designers to transform themselves into the role of learning experience designers?
KEITH KEATING: One of the most important frameworks that every L&D practitioner should immerse themselves in, especially learning designers, is Human-Centric Design (HCD). If someone is a practitioner and is not familiar with the 6 tenets of HCD, this is the first step. If understanding 6 tenets seems overwhelming, focus on the 3 tenets of Learner-Centric Design – LX, UX, and Design Thinking. There will always be naysayers, but it is hard to argue with the fundamental ideas behind Human-Centric Design, particularly because everything we do in L&D is for the learner…who also happens to be a human.
5. LEARNNOVATORS: Empathy – the ability to understand the challenges others are facing – is touted as one of the most important skills employees will need in the post-pandemic workplace. It is exciting to note that you too are of the opinion that empathy is a key quality that can help us understand our learners, and feel that NOW is our time to practice empathy. To quote this article on encoding empathy in this post COVID era by Miri Rodriguez, Global head of internships at Microsoft, “We get to step back for a moment and assess the critical crossroads between intelligent computing and intelligent empathy. The kind of empathy that learns to adapt and scale to drive an inclusive and human-connected experience at every touchpoint of the customer journey in the post-COVID era.” What advice do you have for L&D to leverage empathy to drive a similar transformation in their learners’ journey?
KEITH KEATING: The most important person in our industry is the learner. Everything we do is for them, about them. Stay connected to them. It is easy for us to get caught up in being order takers and to lose sight of the learners. But using tools like design thinking and qualitative research will help us stay connected to our learners and leverage empathy as we design solutions to solve problems. With that being said, it’s also important to recognize the language used within organizations and the culture. Not every organization embraces the word “empathy”. In fact, I’ve received significant pushback when I’ve used the word. Recognize the culture you are in and switch to language that will resonate. For example, maybe instead of saying “we want to have empathy for our learners”, you can say “we want to have a better understanding of our learners”. Several leaders have asked “you can’t possibly have empathy for 100,000 learners across the organization?” They are not wrong – we can’t. But we can identify a percentage of the population to conduct qualitative research studies and create general profiles providing further insight into those roles. There will be outliers not found in the research, but at minimum, you will have a better picture of the majority of the learner population to help guide your solutions and understanding. And, stay connected with the learners. At General Motors, we typically conduct some type of qualitative research (also known as empathy research) once a year with a subset of the population.
Empathizing helps us create authentic and accessible learning. Against our better judgment, L&D professionals churn out too many deliverables that resemble outdated textbooks, complete with tiny font, bulleted lists, and the occasional image. When the target audience consists of learners who perform hands-on, interpersonal, or less-specialized tasks, reading about skills may not serve them.
Empathizing helps us to show respect for learners’ time. Learners’ needs differ based upon job role, readiness, tenure, and even region. Veterans and new hires will have vastly different performance support needs and should not be herded onto a single, generic learning path. Once learners have achieved competency, training should demonstrate respect for their needs by taking them away from their jobs only minimally. Certain learners, such as sales staff, are particularly sensitive to being taken out of the workstream, as time away from work directly translates to lost income.
Empathizing sometimes means advocating against an unnecessary deliverable. A commitment to both clients and learners means a knowledge of both the learner and the business to advise against “solutions” unlikely to benefit either. We’re not talking ourselves out of a job: Showing respect for the client’s investment and the learner’s time builds both parties’ trust in the work we do.
6. LEARNNOVATORS: As we know, curiosity is one of the key skills that can provide a competitive edge to today’s organizations to thrive in the future. Being a learning organization with a constant focus on innovation, we have been keen to understand what’s going on in most organizations, looking out for inspiring stories of companies who are practicing curiosity at their workplaces, and discover best practices they follow (such as hiring for curiosity). We believe that organizations that survive in this VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) world will be the ones that have leaders capable of inspiring the workforce to stay continuously curious. Being a big proponent of workplace curiosity, how do you think we can make workplace curiosity an integral part of organizational culture in the present scenario where the focus is on following already established processes and best practices?
KEITH KEATING: One of the first strategies I try to implement with teams and clients is adding the art of Continuous Improvement (CI) to the culture. Having CI as part of the culture creates an environment that is not afraid to look for opportunities for improvement. For example, when I hear “that’s the way we’ve always done it”, it is an indicator that “it” could be a great opportunity for CI.
Creating a culture of feedback supports the curious mindset and culture shift. I believe the most important part of feedback culture is not giving feedback but asking for feedback and listening (truly listening) to what is being shared. On an individual level, look for ideas/perspectives that are different from yours – ones you do not agree with – and have a dialogue. This will help expose potential biases and increase your self-awareness. Asking questions is an important part of cultivating curiosity. It’s important that the culture also support asking questions.
7. LEARNNOVATORS: Today’s business problems are immensely ‘different’ from the ones we have been encountering in the past due to the kind of rapid changes we are going through. Finding solutions to these problems demands an innovation-first approach. Today’s organizations are looking for new ways of finding solutions to their business problems. In this context, it is inspiring to hear you say, “Workplace learning is the new UI/UX testing. Now is the time to innovate and apply new technologies—and to mine existing content repositories across our organizations to facilitate workplace learning.” However, as we know, today’s corporate environment has a reputation for encouraging conformity, which can be detrimental to innovation. As a learning professional who is experienced in leading innovative practices and solutions to drive business performance of many corporates, what would be your advice to L&D leaders to devise and implement successful strategies to foster a culture of innovation at their workplaces that encourages creativity over conformity?
KEITH KEATING: How does the organization define innovation? This is the most important question to understand about the organization or business unit before innovation can occur successfully. Many organizations advocate for “innovation” but provide no guidance or framework to what innovation means to the organization.
Many organizations do not have a culture where failure is acceptable. To me, failure is a core component of innovation. One of the best successes I’ve encountered with fostering a culture of innovation occurs when we create a safe space to encourage brainstorming and failure. For example, at GP Strategies, we have the Innovation Kitchen. We meet on a recurring basis, following a systematic structure we have defined, to discuss new technologies, existing processes, and customer challenges while looking for opportunities to apply our expertise to address the challenges. We also invite vendors into the space for demos. We create sandbox environments to play around and familiarize ourselves while looking to add to our L&D practitioner toolkit.
At General Motors Center of Learning, we have a wonderful culture of “just try it”. Failure is encouraged, it’s not feared. Fail = First Attempt In Learning. When something doesn’t work, or fails, it is viewed as a positive data point for what did not work. It’s just important to know what does not work as what does work. Encouraging failure and not having a culture based on fear is one of the core foundational elements necessary for a successful culture of innovation.
8. LEARNNOVATORS: Being an ardent advocate of design thinking, you have been recommending this approach as an effective method for solving problems in L&D and to make its solutions more human-centered. According to you, “Design thinking secures our profession by creating a context in which we continually disrupt our own established practices rather than being disrupted—or replaced— from outside.” However, you also have been skeptical about the way it is understood and implemented. You feel that design thinking can be inherently risky in situations where the understanding of its benefits and drawbacks is limited. What are some of the best practices to follow while implementing a design thinking initiative for learning?
KEITH KEATING: Design thinking is a mindset and culture shift; it is not a one-time event. Before design thinking can be implemented successfully, take a look at the culture and the language used. For example, if the culture does not embrace words like “empathy”, find the common language accepted within the culture to minimize initial resistance. Find influencers and champions of design thinking to support the effort. If none exist, look for those who gravitate toward qualitative research, brainstorming, and innovation. Like any culture shift, design thinking needs to be supported by leadership or the initiative will be set up for failure. The most important step is gaining leadership support. Help them understand the value of design thinking which means you will need to be able to articulate both its value and its challenges. Therefore, educate, educate, educate. Educate yourself and then start to educate others. Don’t expect the change to happen or be embraced overnight. At the Center of Learning, it took about 1.5 years for our team to embrace design thinking and have it be a part of our culture.
The best way to help L&D professionals harness the potential value of design thinking is to learn about it, question it, and then apply it. As it stands now, the value of design thinking is subjective to the practitioner’s understanding and potential application of some discrete activities during a workshop. However, the value should increase as the team adopts a mindset that is focused on the learner and understands that design thinking simply is one tool to embrace that mindset.
As L&D professionals, we like to believe we have the answers—or at least a solid hypothesis about what the answers might be. Design thinking invites variability and uncertainty into a process we sometimes wish to contain and control.
However, our value as L&D professionals increases as we adopt a mindset that focuses on the ever-evolving learner. Design thinking is one of many tools that reminds us to maintain this focus. As with any craft, the expertise lies in knowing when—and how—to use it.
9. LEARNNOVATORS: We remain greatly inspired by this call for action by The Corporate Rebels: “It is not always easy to be a rebel – to be the troublemaker continuously challenging the organizational status quo. But the success of the NASA rebels shows that rebels are exactly what organizations need and why we need more.” We, too, believe that in today’s learning landscape, the community is in dire need of learning rebels, agents of change, and learning provocateurs more than learning conformists. Because we are going through a time of major learning transformation, radical thinking that will help us get started on the transformation has become quite critical. Being a change agent yourself challenging the status quo to re-imagine L&D, why do you think it is important to be a changemaker in our profession? What does it take to be a learning rebel? Who are some of the learning rebels you look up to?
KEITH KEATING: I’m going to pivot my answer slightly to use vocabulary that I’m passionate about seeing adopted within our industry. It is important for us to be provocateurs or, said another way, bold. Being bold is an important skillset for us as we are often caught in the middle between what the business wants and what our learners actually need. As a result, for as far back as I can remember, we are treated as order takers. The business brings us a solution (i.e., design a 2-hour WBT, create a 4-hour ILT, make a job aid, etc.), and we are asked to execute the order, often without knowing the problem we are trying to solve, or the behaviour we are trying to change, or even the measurements of success. Rather than being order takers and simply executing the order, we need to act as consultative business partners, or the phrase I prefer, Trusted Advisors.
Building trust, building relationships, and seeing the bigger picture are 3 components of being a Trusted Advisor. Being a Trusted Advisor requires us to be provocateurs, to be bold and ask the right questions. But first, we have to build trust which requires us to communicate openly, honestly, and with transparency which may include navigating difficult conversations. Being a Trusted Advisor requires us to have empathy and understanding of the business, knowledge of the organizational goals, and insight into organizational culture. In order for L&D to truly be successful, we need to be an integrated partner, seeing ourselves as part of the organizational system. This requires additional effort to build relationships with all parts of the organization (including finance to understand how they measure the value of the L&D function) and incorporating a systems thinking mindset. Without achieving the status of Trusted Advisor, we cannot meet our full potential of successfully supporting the business and advocating for the needs of our learners.
10. LEARNNOVATORS: As we understand, in addition to the various awards (from Chief Learning Officer and the Brandon Hall) that you were instrumental in bringing to your teams, you were selected for the ATD 2020 Speaker of the Year award (a ‘new award’ introduced by ATD the credit for which was attributed to you!). This, we believe, was an absolutely deserving recognition for your incredible work in inspiring the learning community. How do you look at this fantastic achievement? How do you think such recognitions will help fuel your vision for the L&D community?
KEITH KEATING: The award from ATD was truly one of the highlights of 2020 and the greatest achievement in my career to-date. It was such an honor and surprise to be recognized by my peers which, in my opinion, is the highest honor to receive. I had no idea I was being considered for anything and it is 100% based on my contributions to ATD which makes it more meaningful.
Michio Kaku, a well-known scientist, once said “Knowledge is useless if you don’t share it”. I take this to heart and make it a point to share my knowledge and experience with our community as often as possible through associations such as ATD. The award reminds me that I am on the right track and inspires me to continue my work to empower, enable, and encourage the L&D community to continue to evolve to meet the needs of our learners. I am a passionate advocate for creating equitable learning opportunities and the need within our industry is no exception.
I’ve had the opportunity to work with numerous Fortune 500 companies and, when possible, love to share the experiences, best practices, and most importantly, the lessons learned – the grit of HOW and WHAT actually happens…not just the pretty story but the ugly bits, the struggles along the way. Too often I hear case studies wrapped up in pretty little bows and for years I thought maybe my team was doing something wrong. I wondered why our projects did not flow as neatly as the case studies or presentations until I went through enough initiatives in different organizations to realize that the perfectly packaged story does not exist. It’s all about the progress not perfection, or the journey and not the destination (apparently, I’m filled with clichés). My vision for our community is a space where we continue to share our knowledge and experience based on our unique perspectives and situations so we can continue to grow and to evolve with one key collaborative focus – our learners.
For as far back as I can recall in my career, L&D have been treated as order takers. I want to see our industry evolve to being recognized and treated as Trusted Advisors. The catch is – it’s on us to make that shift. I’d like to see more rigor put into all L&D practitioners learning about the science of learning, the art of critical thinking, and the importance of research.
11. LEARNNOVATORS: According to you, in the future of work, learning is beautiful. It is inspiring to hear you say, “As a learning and development (L&D) professional, my passion drives me toward encouraging and empowering our workforce to take control over their future by preparing for it today.” It is great to see you on this inspiring journey to help drive change in the way learning is designed for people at work. Like you, we too are excited to visualize the future of learning; it looks very bright. As a workforce futurist, what are the trends that will shape the future of workplace learning in 2021 and beyond? How, according to you, will L&D evolve to meet this future? And what is your vision for the learning community in the context of design thinking?
KEITH KEATING: Alan Kay once said “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
The concept commonly referred to as the “future of work” is quickly becoming a phenomenon in a state of swirl, filled with information and misinformation. It’s our responsibility to build our “future literacy” skills to ensure we are enabling our talent for future success.
One of the most important concepts we can help our talent embrace is lifelong learning. Encouraging our talent to be lifelong learners will pave the way for both current and future success. In most basic terms, a lifelong learner is someone who keeps acquiring new skills and capabilities well past their formal education years. It involves not only studying new topics but also developing an open-minded and positive attitude about the dynamic nature of the world. Personal development continues alongside professional development. A lifelong learner looks for opportunities to expand their knowledge and understanding while qualifications help with a career, curiosity, and a growth mindset welcomes future possibilities. As computers, AI systems, robotics, and other machines get smarter and more capable, human workers have to do the same to stay relevant and employed. Lifelong learners prosper in this new, increasingly flexible, and dynamic global economy. Lifelong learners invent and reinvent themselves whenever they find or create the opportunity.
The most important way that we, Learning & Development professionals, can help our workforce be prepared, to help future-prepare themselves, is to evolve. The L&D industry must evolve to meet the changing needs of our workforce. Today we are known for encouraging on-the-job learning and teaching knowledge and producing content that is job-related. – We are known as the providers of learning. Some even call us the owners of learning. But what if we flipped that? What if instead of being Providers of Learning, we became Learning Enablers, creating connected learners and then empowering, encouraging, and enabling them to take control of their own future.
When we think about the workforce of the future, one of the first challenges is that people don’t know what opportunities will be available to them. They don’t know what else they can be because they don’t know what roles will exist or what type of skills are required in the age of automation and robotics. As HR and Learning & Development professionals, it is our responsibility to ensure that we identify the skills needed in the future and begin creating opportunities to bridge the gap. We can’t expect our employees to develop the skills completely on their own – this is where we need to architect and create opportunities for skill development experiences.
We know that in the future, humans will spend less time on predictable functions like physical activities and collecting and processing data, where machines already exceed human performance. Therefore, we need to focus on the skills that separate artificial intelligence from our own – the skills that make us human – our higher-order cognitive skills. These are the skills that give us the ability to connect with our employees or customers through empathy and interpersonal skills. Our complex problem-solving skills allowing us to think beyond linear as robots do. Our creativity and originality. Our emotion and logic. These are the skills of the future – our human skills.
The most beautiful aspect of the conceptual framework surrounding the term “future” is this: The future is not yet written. And the future of work doesn’t just happen. We, all of us, we have the opportunity to shape the future of work for ourselves, our workforce, and our organizations…. IF we take action. The stakes are high for businesses, workers, and society as a whole. The concept of work is being redefined as different generations enter and exit the workforce. Digital technologies are demanding that employees acquire new skills to adapt to new ways of working. Otherwise, they’ll get left behind. L&D professionals now have a call to action: Ensure employees are relevant and adaptable so they can rise to the challenge of this new revolution. There may never have been a better opportunity to get ahead of this issue—and never a greater risk of inaction. Our directive is clear—Create the future workforce. Now.
LEARNNOVATORS: Before we sign off, we thank you so much for your time today, Keith. We’ve had an amazing time reading your insights with many valuable takeaways. We’ll take these learnings to foster our commitment to practice and promote continuous learning and innovation at work. Thank you!
