What new opportunities will each day bring to power your journey of perpetual reinvention?
In my many discussions with clients, writings and keynotes about the future of work, I have always stressed the point that relevance in the new world of work hinges on our ability to ensure that the organization, its work and its workforce are perpetually being reinvented even as they are perpetually being rendered obsolete. New ways of working, digitalization, emerging automation options and new ways of organizing work are shrinking the half-life of many, particularly technical, skills while increasing the premium on many “soft” skills like critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork and collaboration. Countless professions that used to guarantee a good income based on earning the relevant technical degree and incrementally upskilling over a 30 year career are being disrupted exponentially such that the shelf life of such degrees is increasingly less than 10 years.
In 2021, I had the privilege of working with PBS on its thoughtful and insightful three-part documentary series; The Future of Work. The brilliant storytellers who crafted the series did an outstanding job of capturing why our mindset and practice of learning need to drastically change on account of the forces noted above, as you will see in the the short preview clip on the series’ website (link below)
What most people find difficult to understand is that you can’t achieve reinvention without learning and in many cases unlearning or relearning. You simply can’t separate learning from the process of reinvention, just as you can’t separate learning from living. Life itself is about a continuous set of new experiences that transform us every day. If we don’t continually seek these experiences out, we cease to truly live.
Growth is learning put into action. Any type of progress requires a variety of learning elements. You can’t have a growth mindset or a culture that embraces curiosity without understanding the importance of learning. Transformation is the result of our learning, unlearning and relearning journeys.
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The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn - Alvin Toffler
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As we pivot away from a world that was built on a model of “learn, do, retire” to one that hinges on “learn, do, learn, do, rest, learn, do...” we are seeing that traditional one to one relationship between a degree, a jobholder and a job give way to the many to many relationships between skills and tasks and the numerous learning opportunities available to close the skills gaps that are revealed by changing work. There are numerous formal & informal bite-sized learning opportunities - more virtual, more technology enabled and community led. Progressive organizations are trying to redesign their cultures to foster curiosity and provide the psychological safety for people to take more initiative, innovate and not be afraid of failure.
The future of work has learning at its epicenter. Continuous learning leads to greater degrees of adaptability, resilience and innovation. How your organization creates and sustains a culture of continuous learning and growth will be essential to ensuring its continued relevance. If we don’t continually seek to learn, we cease to grow and live.
