Paul's Update Special 10/27

Building the civilized workplace

Building the civilized workplace Nasty people don’t just make others feel miserable; they create economic problems for their companies.

Lars Dalgaard is CEO and cofounder of SuccessFactors, one of the world’s fastest-growing software companies—and the fastest with revenues over $30 million. Dalgaard recently listed some milestones that his California-based company passed in its first seven years:

• the use of its software by more than two million employees at over 1,200 companies around the world
• the use of its software by employees speaking 18 languages in 156 countries
• growth three times that of the company’s nearest competitor
• enthusiastic recommendations of the product by nearly all customers
• dramatically low employee turnover
• employing no jerks

That’s right—no jerks. All the employees SuccessFactors hires agree in writing to 14 “rules of engagement.” Rule 14 starts out, “I will be a good person to work with—not territorial, not be a jerk.” 

Employees aren’t expected to be perfect, but when they lose their cool or belittle colleagues, inadvertently or not, they are expected to repent. As Dalgaard suggests, there is a business case against tolerating nasty and demeaning people. Companies that put up with jerks not only can have more difficulty recruiting and retaining the best and brightest talent but are also prone to higher client churn, damaged reputations, and diminished investor confidence. Innovation and creativity may suffer, and cooperation could be impaired, both within and outside the organization—no small matter in an increasingly networked world.

The workplace jerk definition I use is this: do people feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled after talking to an alleged jerk? In particular, do they feel worse about themselves? I’ve listed 12 common ways workplace jerks do their dirty work; 

Nasty interactions have a far bigger impact on the mood of people who experience them than positive interactions do. 

At the workplaces that enforce the no-jerks rule most vehemently and effectively, an employee’s performance and treatment of others aren’t seen as separate things. Jerks are dealt with immediately: they quickly realize (or are told) that they have blown it, apologize, reflect on their nastiness, ask for forgiveness, and work to change their ways. Repeat offenders aren’t ignored or forgiven again and again—they change or depart.

Five intertwined practices are useful for enforcing the no-jerks rule.

1. Make the rule public by what you say and, especially, do
2. Weave the rule into hiring and firing policies
3. Teach people how to fight
4. Apply the rule to customers and clients too
5. Manage the little moments. People must treat the person in front of them, right now, in the right way, and they must feel safe to point out when their peers and superiors blow it. 

The most important single principle for building a workplace free of jerks, or to avoid acting like one yourself, is to view being a jerk as a kind of contagious disease. Once disdain, anger, and contempt are ignited, they spread like wildfire. A swarm of jerks creates a civility vacuum, sucking the warmth and kindness out of everyone who enters and replacing them with coldness and contempt.

The fastest path to change can often be found by looking backward.

The fastest path to change can often be found by looking backward. Mike Myatt Change, CEO self-reflection and why brutal honesty is the key to unlocking performance in the future.

I have always believed that the fastest path to the future is found through increasing velocity of change. I also believe increasing velocity of change is best accomplished by slowing down. By nature, being a CEO is a forward-looking endeavor. But what if I told you most CEOs are looking in the wrong direction? What if the fastest path to the future is found looking backward and not forward?

I was recently asked, what would I do differently as a leader if I could turn back time? Over the years, I have learned that brutal honesty regarding self-reflection is the key to unlocking better performance in the future.

However, most CEOs left to their own devices will often pursue the wrong path to the future. The truth of the matter is that change always begins with a harsh critique of the past and the present. The best CEOs live in this world—they are purpose driven and not ego driven. They know that it’s not about who’s right, but what’s right. They understand that beating their competition to the future is directly tied to their personal, professional, organizational and global levels of awareness. Intellectual acuity is nice, but intellectual honesty is essential.

So, when I was asked the question, what would I do differently? the following is how I answered:

• I’d surrender faster and replace myself sooner.
• I’d control less and influence more.
• I’d spend more time as student and less time as teacher.
• I’d develop talent earlier and faster.
• I’d free people from boxes, not place them in boxes.

You can turn back time anytime you choose to do so. The question is, do you have the patience and the courage it takes to step back as a springboard for leaping forward?

A new generation of workers is rising up the ranks and redefining the Future of Work as we know it

A new generation of workers is rising up the ranks and redefining the Fu... Generation Z is starting to enter the workplace – “the first tribe of true digital natives” that are more techno...

The changing business environment and the growing presence of new generations in the workplace offers challenges for management. But to compete in the global, 24/7 business culture of today, there are certain avenues to explore:

• Revise feedback mechanisms
  Look at introducing more informal, frequent meetings that encourage real-time, substantive recommendations in favor of annual reviews that are so often skewed towards recent work and goals that aren’t communicated effectively.
  
  
• Create opportunities for constant skill-building and continuous learning
  Young workers love a challenge. Constant learning was a feature of the tech they grew up with and they see no reason to stop learning just because they land a job. At the other end of the scale, employers must look at reskilling their older employers, retraining them in new areas and offering them new opportunities to consider.
  
  
• Think about the physical working space
  Alter the organization’s space to encourage increased communication and collaboration. When senior management is separated by walls, it’s easy for them to be out of touch.
  
  
• Introduce more flexible working
  Managers of the future should recognize that it’s more cost effective and efficient to allow employees to work where and when they like. This new flexibility has a number of advantages for workers and employers alike; such as happier, rested and more motivated staff, reduced office overheads and increased productivity. Recruiting and retaining talent also becomes much easier, as individuals are attracted to roles that allow more flexible working arrangements.
  
  
• Focus on the development of soft skills
  Future success will mean more focus on ‘working learners,’ employees who have the desire and ability to adapt quickly and who have mastered the ‘soft skills’ such as emotional intelligence, flexibility, creativity and persuasion. There should be less emphasis on hard, technical skills when hiring.
  
  
• Encourage exercise to positively impact physical wellbeing
  Employees of all ages should be encouraged to look after their physical wellbeing. Whether that’s by bringing in early morning yoga sessions, introducing free fruit in the office or setting up a lunchtime running club, it’s important that employees have a healthy body and mind to cope with the constant demands of the workplace. 

Richard Thaler Talks About Silly (but Serious) Things

Richard Thaler Talks About Silly (but Serious) Things Jeff Sommer The Nobel Prize winner talks about quirks, nudges and “fun money,” all staples of the field he helped create, be...

A fun read.

Paul's Update Special 10/20

What Science Says About Identifying High-Potential Employees

What Science Says About Identifying High-Potential Employees Look for ability, social skills, and drive.

Scientific studies have long suggested that investing in the right people will maximize organizations’ returns. In line with Pareto’s principle, these studies show that across a wide range of tasks, industries, and organizations, a small proportion of the workforce tends to drive a large proportion of organizational results, such that:

• the top 1% accounts for 10% of organizational output
• the top 5% accounts for 25%, of organizational output
• the top 20% accounts for 80% of organizational output

Careful research over many jobs and across many organizations in multiple industries highlights a clear pattern: the payoff from employing top talent — defined as the vital few who account for the biggest chunk of organizational output — increases as a function of job complexity.

It is also noteworthy that talented employees are “force multipliers”, raising the performance bar for their colleagues, and particularly for their direct reports. By word and deed, they model and teach winning behaviors that shape high-performing cultures. Simply adding a star performer to a team boosts the effectiveness of other team members by 5-15%. No wonder, then, that study after study shows stronger financial performance in companies that make proportionally greater investments in identifying and developing top talent.

If we are going to invest in the right employees, what are the key indicators that signal star potential?In our view, interventions should focus on predicting who is likely to become a key driver of organizational performance. That is, they should define future stars as the people who will “consistently generate exorbitant output levels that influence the success or failure of their organizations.’’ Fortunately, science reveals that regardless of the context, job, and industry, such individuals tend to share a range of measurable qualities, which can be identified fairly early in the process. 

Ability

The first category concerns indications that an individual is able to do the job in question. In forecasting potential to excel in a bigger, more complex job at some point in the future, the question is how likely an individual is to be able to learn and master the requisite knowledge and skill. The single-best predictor of this is IQ or cognitive ability. Learning ability includes a substantial cognitive component but also the motivation to pick up new knowledge and skills fast and flexibly. Potential for performing in a leadership role at the executive level requires strategic thinking and the ability to adapt an organization for the long-term future. In addition to raw intellectual horse power, this involves vision and imagination, as well as an entrepreneurial mindset. Thus early indicators of the ability for senior organizational leadership would also include creativity and a knack for systems thinking.

Social skills

The next big category reflects the growing significance of team work and collaboration in modern organizations. At a basic level, employees have to be able to get along and earn the support of supervisors and coworkers. Social skills involve two fundamental abilities: Employees likely to succeed in bigger, more complex jobs are first able to manage themselves — to handle increased pressure, deal constructively with adversity, and act with dignity and integrity. Secondly, they are able to establish and maintain cooperative working relationships, build a broad network of contacts and form alliances, and be influential and persuasive with a range of different stakeholders. And for senior roles, they have to be able to develop sophisticated political skills — the ability to read an audience, decode the unspoken rules, and find solutions that satisfy the often competing interests of key power brokers.

Drive

The third category concerns the will and motivation to work hard, achieve, and do whatever it takes to get the job done. It is easily identified as work ethic and ambition. Ability and social skill may be considered talent; but potential is talent multiplied by drive as this will determine how much ability and social skills get put to use.

In sum, most organizations could probably upgrade their talent identification processes if they keep things simple and focus on these three generic markers of potential. Not many employees are highly able, socially skilled, and driven — but if you bet on those who are, which involves evaluating these qualities as accurately as you can, you will end up with a higher proportion of future stars who will contribute disproportionately to the organization. 

A CEO action plan for workplace automation

A CEO action plan for workplace automation Senior executives need to understand the tactical as well as strategic opportunities, redesign their organizatio...

Senior executives need to understand the tactical as well as strategic opportunities, redesign their organizations, and commit to helping shape the debate about the future of work.

Senior executives have two critical priorities in this world. First is to gain an appreciation for what automation can do in the workplace. While cost reduction, mainly through the elimination of labor, attracts most of the headlines and generates considerable angst, our research shows that automation can deliver significant value that is unassociated with labor substitution, for example, helping companies get closer to customers, improve their industrial operations, optimize knowledge work, better understand Mother Nature, and increase the scale and speed of discovery in areas such as R&D.

As leaders consider this wide range of possibilities, they have a second priority, which is to develop an action plan. That plan should include a view of both tactical and strategic opportunities for their companies, a blueprint for building an organization in which people work much more closely with machines, and a commitment to helping shape the important, ongoing debate about automation and the future of work.

Automation is enabling companies to make the following far-reaching set of moves:

Get closer to customers. 

Affectiva, a Boston-based company, uses advanced facial analysis to monitor emotional responses to advertisements and other digital-media content, via a webcam. Citibank works with Persado, a start-up that uses AI to suggest the best language for triggering a response from email campaigns. The results are a purported 70 percent increase in open rates and a 114 percent increase in click-through rates. And Kraft used an AI-enabled big data platform to reinvent its Philadelphia Cream Cheese brand by better understanding the preferences of different consumer segments.

Improve industrial operations. 

GE uses machine-learning predictive-maintenance tools to halve the cost of operations and maintenance in certain mining activities and so extend the life of its existing capital. Rio Tinto has deployed automated haul trucks and drilling machines at its mines in Pilbara, Australia, where it says it has seen a 10 to 20 percent increase in utilization in addition to lower energy consumption and better employee safety.

Optimize knowledge work. 

It’s becoming more common for a software robot to receive a user ID, just like a person, and then to perform rules-based tasks such as accessing email, performing calculations, creating documents and reports, and checking files. Besides scalability and higher throughput and accuracy, the results include built-in documentation of transactions for audit, compliance, and root-cause analyses. Meanwhile, numerous financial institutions and other companies deploy robotic process automation to collect and process data.

Harness the power of nature. 

Land O’Lakes’ WinField United compiles data on US crops to help farmers make key decisions throughout the year, including which seeds to purchase, soil and nutrient requirements, and yield potential. Meanwhile, the Coca-Cola Company’s Black Book model uses algorithms to predict weather patterns and expected crop yields to inform procurement plans for their Simply Orange juice brand, so that no matter what the quality and quantity of the crops, they can be blended to replicate the desired taste. The model also enables the company to overhaul its plans within minutes if weather conditions threaten to damage crops.

Increase scale and speed. 

The potential for AI-enabled automation to create scale, boost throughput, and eliminate errors creates a range of opportunities for discovery in R&D. For example, GlaxoSmithKline’s machine-learning-enabled model-selection process helps the company analyze many times more models in a matter of weeks as it could in several months using traditional processes. In the automotive industry, Nissan has cut in half the time it takes to move from final product design to production, thanks to digital and automation. And BMW has reduced machine downtime significantly in some of its plants through AI-enabled condition-based maintenance, effectively generating fresh economies of scale with minimal investment.

This dizzying array of possibilities makes it critical for today’s CEO to develop an automation action plan. A good one will include the three following components.

A tactical and strategic view of the opportunities

As leaders seek to plan and prioritize what they might achieve with automation, they must grapple with two imperatives. First is to examine their current business systems to identify which components will benefit not just from labor savings but from improvements in speed, quality, flexibility, and service. 

The second imperative is for leaders to look beyond their current business processes and start imagining how automation will enable them, and others, to make bolder moves. The question to ask: How could a disruptive competitor or a player along the value chain use automation to upend your business model?

A plan for integrating automation into the workplace

The workplace norm for years to come will be people working alongside machines, with profound implications for the way the workforce is structured and organized. Companies will of course have to recruit automation-savvy talent, from experts in sensory or pattern-recognition technologies or natural language processing, to data scientists able to interpret and integrate massive amounts of information, to roboticists who can build, train, and repair intelligent machines. 

Simultaneously, however, many workers will need retraining to acquire new skills, focusing on those activities that machines have yet to master, and learning to work more closely with machines. Frequent redeployment, with people shifting to new roles and tasks, will also be a feature of the workplace as automation gathers pace and processes are transformed.

A commitment to participating in a broader dialog on the future of work

For all the positive effects, many questions about the impact of automation on society remain unanswered, particularly regarding employment and incomes. In the past, technological progress has not resulted in long-term mass unemployment, because it also has created additional, and new, types of work. We cannot know for sure whether these historical precedents will be repeated. But we do know that business leaders will be at the forefront of what is afoot as they move to embrace automation. They will be drafting the blueprints of the automated workplace, the first to understand which new skill sets will be needed, which old workplace orthodoxies will be obsolete, and how machines and humans will work together. It falls to them, therefore, to take what they have learned beyond their corporate walls and engage in a broader dialogue to help shape the future. 

That may mean pressing home to policy makers the urgency of investing more, not less, in human capital at the very time that machines are taking on more activities. It may mean working alongside educators to pinpoint skill gaps and help establish priorities, as well as funding mechanisms, for lifelong-learning programs that address the needs of workers changing employers more frequently. It may even mean helping to assess the need for new mechanisms that support transitions between employers, and help workers whose wage levels are threatened by automation.

The point is, executives’ vantage point gives them an important voice in the future-of-work debate that needs to be heard if the value of automation is to be captured at the same time as its challenges are addressed.

The Rise of Behavioral Economics and Its Influence on Organizations

The Rise of Behavioral Economics and Its Influence on Organizations Nobel winner Richard Thaler changed how we think about human behavior.

Richard Thaler, the University of Chicago professor who just won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, has inspired scholars across different disciplines and fundamentally changed the way we think about human behavior. He is considered the father of behavioral economics — a relatively new field that combines insights from psychology, judgment, and decision making, and economics to generate a more accurate understanding of human behavior.

Among his many achievements, Thaler inspired the creation of behavioral science teams, often call “nudge units,” in public and private organizations around the globe. Nudges can solve all sorts of problems governments and businesses alike consider important. Here are some examples.

A few years ago, for instance, General Electric’s leaders wanted to address the issue of smoking, believing that it impacted its employees negatively. So, in collaboration with Kevin Volpp and his co-authors, they conducted a randomized controlled trial (think: field experiment). Employees in the treatment group each received $250 if they stopped for six months and $400 if they stopped for 12 months. Those in the control group did not receive any incentive. The researchers found that the treatment group had three times the success rate of the control, and that the effect persisted even after the incentives were discontinued after 12 months. Based on this work, GE changed its policy and started using this approach for its then-152,000 employees.

In research that Thaler himself conducted, defaults were used to increase employees’ savings rates by automatically increasing the percentage of their wage devoted to saving. This is a program called “Save More Tomorrow” (SMarT). SMarT program participants increased their saving rates from 3.5% to 13.6% over the course of 40 months, on average, while savings rates remained stagnant for those who did not participate in the program.

Smoking, savings, honesty, and healthy eating may not be items on your list of problems to address or areas where you’d like to see improvements in your own behavior or the actions of people you manage or lead. But no matter what concerns you, adopting a nudge, as Thaler and the many scholars who followed his approach to research tell us, may lead to a powerful change for the better. It just requires an acknowledgment that human behavior is full of anomalies.

Paul's Update Special 10/13

A framework for understanding the future of work

A framework for understanding the future of work Posted by John Hagel III and Jeff Schwartz on September 27, 2017. In a recent issue of Deloitte Review, John Hag...

In a recent issue of Deloitte Review, John Hagel, Jeff Schwartz, and Josh Bersin suggest a framework for understanding the future of work and its implications for individuals, organizations, and governments.

HR Times: How did the framework come about? What led you to create it?

John Hagel: We were seeing more and more discussion of the future of work, from mass media to conferences and from corporate boardrooms to lunchrooms. We were struck by how very fragmented the discussions were. Our sense was that they were losing the interdependencies, and that to really understand the future of work and the opportunities it presents, you need to view it holistically, not in fragments. We were also struck by how much the discussion was dominated by fear: ‘Robots are going to steal our jobs.’ Our view is that, while it’s certainly a challenge, there’s actually enormous opportunity, but only if we understand the whole domain.

Jeff Schwartz: We recognized that to help individuals and leaders understand the future of work, we needed to get an integrated picture. As Tom Friedman said in his interview, jobs are being redesigned around technology, and jobs and work are being separated from companies. So what does that mean for individuals and businesses and HR and government?

HRT: It does sound sweeping. What can our readers do, as HR leaders, to get a handle on it? What are some concrete things to consider?

JS: The questions about how we redesign work and jobs and reimagine learning—how we use technology and emphasize the essentially human things we can do—present a seismic opportunity for HR leaders at every level. With exponential technologies, we’re looking for 10x improvements in productivity. But the question is, what are the 10x improvements in employee experience and 21st-century careers?

HRT: This sounds like maybe a different role for HR. What should HR leaders be doing to operate at this level?

John: Obviously, it goes beyond just changes in hiring practices or performance ratings into really all aspects of the institution. HR leaders need to look ahead. You have to be willing to look ahead and try to imagine where this is going. What forces are shaping this, and what could we be doing in order to take advantage of it?

In terms of what can HR leaders do early on to get some traction and start to demonstrate impact, one of the big things we’re proponents of is applying design thinking and methodologies to the work environment to accelerate learning and performance improvement. We’re not saying redesign everything tomorrow, but take one frontline work environment that can be particularly pivotal in terms of driving the performance of the company. Start thinking about how you would redesign that work environment to accelerate learning, and be very explicit about the metrics of performance improvement that would tell you whether you’re on track or not.

JS: That design thinking piece of reimagining learning and performance and work in an exponential environment is spot on. The other thing I would encourage HR leaders to understand is that there are couple of things going on at the meta level. So if I were advising an HR leader—by the way I say something similar to almost any C-suite leader—I’d say you need to understand exponential technologies and you need to understand convergence.

Right now no one in the company is looking at the different kinds of learning going on: there’s machine learning, individual learning, and ongoing, workplace learning. So machine learning is over in technology and individual learning is over in the L’D group, and we’re not really sure anybody is thinking about workplace learning (we’re trying to encourage people to shine the light over there). But if HR leaders can really wrap their thinking and their entrepreneurship in the organization around machine learning, individual learning, and workplace learning, there’s an exponential play there, and a convergence play there. The future of work is about people and smart machines working next to and with each other.

HRT: When you say “workplace learning,” what do you mean?

JH: Our view is that the learning that is most important and most powerful in an exponential world is learning in the form of creating new knowledge, not just accessing existing knowledge that you get in a lecture or training video. It’s about how you get work groups who are confronting an unexpected situation, maybe it’s never been seen before, to figure out how to creatively and imaginatively address it—that is creating new knowledge, through action. And then come back from that saying ‘Wow, what we did was pretty amazing. What we did is something new and different.’ 

HRT: Are there things people can be doing as individuals to try to prepare for this future?

JH: One of my key messages to individuals in this changing world is to find your passion and integrate your passion with your work.

JS: The next years belong to people who understand curiosity and understand how to pursue curiosity and actually learn and explore new things. Being comfortable with learning and newness is critical. I encourage people—particularly young people—to pursue their passion, and if they can combine passion in different fields, architecture and economics or biology and medicine and theater, that’s even better. It’s my guess that people who are comfortable in these convergent/divergent situations will be better prepared.

HRT: Getting back to that scary element: Will I have a job? How will I make a living? Are people right to be afraid?

JH: We’re ultimately optimists on this in the sense that the way we’ve defined work in the past is in terms of tightly specified tasks, highly standardized tasks, and tightly integrated tasks.

To be provocative, I would suggest that all of those jobs are going to go away. Robots and machines are much more efficient in work that is tightly specified, highly standardized, and tightly integrated. However, it becomes a catalyst to ask, ‘What can we as human beings really harness in terms of our unique capabilities?’ And it goes back to what we were talking about earlier in terms of curiosity, creativity, imagination, emotional intelligence, and harnessing those to both solve problems and creatively identify new opportunities.

We as human beings have a great need to bring those characteristics out in all of us. And on the other side, as consumers, I think we’re going to have increasing demand for highly creative, individualized, rapidly evolving kinds of products and services that machines can help with. But, ultimately, it’s going to be up to us to come up with the creative ideas and find creative ways of reaching the marketplace. I think that’s going to be the Big Shift in terms of redefining work.

Why We Need To Design Work To Feel Like An Experience And Not Like A Transaction

Why We Need To Design Work To Feel Like An Experience And Not Like A Tra... An organization that can foster an experiential attitude that facilitates growth will reap the benefits in its e...

Psychologist Tom Gilovich did a study on how satisfaction changes over time when you spend money on a physical item versus an experience. He found that if you spend money on a tangible item, over time your satisfaction goes down. However, if you spend that money on an experience, over time your satisfaction goes up.

But how does this apply to the workplace? Work can translate to showing up and getting your work done just to secure a paycheck. It tends to be less authentic, personal, and sincere, with employees not really putting the effort in to build relationships because they are only there for the money. According to Dr. Gilovich's study, this leads to job satisfaction going down over time.

On the flip side, viewing work as an experience tends to lead to high levels of satisfaction and much more engaged employees. If employees view their time with an organization as an experience, they will put more effort into their work and relationships. Experiences grow and change over time and leave employees with changed feelings, growth opportunities, and new emotions over time. That leads to increased satisfaction over time as the employee grows in the organization and become more connected to the company.

Consider how you view your time at work--is it a transaction where you show up for a paycheck, or is it an experience where you grow and learn? What can your organization do to foster an experiential attitude that facilitates growth instead of turning work into a transactional daily grind? Changing the attitude of the company and the employees can have a big impact.

The Thing People Forget About Accountability

The Thing People Forget About Accountability Accountability doesn't happen by chance, it happens by design

It's true that accountability starts at the top, and that if leaders don't walk the talk, and meet their commitments, it will be almost impossible to create a culture of accountability. But, if you truly want to create a culture of accountability you have to HOLD people accountable.

Most leaders, seem to forget this piece.

If people continually fail to deliver, then you will need to confront them about it if you really want to improve their performance.

Here are three things you can do to introduce a culture of accountability that will help make it feel easier for you.

1. Approach accountability from a position of support.
   Don't think of implementing accountability as something where it's all about holding people accountable, think of it as being supportive of them. It's about putting them in a position to succeed, which is really the essence of good leadership.
   
   
2. Let people know they will be held to account.
   You need to let your teams know that they are going to be held accountable, and do this by informing them up front. Competing and conflicting things can crop up, but letting them know that you will be checking to see the progress made, helps to keep them more focused and this work in priority.
   
   
3. Regularly review performance, where you offer support or praise.
   Once you have let people know that there will be reviews you need to be religious about having them. Make them a standard part of the working culture.

Accountability doesn't happen by chance, it happens by design.

Yes, you need to be a role model for accountability, but you also need to hold people to account. Implementing this in a way that is up front, visible and supportive will help it to be perceived as a positive step, which will help drive accountability as part of your company culture.

Paul's Update Special 10/6

Learning innovation in the digital age

Learning innovation in the digital age As the workplace changes, so must education and training. Exciting experiments are under way--but are they enough?

As technology transforms the workplace, the need for innovation in learning and development is urgent. In a series of recent discussions, members of the Consortium of Advanced Adult Learning & Development (CAALD)—a group of learning authorities whose members include researchers, corporate and nonprofit leaders, and McKinsey experts—recently met in Boston for the second year in a row.

In a series of discussions, CAALD explored what is, and isn’t, being done to innovate in these fields. Many CAALD experts were skeptical about the ability of universities to respond rapidly enough. Some also suggested that as the workplace changes, the role of the college degree will shift as well—and that its value could even decline. Fortunately, innovation is taking place both at universities and businesses, including AT&T, edX, Microsoft, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Participants described the potential of these and other developments. And they agreed that while some companies are ready to explore new ways of developing talent, sorting through the options is complex and time consuming. The rapid growth of the gig economy creates additional challenges—and opportunities—for innovation efforts.

Here we present edited excerpts of these experts’ reflections, which build on related CAALD discussions exploring artificial intelligence and the future of work.

Inertia in higher education

Jason Palmer, general partner, New Markets Venture Partners:
Our higher-education system is 25 years behind the curve. There needs to be a new set of institutions and programs that are jointly owned and managed by corporations or industry.

Betsy Ziegler, chief innovation officer, Kellogg School of Management:
One of the flaws of the American higher-education system is that once you cross the graduation stage, we largely sever the relationship with you—with the exception of viewing you as a donor. Your connection and loyalty to the school haven’t changed but the relationship with the institution has. At Kellogg, we say, “Congratulations” and give them a discount off executive-education programs and lifelong access to the career-management center. But we do nothing with respect to “how are your skills and capabilities changing over time? And what can we do to help you meet these needs?”

Misaligned incentives

Beth Davies, former director of learning and development, Tesla:
I remember talking to some community colleges that we were working with. I was asking them about creating a certificate program, say, for manufacturing engineers. And they were a bit reticent because their funding is based on completion rate.

Lee Rubenstein, vice president of business development, edX:
Think about that—the North Star there isn’t the student, it’s the funding.

The matter of degrees

Kris Clerkin, managing partner, Volta Learning Group:
A degree is not really a great proxy for meaningful skills. When you look at a transcript, it has a list of courses, but those don’t necessarily show skills or competencies. That said, degrees are a recognized credential; employers use them as a signal. Plus, there’s a yearning for them. It’s part of the American narrative. For me, it’s more like “let’s figure out how to do this better, in a way that works for employers and students. Let’s not throw out everything that we have, but find more flexible ways of providing recognizable value of competency more quickly, in smaller units that build to degrees.”

Katie Coates, senior learning-solutions expert, McKinsey & Company:
I do think people want degrees. They want them because there isn’t an alternative. And they want them because they want some marker.

In search of alternatives

Lee Rubenstein:
Leaders need to understand and value the alternative credentials that are available. If I’m an employer, I need to be saying, “Here are the 12 competencies that I need you to get. I don’t care where you get them. You don’t need to spend $200,000 in four years to go do that. You just need to show us some proof.”

The idea that you enter at the bottom and four-plus years later you end at the top and you’re done is a fiction. It doesn’t mean anything anymore. Learners need to be able to enter at any different point along the way, take what they need, and get going to do whatever it is they wanted to do. We have to try to find a way to help alternative credentials become a currency among learners that is respected and valued by employers.

Lynda Gratton:
What we’re describing at the moment is an either/or. Either you do a degree or you do other programs. But, actually, people can do both. You simply have to say, “These are the skills that you need.”

Beth Davies:
When I joined Tesla, in 2011, there were 800 employees. There were over 30,000 when I left. In five years, I think, organizations like Tesla will be saying, “Of course, we hire people with any kind of meaningful credentials, regardless of degrees. It’s a done deal.” Organizations cannot grow at rates like these and not make this change. You cannot find all of these people by only following traditional means. We’ll find the people through nontraditional means. At some point, the nut will get cracked.

Innovation and Experimentation

Lee Rubenstein:
About a year ago, MIT started a new type of course sequence, on edX online, called a MicroMasters. A MicroMasters is usually a four- to five-course sequence that builds a job-skills competency that is endorsed by a corporation and backed by credit. Students who completed a MicroMasters from MIT and then applied and were accepted to the full master’s program at MIT received 50 percent off the cost and time of that MIT master’s program—in supply-chain management. And so if a company was looking for somebody with supply-chain experience, and someone came to it with an MIT MicroMasters, why would a company not value it? For the learner, that’s about a $1,500 investment, while the conventional master’s is $60,000. 

Lynda Gratton:
Microsoft has badges that show an employee has passed an exam or completed certification for a given skill. You can take your badges with you if you leave, too. If I were a talent-rich company, I would want to do the same.

I think more companies are going to do this kind of “badging,” and this will be part of their recruitment and retention process. At the same time this idea of badging spreads, I also think we’re going to see more and more configurations where a business has solved part of the puzzle. LinkedIn, say, knows what skills you’ve got. And Lynda.com, the video-based learning company, has another part. You will see a lot more innovation in this space.

Julia Stiglitz, vice president, Coursera:
At AT&T, they have taken all of their job categories, mapped them onto competencies, and aligned them to learning opportunities. Individuals can go onto a personalized-learning system and see if their jobs are on the decline or on the rise. They can discover jobs that they are interested in, see the associated competencies, and take advantage of learning opportunities that will enable them to make a transition. The transparency of AT&T’s system is remarkable and empowering to employees.

In Silicon Valley, at least when people are hiring engineers, companies don’t care where they went to school. Facebook is hiring people right out of college if they can code. And we have a 14-year-old intern. All these companies care about is that people can code.

Annie McKee, senior fellow, University of Pennsylvania:
Here’s a practical suggestion. In recent years, there have been somewhere between 300,000 to 400,000 skilled manufacturing jobs going begging in the US at any given time. Pick a subset of those in a particular region, then figure out a way to teach the skills and do a test project.

Learning in the gig economy

Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School:
A more diffuse, gig economy will exponentially increase the difficulty of getting people to undertake and complete training. We know it is a huge hurdle under the best of circumstances, and it’s even harder when the learning isn’t contextualized. Coursework is hard for many people, due to time constraints or a lack of interest in traditional learning, but interacting with people or doing on-the-job tasks that develop and use math or computer skills makes learning more pragmatic and attractive. We need to figure out how to line up some of the factors that drive people toward completion and success, even when they don’t work for an organization. 

Tamara Ganc, chief learning officer, Vanguard Group:
I wonder if there is a way to intrinsically motivate the gig worker. EBay, for example, has five-star sellers. Maybe there could be some visual way to display the gig worker’s level of learning—the way they’ve kept up on their craft.

Portia Wu, former assistant secretary, Employment and Training Administration, US Department of Labor:
Some models do that now, such as home healthcare and food safety. People can say, “I’m food-safety certified” or “I have 500 hours with this special-needs population, and I have done this coursework.” That can be seen in a profile, which can help their marketability. You could also have a multiemployer structure where there’s a central entity that says, “Here’s a curriculum that we’ve vetted.” The individual doesn’t have to figure it out.

Claudio Feser, senior partner, McKinsey & Company:
Whether it’s government or self-organized, there is a need for some form of central management of a curriculum or certification to create opportunities. People can’t do it all by themselves.

Twelve Forces That Will Radically Change How Organizations Work: The New New Way of Working

Twelve Forces That Will Radically Change How Organizations Work: The New... Ranging from automation to demographic shifts to the rise of the freelance economy, these forces are revolutioni...

A tidal wave of change is coming that will soon make the way we work almost unrecognizable to today’s business leaders. In an age of rapidly evolving technologies, business models, demographics, and even workplace attitudes—all shifting concurrently—change is not only constant but also exponential in its pace and scope. 

During a comprehensive, yearlong analysis of the global work landscape, The Boston Consulting Group identified 60 major trends propelling this tidal wave, which we’ve grouped into 12 primary forces. These forces, or megatrends, fall into four categories. The first two address changes in the demand for talent: technological and digital productivity and shifts in ways of generating business value. The second two address changes in the supply of talent: shifts in resource distribution and changing workforce cultures and values.

THE NEW AGE OF WORK

What changes will these trends bring? As companies respond to the 12 forces, we expect several key developments in the next few years.

• Companies will develop a more fluid sense of what is inside and what is outside their boundaries.
  They will move beyond rigid distinctions between employees, outside suppliers, and customers, developing platforms to promote collaboration among all stakeholders. Eventually, as value chains break up into networks and platforms, the role of the organization will shift from that of a controller of resources to that of a facilitator of ecosystems and a conduit for realizing individual aspirations.
  
• Speed and agility will be essential to competitiveness.
  Many companies will look to break up entrenched departments and reporting lines, opting to organize work in smaller and more agile interdisciplinary teams. These teams will learn to work in short “sprint” cycles to produce minimal viable products and services, solicit feedback on them, and refine them through rapid iterations. Individuals will rotate among projects, training, internal incubators, and even social impact initiatives. These agile and innovative approaches, along with design thinking and other related methodologies, will soon become the norm, not just in IT (where they originated) but across functions and practices.
  
• Companies will continually develop (and redevelop) their people, so that they are equipped to deal with the tidal wave of change.
  They will also inculcate diversity, inclusion, and flexibility in their corporate DNA. They will shift from HR processes, policies, and systems to problem-solving interactions. And as flexible, cloud-based software replaces traditional documentation and controls, HR will customize its interfaces with employees to better support individual needs and desires.
  
• The increased prevalence of digital technology and artificial intelligence will lead to new job functions and categories—but also to shortages of people with the skills needed to fill those roles.
  Many companies will need to focus more on developing digital skills among their current workers or identifying and recruiting potential new hires. In addition, companies will need digital bridge builders: intermediaries between employees with specialized digital talent and those in nontech roles.

Smart leaders will monitor these changes and experiment with new ways of working that align with their company’s context and capabilities. In addition, they will define their businesses not in terms of their competitive advantages but in terms of the purpose that makes them relevant in a rapidly evolving world.

These 12 trends are complex and interrelated. To cope with them, companies need a well-thought-out strategy that can translate into concrete interventions. Those that do not develop such a strategy may soon find themselves bumping up against nimbler rivals, unable to adapt to the disruption in time.

Jim Collins, Legendary Author of Good to Great, on the Art of Taking Risks | Heleo

Jim Collins, Legendary Author of Good to Great, on the Art of Taking Ris... Heleo Editors Legendary author Jim Collins discusses how to take the right risks, and, above all, how to go from good to great.

Jim Collins recently joined Ryan Hawk, host of The Learning Leader Show, to discuss how to take the right risks, and, above all, how to go from good to great.

Ryan: When you first met with Peter Drucker, he said, “You seem to focus a lot on a question of how to be successful, but that is actually the wrong question. The right question is how to be useful.1” How did that moment shape you?

Jim: One day I get this phone call out of the blue from Peter, [inviting me] to Claremont, California [to] spend the day with him. At the end of the day, he issued that challenge.  I feel like [he] was the ultimate zen master with a bamboo stick because he really did sit there and say, “You seem to spend a lot of time worrying if you will survive, and you will probably survive,” he very kindly told me. And then this thwack moment: “It’s the wrong question! The question is how to be useful.”

That is one of those moments that has guided what I do. I think constantly about the question of how to make myself of best use, also subject to wanting to follow the idea of simplicity.

Ryan: Another story I love is after you finish the manuscript of Good to Great and you ask yourself, “How much would someone have to pay me to not publish Good to Great?” I believe you said you crossed the $100 million threshold because you’re a teacher at heart. What was going through your mind as you’re ready for this book to get published?

Jim: After that meeting with Peter Drucker, I did fully commit to carving my own path. He gave me this wonderful piece of advice, "When you’re taking an entrepreneurial path, sometimes options have negative value. You should not seek an option to be able to return. You should cut off the option because it will change your behavior.”

I made sure that I had no option to return to teaching, and my wife Joanne and I describe it as our Thelma and Louise moment. Once we made that commitment, there was no turning back. Built to Last ended up being read by a lot of CEOs, and that provided some foundation. Then I said to Joanne, “We need to keep creating,” and so, we took all the resources and the good fortune that came from Built to Last and turned around and plowed it all right back into what became Good to Great, and bet again really big. We spent five years on self-funded research with fabulous members of my research team and had stumbled upon a fantastic question: Can you actually turn an established company into a great one? Can a mediocre, average, good company make a breakthrough to become a great company, or at least have a great run?

Ryan: One of the questions that I ask most people I speak with is, what are the common characteristics or virtues of leaders that sustain excellence?

Jim: I am in the process of finishing up a project which looks at the question of producing great K-12 education in our most difficult settings and environments. I’ve been looking at leaders who took schools in our most difficult settings and looking at how they ended up being able to produce great results for the kids, or at least take their schools to a positive inflection.

The unit leader is the key person. I went into the study thinking one of the big questions was going to be how [to] deal with burnout in these really tough settings. To my surprise, this just isn’t a problem for them. Year after year after year, they’re leading at a really high level.

What allows them to keep going, to keep sustaining themselves? There are two things that jump out. The first is, somewhere along the way, you have to find your personal hedgehog. The hedgehog concept is something we wrote about in Good to Great about companies. You focus the energy of the company on the intersection of three circles: what you’re deeply passionate about, what you can be the best in the world at, and what drives your economic engine. What all of these great leaders have in our schools is they somehow relatively early in their life got inside those three circles.

They found their hedgehog, and then once they’re in it, they don’t leave it. They build with it over a long period of time and it becomes a positive reinforcement loop [throughout] life.

Ryan: I’ve had Adam Grant on, and he talks about measured risk. While some entrepreneurs feel like they need to leave themselves with no other option, which is what ultimately worked for you, there are a host of people who got backup jobs, who had a side hustle until it became fully sustainable. How do you [square] those two different approaches?

Jim: Here’s the issue: If you’re going to pursue a low-odds games, the reality is that, at some point, the odds will go to zero if you don’t commit fully. You’re never going to get across the chasm in that Thelma and Louise moment if you’re basically just going to keep yourself tethered to one side. But, that doesn’t mean you’re taking an unfounded leap into the wild beyond. 

Here’s the three mistakes you can make. One: not firing enough bullets to figure out what will actually work. Two: to fire big uncalibrated cannonballs. Or three: when you do have validation, you blink and you don’t fire the cannonball. Once you have empirical validation, you’ve got to place the big bet. That’s the key.

Ryan: Empirical validation may be hard to define. How can people implement this into their daily life?

Jim: Validation is just looking at points of success and saying, “That worked and that worked and I can explain why.” You’re looking for tangible pieces of evidence. Maybe it’s feedback you get from a mentor, maybe it’s some specific things that you’ve done where you say, “Well, that worked better than I thought it would.” It doesn’t matter what arena you’re in, you can basically point to it. 

Ryan: Jim, I know we went over a lot, I really appreciate your time. Is there anything else that you wanted to cover that I may have missed?

Jim: “If I just had three minutes with young people in the world, what would I tell them?” There’s a key concept in Good to Great about first “who,” then “what.” We live in a world that’s full of “whats” right now. “What’s your vision? What’s your strategy? What’s your direction? What’s your career?” It’s all about a bunch of “what’s.”

The thing I come away with from all of our work is to shift as many “what’s” to “who’s as possible.” The question is not what career you’re going to have or what path you’re going to take or what company you’re going to work for. Those are important questions, but they come second. The most important question is “who?” Who are you going to allow to mentor you? Who are you going to work with? Who are you going to spend your life with? Who will you let shape you?

Take care of your people, not your career. I didn’t have to have the answers to the “what’s” if I really paid attention to finding great “who’s” that would help guide me.