The Oct 7-13th issue of The Economist has a special report on "The Search for Talent: Why it's getting harder to find." They claim that the demand for educated knowledge-workers is exceeding the supply of them by large margins. And from my own 15-year tenure in hi-tech, I've seen this with my own eyes. It's true!
This struggle for hiring the talent needed is exacerbated by two additional factors:
- Loyalty is down ... particularly after the downsizing of the 1990s, employees are going to the highest bidder. We only have to look at the epic battles for talent between companies like Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo to see how the "war for talent" is playing out.
- The mismatch between, as the article's author says, "what schools are producing and what companies need." From the perspective that the industrial complex must be fed by our educational system, our educational system is in breakdown.
And add to this picture that, by some counts, half of the top people in America's 500 leading companies - the most talented, educated, and experienced leaders and workers - will retire in the next five years (yet another boomer demographic trend).
So we have a talent gap and it is only going to be widening more over the next five years.
This creates an opportunity for innovation in education of historic proportion. The educational approaches that are used today aren't generating competent graduates fast enough to meet the demands of our businesses, particularly in the areas of knowledge work, must change.
For the most part (yes, this is a generalization), our education system today is based on just-in-case learning. In this approach to learning, students are exposed to a vast array of subjects and problems "just in case" they might need that information or problem-solving ability in the real world.
The value of this approach is that - in theory - graduates have a broad education, their minds have had the opportunity to play in many different fields, and so they are well-rounded people (something my Mom was really big on). Of course, as the clique goes, "All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten." This approach exposes us to a breadth of subjects. But how much is usefully retained (yes, this is the measure of "just-in-case" education!)?
One alternative to just-in-case learning is just-in-time learning. Regarding this distinction, an article from the Knowledge@Wharton "Just-In-Time Education: Learning in the Global Information Age" says,
"The problem with experience, to paraphrase American baseball player Vernon Law, is that it gives the test before the lesson. Students either spend countless hours in classrooms acquiring knowledge that isn't applied until years later (if at all) or they are tested by experience before they even have a chance to learn what they need. Wouldn't it be much better to get the knowledge when and where they need it - in real time?"
In fact, the vast majority of what we have learned - from our parents, siblings, and society - about how to live we didn't learn through formalized just-in-case learning. Instead, the test was given before the lesson, we failed it, we realized what we needed to learn, and then we found out who could teach or coach us in that area.
The article from Wharton suggests that just-in-time learning is characterized by three shifts:
- From standardized to customized education ... learning that teaches to the test of experience, the test of what a particular student really needs given what they already know
- From passive to active learning ... learning that engages the whole person in action, not just the left hemisphere of an immobile brain
- From fixed to fluid time and place ... learning beyond the boundaries of the class time in a classroom - learning anywhere anytime
Coaching is a new discourse of learning that is more in the vein of just-in-time learning. The need for coaching is growing stronger and stronger year after year.
Of particular concern ... how will we cope with the lack of leadership talent? How can we develop the leaders that we need? We need a new way - an accelerated way - to develop leaders.
But I'll save that for another time.
Take care,
-Steve
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