This post is by guest blogger Phyllis Weiss Haserot.
Consultant Alan Weiss wrote in his Monday Morning memo (1/9/12): “In corporate strategy, we paint a picture of the future and then “work backwards” to determine how to organize to reach it…. Why don’t we start with a picture of future, productive work forces (knowledge-based, technical skills, globalized, working remotely, diverse stimuli, automated routine chores, etc.) and create both professional and trade education that will support it? Our current cookie-cutter concepts of curricula don’t work now and aren’t preparing students for the future. Organizations don’t reach strategic goals by using techniques that led to old goals. They develop new techniques, resources, and ideas.”
Weiss was referring to education institutions, but what he wrote applies equally to most of the training provided by employers, even leadership and management education. With constant change in the marketplace and a disconnect between the skills of people looking for jobs and the types of skills in short supply, it is necessary for both employer-provided education/professional development and high school, college, graduate school and trade school education to be tied to future vision and global competitiveness needs. We need new definitions of “competence.”
What is being done in your workplace and in your profession to tie training to a strategic vision that will provide growth fueled by a workforce prepared to meet what the marketplace needs now and in the future, not in the past? Is your succession planning truly future oriented to meet the needs of rising generations?
(C) Phyllis Weiss Haserot, 2012.
* Phyllis Weiss Haserot, “the cross-generational voice,” is the president of Practice Development Counsel, a business development and organizational effectiveness consulting and coaching firm working with professional services firms for over 20 years. Phyllis is the author of The Rainmaking Machine” and “The Marketer’s Handbook of Tips & Checklists” (both West/Thomson Reuters 2011) www.pdcounsel.com; blog www.nextgeneration-nextdestination.com.
