LUMINARY PERSPECTIVE
Slowing Down to Go Fast
How often have you wanted to slow down, take time to think, regroup, and recharge? With the demands and fast pace in which life and business move, there just never seemed to be enough time—until the COVID-19 pandemic hit with a hurricane-like impact and forced us to pause, slow down, or even stop. We learned to pivot, transition, reassess our priorities, and eventually redefine our next normal. Additionally, how we work, where we work, and our work priorities were drastically altered. As our profession enters the aftermath of the pandemic, we have an opportunity to reinforce the foundational elements that have sustained our industry, while also examining the proficiencies and mindsets required to move successfully into our future.
This reminds me of the movie series The Expendables. In the first two installments, the core group carried out the missions, but in the third sequel, new and younger-generation members were recruited to work with the original team. Old traditions gave new meaning to innovative practices, compromise, and adaptation as the team worked collaboratively to create new approaches and overcome the enemy.
It is an honor to be invited to contribute my thoughts as a luminary. My perspective from years of experience is fraught with memories of the many disruptions I’ve experienced and the necessity to change my thinking to make way for different attitudes, approaches, and skills. The pandemic allowed us a glimpse of what transformational, unexpected change looks like, and now we can, with eyes wide open, proactively focus on the changes necessary to navigate this new frontier.
Imagine receiving a dollar for every time you’ve heard or seen the phrase “In these uncertain, unprecedented times!” As learning professionals, we’ve heard it a lot, and it’s our duty and obligation to be the change agents we expect others to be, regardless of our role or position. Bottom line, it’s time to step up our game.
Eighteen months ago, I had never delivered a virtual class or conducted a strategic retreat on Zoom. My core content was primarily focused on culture, leadership, and learning strategies. Through client demands and challenges faced by changes in the learning community, I have now shifted most of my activities toward research, content, and facilitation on humanity and civility themes with an emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion. As a result, my network has expanded significantly; I’ve attended virtual conferences, workshops, groups, book clubs, and discussion groups without leaving my home office.
How was this possible while being isolated at home? My options were to mourn the loss of my active lifestyle centered on travel and social interactions, or to shift my mindset and attitude toward future possibilities. And that mindset helped me take myself, my business, and my relationships to a much higher level than before.
My hope is that you’ve had a similar experience and found that silver lining amid the crises endured by so many. For me, the past two years have been a real opportunity to reset, rejuvenate, and heal.
My goal in this section is to stimulate and challenge you to think about how we as talent and L&D professionals face this new future and lead the way as we develop new proficiencies and mindsets that help us meet the current and future needs of those who are depending on our expertise, guidance, and support.
Change at Warp Speed
While we know that change is constant, we’re now experiencing change on steroids. For example:
• How we work, learn, and interact has led to a more virtual existence, both personally and professionally, so there is a need to adapt training access, tools, and technology.
• More awareness around mental health issues and challenges—including depression, social isolation, and stress—creates the need for an emphasis on wellness and well-being, empathy, safety, mindful training, and resources to accommodate employee emotional and physical needs.
• Some work roles are being replaced with technology and require retraining and rapid reskilling.
• Training and resources must meet changing customer needs and expectations.
• DEI practices are being integrated into TD processes, curriculums, and systems.
• People are taking greater ownership of their skills and learning opportunities through mobile, immersive technologies (AI, AR, VR), microlearning, videos, podcasts, and game-based learning.
• There is a growing influence of Gen Z and TikTok-type learning content.
There are obviously upsides and downsides to remote working. Every organization must determine how to accommodate the needs and desires of their workforce while also doing what’s best for the business. These changes are causing an urgency to expand our thinking about ways to create a more personalized learner experience model. A recent Accenture report, The Future of Work: Productive Anywhere, emphasized that “it’s less about a place and more about people’s potential.”
Several years ago, on a dare, I stepped out of my comfort zone and found the courage to go skydiving with friends. After a brief, just-in-time training session, we ascended to 10,000 feet and I found myself standing in the door of the plane, heart racing, breathing labored, and fear mounting as the countdown to my ejection neared. Upon descent, the free fall felt like it would never end and as the ground rose to meet me, I took control and pulled the cord to open the chute. In that moment I was laser focused, armed with the new skills I had just acquired in the pre-jump training, which allowed me to center my mindset on the peaceful journey and ultimately landing on the designated drop-zone target. I share this story because that’s what it currently feels like to be a TD professional. We are in a seeming free fall and our very survival requires courage, a shift in attitude, and acquisition of new skills—we’re being called upon to step out of our comfort zone.
In this section of the handbook, my colleagues provide details on required forward-focused proficiencies and attitudes necessary to remain relevant in this new training and TD environment. Heed these lessons and you will have a much smoother transition.
Have the Courage to Jump
There are several resources that support the notion that the time is now for TD and L&D professionals to go beyond the status quo and leap to the future:
• Skillsoft’s Mind the Gap report states that 48 percent of L&D professionals believe their team is currently under-skilled to deliver what is needed for their business today.
• Emerald Works’s 2020 Back to the Future report finds that 39 percent of the L&D profession is overwhelmed and under-equipped, up from 29 percent in 2019.
• LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report finds that 79 percent of CEOs are concerned that a lack of essential skills is threatening the future growth of their organization.
• McKinsey believes that by 2030, “375 million workers—or roughly 14 percent of the global workforce—may need to switch occupational categories as digitization, automation, and advances in AI continue to disrupt the world of work” (Illanes et al. 2018).
• Deloitte predicts the future of work will involve “superjobs,” making upskilling and reskilling even more critical (Volini et al. 2021).
• A common theme from multiple reports confirms that soft skills are booming. For talent and TD professionals to succeed in the now and beyond, developing and honing soft skills should be a key focus.
Before you jump, do a preliminary assessment using this checklist:
I have the essential skills and tools necessary to navigate workplace changes and new challenges, including analytical research, communication, problem solving, adaptability, empathy, and listening skills.
I have the mindset to embrace courage, confidence, and collaboration.
I know what role I should play in various situations (such as an expert, a pair of hands, or a collaborator).
I have the capability to start, influence, or lead new and innovative initiatives that advance the learning function and align with organizational objectives and strategies.
I am effective in recruiting, influencing, and directing SMEs and other key resources necessary to get desired results.
I am proficient at facilitating content and messages that engage learners and leaders.
I consider and integrate ongoing DEI principles and practices into all current and new initiatives and curriculums.
I am current and confident about my knowledge of digital literacy and technology changes relative to talent development and L&D.
I can contribute insight, knowledge, or creative considerations that affect the organization’s tech strategy or ecosystem.
I have a thirst and an enthusiasm for lifelong learning.
What Happens When You Land on the Designated Target?
One question I ask when facilitating the ATD Managing Learning Programs Certificate course is how the learning function’s strategic plan aligns with the organization’s plan. Most of the course participants report that they have an annual business or budget plan, but very few have an actual strategic plan. How can we focus on the future if we don’t have a vision of what the future looks like? There are numerous benefits to investing the time and effort in developing a strategic plan even if it’s not a required document in your organization. Here are just a few:
• A stronger partnership with senior leaders and clarity of mutually agreed upon outcomes. The need to prove value or ROI is no longer a debate because all decisions are aligned to the business.
• Leadership skills gaps are closed at every level by redesigning the skills and capability frameworks that support working with virtual, hybrid, and individual contributors. There are no more one-and-done, one-shoe-fits-all solutions.
• Learning becomes an active, participative, and rewarding experience as individuals process information into knowledge, values, and skills at their own pace.
• Authentic conversations are facilitated at all levels, addressing individual and organizational bias and creating strategies and processes that support cultures of inclusion.
• Data collection provides insights that lead to action by informing leaders about when and where to invest in people, programs, and projects.
• The organization will have more diverse representation. Training will be instrumental in preparing and enabling necessary skill opportunities for all, not only race and gender, but also other demographics such as age, disabilities, and military veterans.
• The succession bench is developed for the next generation of leadership.
Are You Willing to Shift?
Our real value and leverage come from our willingness to shift our mindset and attitudes. The 2020 Emerald Works Learner Intelligence report shows the disconnect between L&D’s mindset and the practical, on-the-ground practice and outcomes. Our industry is declining in impact while consuming more investment.
According to research by Gallup, the number 1 reason people change jobs is lack of career growth opportunities (Hoogerhuis and Nelson 2018). There is an even greater war for talent as people are considering other factors post-pandemic. If organizations, leaders, and talent professionals don’t change the way they approach learning and development, they cannot expect to attract, retain, or sustain top talent or performance excellence.
Mindset and attitude are fundamental to everything we do—both good and bad. Those who create the most value relinquish control and share responsibility for learning with others. They see others as connected contributors to learning rather than passive recipients of content and training.
Our attitudes drive outcomes, so if your belief is that your purpose is only to fulfill compliance requirements or employee engagement rather than being a critical business function with measurable performance impact, then that becomes your reality.
But if we make the shift and allow the old to make way for the new, we can also align learning with the business.
Let’s be real. As talent and learning professionals, we promote certain principles, but how often do we take the time to personally develop practices that shift our mindset and attitudes? For example, consider Stephen Covey’s seven habits of highly effective people:
• Be proactive.
• Begin with the end in mind.
• Put first things first.
• Think win–win.
• Seek first to understand, then be understood.
• Synergize.
• Sharpen the saw.
Marshall Goldsmith reinforces this concept of continuous improvement in his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. A forward-focused attitude is nonnegotiable if you’re going to stay in the game.
Although we can’t predict the future, certain attitudes will help us feel better prepared when facing it. An attitude can be defined as a predisposition to respond in a favorable or unfavorable way to objects or people in one’s environment. Let’s consider four different types of attitudes and what you might hear:
• Passivity—Status quo until change is imposed.
Our curriculum has been effective for several years, so why change now?
No one is requesting changes, so they must be satisfied.
A needs analysis is very invasive and uncomfortable, so do we really need to do it?
We tried that several years ago and it didn’t work.
I am comfortable in my job and have no desire to change.
• Reactivity—Waiting for fires before acting.
I wish I had more time because there’s no way to get everything done.
It’s policy so there’s nothing I can do.
They really make me mad.
I need … I must … I can’t …
• Pre-activity—Anticipating what can happen before it happens and mitigating the risk factors.
We need to establish a policy to address that before it happens to us.
We need to develop a plan based on what happened with a competitor.
What are some of the obstacles or challenges that we need to consider?
Let’s consider how other organizations are addressing training after the pandemic.
We can learn from others’ best practices.
• Proactivity—Acting before something happens.
A strategic plan will help us achieve our vision and goals.
Let’s assign individuals as project leads to execute our plan.
Let’s enroll the support of senior leaders, SMEs, or other departments.
I take full responsibility to get it done.
We need to work on our organization skills, priority management, being present, and planning ahead.
Let’s look at the alternatives.
After realistically assessing your proficiencies and attitude, are you ready to move into the future of talent development and L&D? How do you need to slow down to go fast?
About the Author
Rita Bailey is the founder and owner of Up to Something, a strategic consulting network focused on humanity, civility, and DEI. She has been actively involved in L&D leadership for more than 25 years as a former head of Southwest Airlines Corporate University, an ATD past chair, and a thought leader, author, speaker, and coach. She has traveled to more than 40 countries, speaking and helping organizations create more people-centric workplaces. Learn more at uptosomething.com or linkedin.com/in/ritabaileyuts.
References
Accenture. 2021. The Future of Work: Productive Anywhere. Accenture. accenture.com/_acnmedia/PDF-155/Accenture-Future-Of-Work-Global-Report.pdf.
Bersin, J. 2020. “The Big Reset Playbook: What’s Working Now.” Josh Bersin, Business Trends, August 26. joshbersin.com/2020/08/the-big-reset-playbook-whats-working-now.
Covey, S.R. 2004. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Free Press.
Emerald Works. 2020. Back to the Future: Why Tomorrow’s Workforce Needs a Learning Culture. Mind Tools.
Hoogerhuis, M., and B. Nelson. 2018. “Why It’s Time to Disrupt the Traditional Approach to L&D.” Gallup, November 8. gallup.com/workplace/244628/why-time-disrupt-traditional-approach.aspx.
Illanes, P., S. Lund, S. Rutherford, and M. Tyreman. 2018. “Retraining and Reskilling Workers in the Age of Automation.” McKinsey Global Institute, January 22. mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/retraining-and-reskilling-workers-in-the-age-of-automation.
LinkedIn Learning. 2020. 2020 Workplace Learning Report. LinkedIn. learning.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/learning/resources/pdfs/LinkedIn-Learning-2020-Workplace-Learning-Report.pdf.
Skillsoft. 2019. Mind the Gap: Upskilling Asia Pacific Employees for the Digital Workplace. Skillsoft. skillsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Bench-Skillsoft-APAC-executive-summary.pdf.
Volini, E. et al. 2021. The Social Enterprise in a World Disrupted. 2021 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends. deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/lu/Documents/human-capital/lu-hc-trends-2021.pdf.
Recommended Resources
Goldsmith, M., and M. Reiter. 2007. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. New York: Hyperion.