Team Tomorrow
According to the World Economic Forum’s most recent Future of Jobs Report (Oct. 2020), a large swath of today’s jobs will be obsolete by 2025.
2025 folks!
If someone told you today that the stock market was going to crash in three years, or that your car was going to breakdown and require thousands of dollars in repairs in three years – would you do something about the situation today, or would you just wait to see if it happens, with the hope that you’ll “figure it out then.”
Too many organizations are operating with the latter strategy (although it can hardly be called a strategy).
If you’re ready to be proactive - here’s one way to be prepared.
Team Tomorrow
Team Tomorrow is made up of a “special” group of individuals in your organization who can help to define the future and what it will take to get there.
The first group to include are your boomers. Boomers are just on the cusp of retiring and right now they hold the most knowledge in your organization. They are good prognosticators because they’ve seen and weathered many ups and downs and have an historical perspective on the organization.
It’s important to capture what they know and the wisdom of their years.
Note: None of the individuals necessarily need to be leaders in the company. In fact, it might be more useful if they are not. People who are not currently leading and strategizing don’t have preconceived notions of the direction of the company.
Team Tomorrow
The rest of your selected group should be made up of individuals of all types
· Different departments/ specialties
· Different age ranges
· Different experiences and exposures to other industries in their prior employment
A great idea is to ask people to apply to Team Tomorrow, with a short application and interview process. They should identify what unique perspective they bring to the discussion and provide at least one “vision” for the future.
You don’t want more than 12 individuals on the team so that team process doesn’t get bogged down, BUT consider swapping out team members every six months or so to keep new ideas flowing. (Suggestion, every six months 3 people rotate off the team and three new people join.)
The Process
The Team Tomorrow process includes three distinct conversations/brainstorming sessions:
1. What is happening in the world / in our industry that may affect us? How can we capitalize on that so that it’s an asset? For instance, the use of robotics and artificial intelligence is a conversation that every organization should be having right now. Computers changed the way most work was done 30 years ago and digitization/robotics/AI is in the midst of doing that again. You don’t want to be playing catch-up. (You need to come at this “what is happening” conversation from many angles: personnel, productivity, government regulations, etc.)
2. The second conversation to have is, What are our competitors doing? You cannot stay in your own bubble and think that you will survive the future. Your organization should constantly be taking the pulse of its competitors to learn from their successes as well as missteps.
3. The final conversation is Who (or what) is complementary to us? In business we’ve been taught to be wary of the competition, but we haven’t been taught to look for alliances with complementary companies. Complementary industries or organizations create synergy and greater outcomes. Why did Microsoft recently buy Activision Blizzard? They are vaguely in the same industry in that people have their hands on a keyboard/device but there must be a greater synergy that hasn’t been revealed yet. This conversation is aided by the team members who have other-industry experience.
Action
The final course of action is to create a vision for the organization 5, 10, and 15 years down the road.
An activity that is often used in coaching is: Picture that you / your organization has won an award ten years from now. What is it for? What does the headline of the WSJ article about you herald? This headline is something tangible that gives the vision substance and helps your employees to know what you are working toward.
Planning for the future is not a one-time event.
You’ll want the Team Tomorrow meetings to continue monthly and to be constantly scanning the horizon for opportunities for excellence both internally and in terms of serving the ever-evolving desires of customers. This is one of the reasons that iPhones have such loyal fans – the folks at Apple keep re-envisioning the future and presenting it to us.
As you are constantly cycling new members and new ideas through Team Tomorrow, you’ll find your organization becomes resilient and forward thinking… making it future-proof.
The Future is Here
Our 2017 book - Future-Proofing Your Organization by Teaching Thinking Skills has just been updated and re-released. Read the new introductory chapter, below!
As I write this update, it is July 2021. A LOT of things have changed since this book first came out in 2017. Most of these changes have occurred in only the last 18 months, due to the global Covid-19 pandemic.
Interestingly, as I re-read the book in preparation for writing this update, I realized that while the content is still 100% spot-on and needed little updating, what HAS changed is the urgency behind our need to improve the skills and capabilities of employees if our organizations want to survive the 21st century. What was predicted to take until 2030 to materialize was compressed into a single year – 2020.
Here is a look at why things have become more urgent.
Mass changes in labor statistics happen very rarely. This is one of those times.
The above quote is from an October 2020 blog piece from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). The article goes on to say, “We are moving from a ‘one manager, one office, 9-5’ world to a ‘fluid, team-based, work-from-anywhere, always-on’ world,” which, in my interpretation, means we need to be confident that our employees are capable of working independently, making intelligent decisions and working with others that they cannot see and perhaps will never meet.
Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, many companies laid off large swaths of their workforces. As the economy recovers, companies will be hiring experienced individuals with unknown thinking skills or younger workers who lack the kind of work experience that enables critical thinking, decision making, and problem solving. Not only will learning and professional development become more critical than it has been in the last twenty years, but companies will need to develop career paths that show new employees “the future” of working with that organization.
Generational Shift
One of the premises discussed in the this book (circa 2017) is that the US Census prediction that all of the Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) would be out of the workplace by 2030 leaving a large leadership void in most organizations given that Gen X (born 1964 and 1980) generally have not been given leadership roles or appropriate leadership development. The Boomer population is so large that most leadership roles in organizations are claimed by Boomers (as they got there first), and many of those Boomers have stayed on past what is considered a “traditional” retirement age, sometimes working well into their 70s - leaving few leadership vacancies or opportunities for Gen X.
The pandemic changed that dynamic nearly immediately. Boomers quickly reassessed their priorities and accelerated their retirement plans. According to Pew Research Center analysis published in November 2020, the number of Boomer-age retirements between September of 2019 and September of 2020 was 3.2 million, up significantly from the 2 million per year that had been holding steady since 2011.
This leaves an immediate and massive void in leadership. The people who had held leadership roles the longest and have the most years of institutional knowledge, wisdom, and experience are gone.
Increase in Technology Use (in Professional Roles)
Another extraordinary development that arose from the pandemic was the widespread and nearly immediate adoption of technology to keep people connected remotely. Platforms such as Zoom, WebEx, Microsoft Teams, and more, suddenly came to the fore, although the technology has been around for decades. Personally, I’ve been using WebEx since 2002.
While the adoption of synchronous technology means people can continue to work while isolated in their homes, it also means that critical thought and creativity may suffer when there is no one there to bounce ideas off of or debate with. Humans are collaborative. We learn faster and make better decisions when we are doing it with others. Lapses in ethics, which one would never dream of when peers are in proximity, become less black-and-white when working in isolation.
And again, how will we teach Gen Z about business protocol if their interactions with peers occur solely online during meetings with tiny boxes that frame people’s faces? How will we coach them to do better work if we cannot see how they are doing their work?
Another concern brought about by technology is that artificial intelligence (AI) is barreling towards us and far from the fear of it eliminating jobs, it’s more likely that we will be able to attain higher-order outcomes through the use of AI. Higher-order outcomes are things such as strategizing, creating, and evaluating… things that AI cannot do. I highly recommend picking up a copy of Margie Meacham’s book: AI in Talent Development which gives great insight into the shifts that will occur in the workplace thanks to AI. At the heart of allowing the humans to do higher-order work, however, is that they must be capable of thinking at more critical and expansive levels than what we have expected from the vast majority of workers in the last 50 years.
Our need to teach thinking skills is urgent.
Career Paths
Prior to the pandemic, unemployment was very low for quite a long time, giving employees the upper hand in the labor market. Companies were so desperate to fill open positions that people were able to easily move from job to job. One reason that Millennials are known to “job hop” is because they value professional development* over other “perks” like pay and flexible schedules. Since few employers have viewed or offered professional development as a business strategy, it has forced Millennials to move to a new employer simply to learn something new.
This is a luxury that neither the employer nor the worker can enjoy any longer.
Not only will the companies who want to retain workers need to implement professional development strategies, but the wisest ones will integrate professional development with career paths, so that when a recruit interviews with your company they not only know the job they will be accepting, but the ones that are possible 3 and 5 and 10 years down the road should they stay with your organization. This will require companies to create career paths that show how professional development leads to increased responsibility and leadership roles.
According to Rachel Carlson, CEO of Guild Education, professional development attracts 25% higher qualified applicants and contributes measurably to retention. “Companies that build careers will be the defining companies for Millennials and Gen Z. For the future.”
* This is something that Gen Z reports is important to them as well, but they haven’t been in the workforce long enough for us to see if this is true.
People Skills are the Domain of… People
Look at the diagram in Chapter 8. It depicts the five learning domains needed for a well-rounded businessperson to develop the thinking skills necessary to be an effective and respected leader in your organization. None of the five can be performed by robots or AI technology.
In October of 2020, the World Economic Forum published their “Future of Jobs Report,” a biennial fiver-year projection of the skills and capabilities that will be needed by employees in order for their organizations to remain viable. (In other words, your folks better have these skills by 2025). 12 of the 15 top skills described in the 2020 report were personal or interpersonal skills. People skills.
As I mentioned above, when rote tasks are accomplished via technology, it is only higher order skills and interpersonal skills that remain the domain of the employee. Unfortunately, after a decade-plus of technology usage – both personally and in our workplaces – we, as a society, have diminished our interpersonal skills. Many of our employees lack the ability to make eye contact, engage in small talk, or constructively deal with conflict. So, in addition to teaching thinking skills and business acumen (see below), organizations will need to redouble their efforts to teach people skills such as communicating verbally and in written form, dealing with conflict, giving and receiving feedback and many, many more.
Check out Chapter 6 for my take on the importance of utilizing mentors and coaches in this regard.
World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report, Oct. 2020 - Employee Skills Needed for 2025
Business Acumen
One of the things I didn’t spend too much time on in the first edition of the book was the importance of developing business acumen, although you’ll find it has equal weight in the diagram in Chapter 8.
Too many people know how to do their job, but not how their job impacts the organization or how their organization fits within their industry as a whole. If we want to build a pipeline of capable businesspeople, they need to understand how the business works. This is business acumen.
This lack of knowledge and sense of being and integral part of a whole is going to be exacerbated by the WFH (work from home) culture, especially as it pertains to young Gen Z workers. A junior accountant is never going to see the trucks coming to the loading dock, or the lab-coated R+D scientists developing the next iteration of your product, if they are sitting at home working on spreadsheets. If their focus is solely on their job, it become interchangeable with any other junior accountant job at any other company. I predict this will lead to high levels of turnover at the entry level and will detrimentally impact critical thinking, decision making, problem solving, and risk taking (which are all informed by business acumen) as well as greatly impact your leadership pipeline.
I’ll conclude this chapter by reiterating a line you’ll find in Chapter 8: Businesses have spent years parsing employee development down to the bare minimum and now must change the mindset to one of providing maximum capability for growth and success in the long term. This was a critical need in 2017 when the book was first published and now it is both critical and urgent.
Future-Proofing Your Organization - Now is the Time to Strike
Companies have downsized dramatically in the last few months. As the economy turns around (as it will) and companies begin to rebuild, the smart-move is to methodically and purposefully build for the future by maximizing the productivity each employee is capable of. To do so, you’ll need a development plan in place before a hiring plan.
Step 1
Don’t think about the skills and positions you need to fill today – think about the ones you need to meet tomorrow. The World Economic Forum just published their 2020 Jobs Report (which looks ahead to the skills that will be needed in the next five years), and of the 15 skills listed, 11 are soft skills like creativity, negotiation, and self management. (Note to job-seekers: these are the key words you’ll want to weave into your resume as well.)
While the skills they list may not align directly with your organization’s needs, you should spend some time identifying not just the skills, but the capabilities of your future workers. This is not an exercise that can be done in ten-minutes nor one that should be considered a “brainstorming activity.” The compilation should be something you let your subconscious work on as you observe present-work and consider where you want your business to be in the future. One idea is to set up a whiteboard or post-it note area and as ideas occur to you, add them to “the wall.” After a month or so, review the wall and see if you can bring the capabilities together into themes. For instance, “emphasis on the customer” and “collaborative teamwork” might both fall under a communication theme. With increased verbal communication skills your employees will be able to both form better relationships with the customer as well as work with their colleagues more effectively.
Step 2
Create a purposeful, long-term plan for developing the skills that your organization will need. Every organization is unique in terms of the soft skills they need to embrace. For instance a hospital system may need to weave ethics and critical thinking into every development opportunity, while a manufacturing organization might need more emphasis on creativity and stakeholder management.
From the moment your newly-hired employees walk in the door, they should have a development plan, a career path, and an understanding of the five or 10 key skills needed by the organization (such as ethics or stakeholder management, as stated above).
What is most critical in this approach, however, is that the skill development is done consistently and that it is woven into the fabric of work responsibilities. What training and professional development has done to its own detriment, in the past few decades, is deliver skills training in isolation from on-the-job application. Training classes have been reduced to mere hours instead of meted out slowly and methodically as the knowledge and concepts are needed (think of an apprenticeship model as the ideal), so employees are barely acquainted with the knowledge and skills they need to do their work and advance their careers.
In my 2017 book, Future-Proofing Your Organization, I provide an example of teaching risk management which isn’t focused on the concept of risk management so much as the command of risk management. Ensuring employees have a command of risk management requires teaching it from different angles and in different scenarios over time, not just in one short training class.
Step 3
Weave mentoring and coaching into all management and employee development activities. One of the most critical linchpins to developing capability is the use of mentoring and coaching as an on-going development process. Too often companies see these methods as “programs” that take time away from “the business.” With just a few tweaks it is possible to integrate mentoring and coaching into the normal course of business and accomplish outsized ROI in comparison to the time, effort, and logistics required of training programs.
Going forward into 2021 and beyond, companies will do themselves the most good by re-thinking what professional development looks like and how it is delivered, so that they can create a fully-capable, maximum-output workforce that will future-proof their organization.
Don't be a Know-it-All
Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) has said: "being alearn-it-all is better than being a know-it-all."
Unfortunately, a lot of people truly do NOT know how tolearn.
In the 21st century, people are more reactionary than thoughtful, reasoned, and contemplative. This is a "tide" that will damage business' future viability, very, very soon.
How are we preparing our future workforce?
Young people don't want jobs... apprenticeships aren't a "thing" anymore... and EDUCATION is not enough to create a skilled workforce. We need to change the system and the handoff from school to work.
Mentoring as a Leadership Development Tool
Too often companies see mentoring as a “program” that takes away from the “business” of making money. It’s another thing “to do” on one’s already packed list of action items. BUT when done as a normal course of business, it’s not onerous and pays back exponentially.
In fact, a recent study found that 58% of new-hires who had been assigned mentors felt valued by their immediate manager and 68% felt more valued by the organization.
It’s natural to assume that the mentee gains the most benefit from the mentoring relationship since they are the recipient of new knowledge and skills, but in fact benefits abound - to the mentee, the mentor, and the organization itself.
Mentees
Mentees benefit immediately from higher performance and productivity, increased job satisfaction, higher morale, increased visibility with people in higher levels and more insight into a career path. In the long-term, the mentee benefits from having a non-judgmental and unbiased champion in their corner. They get candid feedback without repercussions, insight in to the workings of the organization, and personalized guidance regarding the skills they should develop or the choices they could make to further their career.
Mentors
Mentors also report increased job satisfaction because they feel valued and are able to give back to their organization. Additionally a mentor benefits from fresh perspectives due to new relationships and develops their own leadership skills.
The Organization
Benefits to the organization include enhanced teamwork, communication across vertical and horizontal boundaries, an efficient transmission of knowledge and skills, stronger organizational culture, and being seen as an employer of choice.
Here is an idea for establishing an
absolutely free
mentoring program at your company:
A mentor asks high-gain questions, gives constructive feedback, and helps the more junior associate to recognize and capitalize on their strengths and weaknesses - that's a pretty simple “task” to accomplish over lunch.
Why not monthly mentor lunches? Instead of sitting with one’s normal group of friends at lunch, at least once a month a junior person and more senior person meet up in the cafeteria for lunch. (Twice a month would be ideal.)
Maybe once a year the company can buy the lunch as a reward for those pairs that have continued their relationship throughout the year. A public “mentor appreciation day” will get attention from those not participating - and encourage more participation!
= = = = =
By building relationships and networks within the organization, mentoring strongly impacts retention. An organization that utilizes mentoring is preparing for the future of its people as well as the organization as a whole.
Future-Proofing just released!
We are happy to announce that Future-Proofing Your Organization by Teaching Thinking Skills has finally arrived! 
And.... it was just featured in the list of Top 21 Self-Published Business Books You Need to Read. (Currently in 14th place, but you can help "up" that by up-voting the synopsis.)If you'd like to learn more about the book, download a free chapter, or purchase a copy. Click here.