The growing need for workers to keep upgrading and adapting their skills is one of the themes of a new book, “The Shift: The Future of Work is Already Here”, by Lynda Gratton of the London Business School.
She argues that the pace of change will be so rapid that people may have to acquire a new expertise every few years if they want to be part of the lucrative market for scarce talent. She calls this process “serial mastery” and notes that the current educational system in most countries, from kindergarten through university, does a poor job of equipping people for continuous learning.
There is likely to be a wave of innovation in further education, particularly online, that will cater to this need in a more flexible, personalized way than the traditional degree or postgraduate course.
For the very rare group of people, this evolution will take place within a single firm offering long-term employment. But for a most of the folks working, the trick will be to jump from one company to another to take advantage of changing skill shortages.
This will require learning, openness to applying this learning in situational spots that leverage skills for that moment in time. Then back to learning and reapplying new twists and skills to the rapid shifts in innovation and world business requirements.
Learning is now part of your daily experience–a requirement for relevance and key to your value proposition in the moment.
