Learning

Education As The Bridge Between Eras

Frank Diana Education, Future Scenarios , , , , ,

In the mid-1800s, when operating steam-driven machines required a skilled workforce, education helped the working class emerge from a period of stagnation. Later, high school helped ease the transition from the farm to the factory and office. We find ourselves straddling two eras again. The world economic forum estimates that sixty-five percent of children today will end up in careers that do not exist yet.

Our goal is to double the world’s GDP. That’s a very audacious goal. But education is the only thing that has ever done it in the past. It can jumpstart entire economies

Sebastian Thrun – Chairman and co-founder of Udacity

So here we are again. Education must emerge as the bridge between eras. It must ensure that those educated embody the qualities and competencies essential to life in a society different than our industrial past.

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We Live In A New Era – Our Institutions Need To Catch Up

Frank Diana Education, Future Scenarios , , ,

The world is in a state of transition and has been for a while. Across multiple domains from society and geopolitics to the economy, the future looks very different. Driven in part by societal shifts and rapid advances in science and technology, the foundation of society is changing. However, the institutions that support that society are not evolving or changing fast enough. I call this phenomenon Institution 2.0 and track it as a future scenario.

One of those institutions is Education. Learning – and the role it played throughout history – is key to managing through periods of transition. This YouTube Channel contains a series of interviews that we conducted on the topic. This video teaser describes the role of education in this emerging era.

Organizing For Future Readiness

Frank Diana Business, Our Emerging Future, Pandemics , , , , , , , ,

Back in 2013, weak signals clearly pointed to a structural change that was desperately needed. In a Post from that year, I described the type of change I envisioned in a world that looked very different than the world where these structures were born. The pandemic, as it has on so many levels, made something lying beneath the surface very visible. What it should also illuminate for leaders is that the future is uncertain, approaching rapidly, and likely to contain regular extreme events. Those factors make future readiness crucial to viability. To be future-ready, and to operate in a world dominated by uncertainty and pace, structures must change. When I say structure, I mean a broad set of things to consider:

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The Future Of Children

Frank Diana Education, Future Scenarios , , , ,

With a continued focus on the Future of Education and our need to Rethink it, I want to share a video from a great event that I had the privilege to participate in. The Children at Risk organization serves as a catalyst for change to improve the quality of life for children through strategic research, public policy analysis, education, collaboration, and advocacy. This event focused on education and learning.

Special thanks to Alexandra Whittington for inviting me to the event. As we gaze upon what is likely the most Disruptive decade in history, children and their future is something we should all rally behind. Enjoy the session.

Virtual and Augmented Reality Likely To Accelerate

Frank Diana Blurred Reality, Future Scenarios, innovation accelerators, Pandemics, Virtual Reality , , , , , , , , , ,

In early 2019, I described the Three Focus Themes for the year. They were Acceleration, Convergence, and Possibilities. Little did I know that one of those themes would factor so prominently in 2020. In a recent Presentation, Mehlman, Castagnetti, Rosen & Thomas – a full-service, bipartisan government relations firm – describes 2020 as the year where forces already in play experience a great acceleration. One of those forces is mixed reality.

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Strategy Looks Very Different In A Fast, Complex, And Uncertain World

Frank Diana Ecosystems , , , , , , ,

In a recent Article, author Greg Satell describes strategy in a post-Digital world. Michael Porter positioned Competitive Advantage and dominating value chains as the foundation of strategy. Like many of our institutions and ideas, multiple forces are pushing that view into the dustbin of history. Two key forces are the shift to horizontal ecosystems versus vertical value chains, and technology cycles outpacing planning cycles. I have written extensively about Ecosystems and their impact on the value equation. Maximizing bargaining power among suppliers, customers, and new market entrants gives way to value-sharing scenarios where all participants in an ecosystem win.

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Digital Learning And Resilient Supply Chains

Frank Diana Future Scenarios, Pandemics , , , , , , , , , ,

The final polls from our virtual roundtable hosted by C-Level are included below. You can view a video of the virtual roundtable Here. I posted the results of polls One, Two, Three, and Four earlier. You can participate in those polls by visiting the posts. The fifth and sixth polls launched during the session probed the questions of digital learning and the resilience of supply chains.

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The Emerging Future of Education

Frank Diana Education, Future Scenarios , , , , ,

I had the pleasure of discussing the future of education recently with Nick Burnett, Co-Founder of LearnTech Lab. Their mission is focused on a topic that I find critical to the future of society. From their website:

OUR MISSION IS TO CONNECT THE IDEAS, PEOPLE AND BUSINESSES WITH THE SCHOOLS WHO ARE REIMAGINING THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION.

They describe the challenge this way: education is entering a period of exponential change where there is a great need for learners, teachers and leaders to learn, unlearn and relearn faster than ever before. Traditional approaches to learning and teaching are no longer sufficient in the new era. Technology and Learning combined stand to have the boldest impact on deepening and accelerating learning, teaching and leading in schools. We invite you to come and join us on the journey.

Here is a video of our discussion.

Learning and Education in the 2020s

Frank Diana Education, Future Scenarios , ,

How we handle learning and education in the coming decade will play a major role in determining societal outcomes. Will people gain the skills required by the jobs that scientific and technological advancement spawn? Will education enable us to operate in a future environment that requires collaboration, system leadership, resilience,  a learning mindset and entrepreneurial drive? Will we unlearn the shareholder value focus and broaden our focus to consider the full stakeholder community? How we educate future leaders and a society of life-long learners will provide answers to these questions.

A new Article via the World Economic Forum delves into the topic, as the authors explore the university of the future and how it must adapt to train future leaders. The article states that universities must evolve in four ways to meet the demands of future leadership needs:

  1. Embrace technology
  2. Create more action-based learning models
  3. Understand the expanded role of business in society
  4. Support life-long learning

Education and learning remains a critical issue for me, as it lies at the heart of how society emerges from the transformative pressures of the coming decade. My recent posts share several thoughts on the topic.

The Education Ecosystem

The Shifting Winds of Education and Artificial Intelligence

Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

MBA Education and Short Term Thinking

Next Generation Education

Future Hiring: Skills-Based or Credentials-Based?

The Five most Important Job Skills of the Future

The Highest Skilled Workers Reside in Switzerland – Why?

The Highest Skilled Workers Reside in Switzerland – Why?

Frank Diana Education , , , , ,

A recent Article on education reveals that Switzerland has the most highly skilled workers in the world. In an era where job growth is likely to tilt towards high skilled jobs, Switzerland is doing something right. At the heart of our skilling challenges lies an education paradigm and system that were built in and for a different era. I have spent considerable time on the need for a shift in the Learning Paradigm. Has Switzerland made the shift?

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Unlearning May be our Biggest Challenge

Frank Diana Education, Future Scenarios, Leadership, Our Emerging Future , , , , , ,

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those that can’t read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn – Alvin Tofler, Rethinking the Future. 

As we all become life long learners, unlearning could be our biggest challenge. Our mental models prevent us from seeing the need for change. We are creatures of the only world we have individually known. Even if you are one hundred years old, the mental models established after humanities second Tipping Point dominate your thinking. They form our intuitions and belief systems.

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MBA Education and Short Term Thinking

Frank Diana Education , , , , ,

This recent Article focuses on the failure of MBA programs to prepare leaders and innovators to cope with a fast-changing world: leaders that can put the long-term health of their company and customers first. Here is the bottom line straight from the article:

Far from empowering business, MBA education has fostered the sort of short-term, balance-sheet-oriented thinking that is threatening the economic competitiveness of the country as a whole. If you wonder why most businesses still think of shareholders as their main priority or treat skilled labor as a cost rather than an asset – or why 80 percent of CEOs surveyed in one study said they’d pass up making an investment that would fuel a decade’s worth of innovation if it meant they’d miss a quarter of earnings results – it’s because that’s exactly what they are being educated to do

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Future Capability Profile

Frank Diana Education , , , , , ,

Future Capability Profile

This recent Article describes how Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded Google on the conviction that STEM expertise was the dominant  piece of the capability profile – setting its hiring algorithms to look for computer science students with top grades from elite science universities. In 2013, they decided to test this hypothesis by analyzing the hiring, firing, and promotion data accumulated since their incorporation in 1998.

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Next Generation Education

Frank Diana Education , , , , , , ,

The World Economic Forum estimates 65 per cent of children today will end up in careers that don’t even exist yet.

“Individuals and companies that succeed in the future will be those who adopt the philosophy of lifelong learning,” says Nigel Heap, managing director of Hays UK and Ireland. “Businesses that facilitate the resources, tools and time to support learning will not only have employees who are more engaged, but their business will be better placed to face challenges and remain innovative.”

From the Future of Learning

I’ve attempted to link innovation and our well-being via a visual that I’ve shared previously in this forum. It allows us to envision our emerging future and leverage story telling techniques to describe it in ways that become actionable. One of the most critical aspects of this emerging future in my humble opinion is the future of learning and education.

Reimagining Education

Our education system must prepare individuals for the world that is, not the one that was. It must ensure that those educated embody the qualities and competencies essential to life in a society very different than our industrial past. Among them are: creativity, critical thinking, innovative thinking, curiosity, social intelligence, a collaborative spirit, adaptability, entrepreneurial spirit, connecting dots, and knowing how to ask the right questions. Our need for life-long learning and unlearning drives us to reimagine education and transform through combinatorial innovations that leverage AI, Mobile, Cloud, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Big Data, and more. Some of the facets of next generation education include:

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Human Traits in an Exponential World

Frank Diana Business , , , , ,

Our exponential world puts increasing pressure on our capacity to innovate and the speed and quality of idea flow. This dynamic coupled with the speed at which automation is likely to occur brings our right brain characteristics front and center. Creativity, imagination, big picture vision, emotional and social intelligence, empathy, and other human characteristics are critical to navigating in this emerging future. As automation accelerates, these human traits become even more critical. In a recent report by Citi on Technology at Work, the authors point to our propensity for social interaction, communication, and empathy being something machines can never replace.

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Uncertainty Drives the need to Sense and Respond

Frank Diana Humanity , , , , , ,

“The rhythm of technology is changing the rhythm of business, and we’re all going to need to adapt” – Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden, Authors of Sense and Respond

Back in 2013, in a post on sense and respond systems, I talked about the drivers that would push organizations towards a sense and respond paradigm. There are no bigger drivers than volatility and uncertainty, and nearly four years since that post, that fact is becoming clearer. In a recent book by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden, they elevate sense and respond to a position that is core to achieving an adaptive enterprise. They see feedback loops and a movement away from command and control as the enabling mechanisms that allow us to thrive in the digital age.

Management expert Gary Hamel summarizes the challenges we face as the structures of the industrial age collide with the digital age:

“Modern management is one of humanity’s most important inventions. But it was developed more than a century ago to maximize standardization, specialization, hierarchy, control, and shareholder interests. While that model delivered an immense contribution to global prosperity, the values driving our most powerful institutions are fundamentally at odds with those of this age – zero-sum thinking, profit-obsession, power, conformance, control, hierarchy, and obedience don’t stand a chance against community, interdependence, freedom, flexibility, transparency, meritocracy, and self-determination. It’s time to radically rethink how we mobilize people and organize resources to productive ends”.

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