Escaping the Red Queen’s Paradigm: Skills, Competencies and Humanism

How can I think about tomorrow when I spend all my time trying to keep up with today?

The pace of change in our world is intimidating, exhausting and at times terrifying. Individuals have to keep updating their skills or find themselves sidelined. Organizations have to use all their resources just to stay in the game. Like the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass, we are all running to keep our place in an unending race.

What the World Economic Forum calls the “fourth industrial revolution” is disrupting skills just as thoroughly as it is disrupting markets, supply chains and business models. Their report cites one estimate that 50% of technical curriculum taught in a first year of a four-year program is outdated by graduation. Similarly, McKinsey & Company’s 2017 examination of technology change concluded that up to 375 million workers around the globe would need to change jobs by 2030 – because their skills would be obsolete.

What we need is a way to change the paradigm. And we need it before machine learning, and other forms of artificial intelligence, make it even harder. 

So what does it mean to escape the Red Queen’s race?

Breaking out of the trap has to do with reconceptualizing how we develop individuals as well as how we deploy the competencies they have. To start with, it means valuing individuals not just for their technical skills, but also their thinking skills. It means being purposeful in aligning key skills such as innovation, critical thinking, strategic thinking and problem solving with specific roles, job families, and teams. It means measuring and developing those competencies regularly, and rewarding leaders who do this strategically.  

Many employers already understand this, and some are starting to make the adjustments required, but we need to go further and consider the things that separate humans from machines. Attributes like judgment, perspective, or persuasion will not become obsolete. Neither will the ability to deal with complex social systems. (Interestingly, these evergreen competencies are also closely linked to diversity.)

The danger of relying on artificial intelligence without the intervention of human judgment is already clear. Among other concerns, machine learning can embed the wrong assumptions and make decisions on the basis of biased algorithms. Recently, Amazon had to junk an AI tool for recruiting after observers realized it was favouring men due to hidden patterns in the data used to train it.

So where can we see the new model of interaction between humans and machines being implemented? 

One answer is in the military of certain nations.  The battlefield of the future is likely to be dominated by AI-driven networks of observers, drones and sensors feeding information to frontline troops. Those soldiers on the ground will be charged with making the decisions about what target to engage, with what weapons. Training for these roles emphasizes decision-making, judgment and the ability to understand the big picture and the potential consequences of specific actions.

It isn’t easy to jump out of the Red Queen’s trap. Organizations that want to keep their people, and keep their edge, have to tackle the problem from multiple directions. They need to rethink learning and development programs. A focus on increasing perspective could mean introducing job shadowing or rotations, implementing real cross functional teams, and making leadership more inclusive. Employers should also be distributing decision making throughout the organization, while encouraging employees at all levels to learn how to communicate persuasively.

Since these attributes can be developed and reinforced throughout our careers, employer support can achieve a lot for individuals already in the workforce, as can lifelong learning programs. But there are also implications for foundational education systems. 

This is not a novel concept; many players in the system already know this, but education is a big ship to turn. In particular, progress has been made in the teaching of critical thinking and innovation. 

Critical thinking courses are now commonly available in business faculties – either as extension courses, or incorporated into degree programs. They also show up in the sciences, and have been part of some liberal arts curricula for years. Here in Ontario, the government has required that all college programs teach essential employability skills, including “critical thinking and problem solving” which they define as analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating, and decision making, as well as creative and innovative thinking.

Recognizing these evergreen skills when developing courses in a traditional discipline is a good start. But developing an integrated program from scratch goes one better. For instance, St. Mary’s College of Maryland enrolls students into a “LEAD” program where they tackle real-life problems collaboratively using a range of disciplines. Graduates bring skills in teamwork, innovation and critical thinking into the workforce.

Unfortunately, this is an exception; a recent McMaster University study of the humanities and social sciences found that opportunities to build skills such as judgment, integrity and intercultural awareness were “almost completely and universally overlooked.”

As J-P Boudreau recently said: “…complex real-world questions demand broad thinking, drawing on multiple perspectives. This is the time to take inspiration from the original intent of a liberal arts education, which celebrated the convergence of disciplines to create the enlightened individual. We need to encourage — and reward — a constant and multi-directional flow and integration of ideas across disciplines and programs...”

Escaping the Red Queen’s race is going to involve students, teachers, employees and employers in a great pivot. The nice thing is that it takes us closer to truly valuing the essence of our humanity. Harnessed correctly, it may even allow us to make astounding advances in dealing with issues and problems that have held us back for decades.

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Photo by Alexander Grishin from Pixabay