A System for the Twenty-First Century

From communication to teamwork, judgment to intuition, organization to critical thinking, the skills that will power our future workforce stretch far beyond deep topical expertise. Of course, identifying which skills are important is only one piece of the puzzle. The bigger question is, how do we build these skills in every single student, graduate, and employee?  

My book, Hire Purpose: How Smart Companies Can Close the Skills Gap, aims to address this and more, relying on research, case studies, and stories to help business leaders understand the unique challenges we face today.

The brief excerpt below from Hire Purpose explores this skills question further and describes the new connections, new partnerships, and new ways to collaborate, that we will need to spread the wealth of knowledge we’ve already attained.

The same challenges and opportunities that powered previous educational revolutions are again present, including new industries and technologies, an evolving economic landscape, and business demands that feel increasingly out of whack with the skills of our labor force.

But our specific needs have changed, and so have our tools and resources. Just as common schools were supplemented by high schools, and high schools by colleges and universities, we need a new, widespread movement dedicated to educating and training our workforce. But is the next logical step simply encouraging more people to go to grad school? I don’t believe so.

Our system has worked exceedingly well for an exceedingly long time. But in the face of automation, AI, and near-constant change, it, too, must change. This doesn’t require the system’s undoing. On the contrary, the solutions I propose in this book rely on infrastructure that already exists and training systems we’ve already established. We simply need to make new connections, forge new partnerships, and find new ways to collaborate, to spread the wealth of knowledge we’ve already attained. A next-generation system should be based on the following next-generation set of principles;

Education can’t stop when you walk across a graduation stage. Most people spend roughly the first quarter of their life learning. Then at some point in their teens or twenties, books and desks are swapped for day jobs. This model might have worked in a world where there was slow technological change and little to no career change. Today, however, we need to rebalance skill-building where it’s most needed: over the full course of a worker’s career.

Students need experience to succeed in the workplace. Reading, writing, and arithmetic; rote memorization—for many years this is what defined education. Students are not consistently given the chance to build experience through learning—to try coding or welding, to work in teams or do service learning. More and more, that experience is exactly what’s needed to land good jobs with fair wages. Businesses know which skills students need, and educators know how to help students develop. Working together we can help students gain the knowledge and real-world experience that will serve them best in the years to come.

Candidates bring more than degrees to the table. A high school or college diploma does not suffice for the host of qualities that could make a candidate an asset to an employer. Whether it’s knowledge they’ve gained outside school, or soft skills, or durable skills that make them promising candidates, many credentials don’t fit into our current understanding of educational achievement. Instead of relying on an outdated credentialing system, we need to create a new one.

Business leaders need to invest deeply in their employees. Business leaders have a responsibility to help employees achieve their full potential—from offering professional development to offering support in times of need. Those investments yield real returns for our companies and our country. To keep our economy competitive, we have to commit equally to people and profit. 

Adapted and reprinted with permission from Hire Purpose: How Smart Companies Can Close the Skills Gap by Deanna Mulligan with Greg Shaw, copyright ?2020. Published by Columbia Business School Publishing. 

Making a Future of Work That Works for All of Us

Offering a practical, broad-minded look at the effects of workplace evolution and automation, Hire Purpose explores why the private sector needs to lead the charge in shaping a values-based response to the future of work. Available Now. 

Learn More