‘KEEP LEARNING OR BE REPLACED”
I’m not a fan of tweets in capitals, but I am a fan of this sentiment.
““YOU’RE EITHER BUSY LEARNING OR YOU’RE BEING REPLACED * THIS IS NOT A DRILL *”.
I am not generally a fan of tweets in capital letters or of the so-called tech bro community that Jason Calcanis, is central to. However, when I saw the internet entrepreneur’s declaration last week, it resonated. This newspaper, in fact, all media right now is in the depths of the AI hype machine. You cannot turn a page or switch a channel without bumping into a story of either the immense danger the world is facing in light of the technology advances of the last 6 months or the great opportunities.
But putting AI aside for a moment, I agree with the underlying premise of Jason's shouty tweet - it has never been more important to engage actively with what is happening around us. This is not only true about the shifting sands of technology but also of climate risks, changing demographics and geopolitical power. The boundaries between work, learning and training have never been so blurry and I think people who see themselves as permanent students are more likely to be successful in their chosen field.
Training at work is hardly a new subject. However,there are shifts happening now that change the game. For example, is it your employer or you who is responsible for your skills development? What shape should that development take? How can you do a training course just once a year when the global business pace is picking up? These are consequential and complex questions especially as more people are becoming freelance workers.
It is still relatively unusual for businesses to be very imaginative in addressing the rapid acceleration of skills that we need across many sectors. There are some interesting companies that have sprung up to help with this. Decoded focuses on digital understanding amongst executive teams, Mind Gym uses behavioural science to improve culture and skills and AruVR deploys virtual reality to build training modules. Yet Innovative and flexible training is still not the norm.
A business that has always tried to be ahead of the learning curve is Innocent Drinks. Innocent is known for its quirky and creative marketing, and that extends to its employee training as well. Innocent has a "People Lab" where employees can experiment with new ideas. The company also runs frequent training sessions on topics like ‘resilience’ and ‘imagination’.
Learnably, an online platform for “workplace learning” thinks that one of the fundamental factors that determines a company’s success in this area is whether or not they carve out specific time for training. They allow their own employees a set number of days to learn.
But if we are to keep up with the pace of change at work, we also need to commit to lifelong learning on our own time as well as in business hours. It cannot only be the responsibility of employers. As Jason bellowed at us in his tweet, to stagnate is to die in today’s workplace. I am chancellor of the amazing British institution that is the Open University and I see close up the impact on people’s careers that extra and flexible training can yield.
OpenLearn, the OU’s free learning platform, saw a quadrupling of visitors during the pandemic, perhaps as people used that time to reimagine their careers. In addition,the days of condensing your learning into a four-year period after you leave school are quickly becoming history. Increasingly young people combine getting a degree with working in their first job. This allows them to earn as they learn, and in fact 71% of the Open Universities’ 200,000 students study while in employment.
However, I think I have learnt most personally from how Lego approach skills and training. They run immersive programs where employees engage in workshops using Lego bricks to simulate real-life challenges. New hires participate in a program called "Play Day," where they are given a box of LEGO bricks and challenged to build models, mosaics and structures together.
Since I wrote about generative AI in January, the rapidity of iterations has been staggering. Yes, you can listen to podcasts, watch webinars and read blogs about the latest releases, but actually playing with the products being created is dramatically different. So I took a leaf out of Lego’s playbook the other day.
In 30 minutes, I used a digital assistant to build me a new website based on some simple parameters. I then turned all my articles from these pages over the last 7 months into podcasts with just a short recording of my own voice. Don’t worry, I won’t be unleashing any more content on you, but only by playing did I truly gain some comprehension of this brave new world and its implications.
I am sure many of us would love to have time to carve out for more learning through play at work. Not many business leaders probably feel they have that luxury amongst so many other demands. However, perhaps now is the time to rethink dramatically how you prepare your employees and yourself for the next decade. As the mother of two six year olds,I have a lot of spare Lego at my house if anyone wants to make a start.