Developing "deep skills" for the Future!

  The year is coming to a close and sentimentalism and nostalgia take hold - time to take stock!

  As you know, I have been very involved in WSQ training for the past 5 years - time flies, am into my 6th year already. 2014 marks the 10th anniversary for WSQ and rightly so, the authorities from the education, vocation, workforce and manpower sectors are all taking stock to path the way for a different approach for the next 10-20 years to ensure our workforce are properly skilled to cope with the new economy.

  The CET2020 Masterplan is a strategic review on what the Singapore workforce will need to continue to contribute to and build a vibrant economy that provides good jobs for all. The setting up of the SkillsFuture Council is timely to get the key relevant stakeholders together to chart a new course for the Singapore workforce and they met for the first time just this month.

 
  The SkillsFuture Council, led by DPM Tharman Shanmugaratnam, decided to tour the newly set-up CET hub in the East - Lifelong Learning Institute @ Paya Lebar as a wrap up to their first meeting and I was "fortunate" to be chosen to have them visit my training class @ HCS when they did their tour on 7Nov2014.

  You can see the "entourage" accompanying DPM Tharman in the 2nd pic which included SkillsFuture Council members, WDA Chief Exec Ng Cher Pong, Dy CE (not in pic), HCS CEO Mdm Ho Geok Choo, David Ang (former Exec Dir of SHRI and currently on HCS's management team) etc.

  The focus on "deep skill sets" is something I abscribe to, back to even the "old days" of the apprenticeship approach to ensure niche industries can continue to find talent and grow. I guess Donald Trump got it right, after all.

  I look forward to this new phase as we set our sights on CET 2020!






 

Social Learning

There can be no doubt that technology today is a true-enabler. Cisco last year estimated that by 2050, there would be 50 billion (internet-)connected devices. Some say, based on estimates today of 8.7 billion for 2012 and the historical rate of exponential growth capable in tech, this would seem even conservative. By 2020, the number of internet users would reach 5 billion.

And by 2020, it is estimated that at least 2 billion smart handheld devices will be in use with direct, immediate and constant access to the internet or the "cloud". Almost all of your employees have one now already - just observe the BYOD discussions and early adoption attempts today, let alone in 6 years time.

Hence it is an opportune time for organisations to review how they are "learning".

The trend of moving away from formal, face-to-face trainings/learning to more technology-based, informal ways of exchanging information, ways to store/extract/analyze data, social learning etc can only accelerate.

In my work as a facilitator, I am seeing more organisations harnessing informal social learning like Communities of Practice, Learning Circles and adopting blended and/or E-learning approaches for better employee engagement, better learning outcomes, better time management etc.

Many are even creating internal Knowledge Management (KM) approaches like internal blogs, forums for social sharing, knowledge capture - from the mundane of best caterers to use for office functions to more cutting edge innovation / idea sharing of best practices or tried practices.

 



Jane Hart's work on the Social Workplace Learning Continuum will help  organisations understand where they are in their evolution, where some of their current or planned future interventions are on the scale, and perhaps ascertain if they need to be even bolder in their transitioning away from their formal learning processes.

 

Where are You in your social learning journey?

 

Learning Moments

Today, there is a cacophony of opinions, propositions in the area of e-learning, m-learning, blended-learning, knowledge management (KS), performance support (PS) etc.

One of the pioneer thinkers in this area has been Seymour Papert - an MIT mathematician, computer scientist and educator. He is one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, as well as an inventor of the Logo programming language. He has worked on learning theories, and is known for focusing on the impact of new technologies on learning in general and in schools as learning organizations in particular.                                                                                                                            Source: Wikipedia

He once famously said: "You can't teach people everything they need to know. The best you can do is position them where they can find what they need to know when they need to know it."

I was invited to a soft-launch of a new mobile (iOS/Android) technology-based PS system just last week. This mobile learning startup won the Most Innovative Startup Award at Ideas.Inc. 2013. Hearing the very young (fresh out of grad school) Founder and CEO speak, in his jeans, jacket over t-shirt, was reminiscent of hearing a certain Zuckerberg, less than a decade ago.

The “app” probably finds itself in the sweet spot of performance support (PS) in the 3^rd & 5^th “moments of need”. The "Five Moments of Need" model (Mosher & Gottfredson, 2011) is a  model that captures both formal and informal learning tracks and needs. Bob Mosher & Conrad Gottfredson have also made significant contributions to the thinking on workplace learning.

The Five Moments are:-

# 1.  Learning for the first time (New)
# 2.  Workplace Learning (More)
# 3.  Applying what you've learned (Apply)
# 4.  When things go wrong (Solve)
# 5.  When things change (Change)

In Jane Harts 2012 Social Learning Continuum (this will be the subject of another post), the first 2 needs are best categorised as Formal and the other 3, Informal. And with an expected 2 billion smart handheld devices by 2030, the stage is ripe for an explosion of informal learning via assisted mobile technologies.

 

Are you ready for the future of learning?

Happy Year of the Horse!

吉中精神气势显，马不停蹄喜迎春

Best Wishes for a Healthy & Prosperous New Year!

 

 

Strengths-based

I am facilitating a 2-day workplan workshop this week for a corporate group when the matter of Strengths-based practice came up for discussion.

In 1998, Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D. (1924-2003) the Father of Strengths Psychology, along with Tom Rath and a team from Gallup, created the StrengthsFinder assessment. Gallup later introduced the first version of it's online version StrengthsFinder, in their 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book spent more than five years on the bestseller lists that started a discussion globally and challenged many to uncover and discover their top five talents.

In 2004, the assessment was renamed "Clifton StrengthsFinder" to honor its chief designer.

StrengthsFinder knows all too well that many of our our natural talents go untapped. And many hours, personal and organisation, much resources have been devoted to trying to fix our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.

More than a decade on, many organisations are still on the shoring up weaknesses approach, much to the detriment of organisational time, resources and energy. Worse, it does not add value to employee engagement, performance nor retention.

Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? Can your organisation become Strengths-based?

 

Merry Christmas & Hellooooo 2014!

 

Wishing One & All

A Blessed Christmas & A Happy 2014 ahead!



 

会认人, 会用人, 会做人 Talent Management Simply Put

He is known for his uncompromising attention to quality and service. He has a sharp intellect, notoriously well-read and has no patience for idle chatter.  He constantly refers to key management books like Good to Great, The Toyota Way (which is mandatory reading for all new hires within 6 months of joining his organisation), to illustrate how his organisation continues to top MOH’s customer service satisfaction surveys year after year.

He made sure I attended his organisations 2-day induction program for new employees before I conducted classes in performance management for his management staff so that I was familiar with the organisational culture and ethos. Such is his attention to detail. 

A pharmacist by training, Liak Teng Lit is Group CEO of Alexandra Health (formerly CEO of Alexandra Hospital), one of the 6 health clusters in Singapore. It is anchored by the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and tasked to look after the health of more than 700,000 residents in the North of Singapore.

He was speaking at a HR conference this week, where the majority of the audience were SME bosses, and he shared a talent management snippet from a person he said he admired greatly – billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist Li Ka-Shing.

In Mandarin, it simply says        会认人, 会用人, 会做人

会认人 – means being able to identify talent (and attract them to your organisation)
会用人 – means being to leverage and deploy that talent (to your organisation’s advantage)
会做人 – means to know how to treat people well & fairly (which will engage and retain talent)

This resonated well and deeply with many within the audience and his sharing that day was rated the best amongst all the assembled speakers.

For all the many management philosophies, principles, theories and even fads from the more well-documented and vocal West, the simplicity and elegance of these words, is just inspiring.

What are you doing today to Retain, Identify, Deploy and Engage your talent?