Originally posted on LinkedIn 10.16.19
Nelson Mandela said,”Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Malcolm X called education, “the passport to the future.” And with the World Economic Forum currently estimating that 54% of today’s global workforce will need reskilling in the upcoming years…never were these sentiments more relevant.
Fortune 500 companies alone employs over 65 million people, many of which will need to be reskilled in order for them and the companies they support to thrive in today’s business environment. Whether you call the times we live in VUCA, transformative or just batshit crazy, the reality is, we live in a time where learning is needed as much as air to survive.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US currently has over 6 million unemployed. This comes at the same time that there are over 7 million open positions to be filled at our companies. This mismatch of skills to opportunity affects approximately 1 out of every 30 families. Add to this the almost 2 million jobs impacted by corporate layoffs in the month of July and the need for learning is crystal clear.
Education, at all levels, has the ability to deliver unmistakable value on a multitude of fronts. From socio economic issues like poverty and classism to global challenges like terrorisim. Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani Taliban target turned activist for female education and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate said, “With guns you can kill terrorists, with education you can kill terrorism.” I couldn’t agree more.
As Learning and Development professionals we have an obligation to continuously seek and employ new ways to deliver the ever higher levels of value required by today’s world. This is why I wrote Running Training Like a Startup. To provide a new way of looking at the work we do and they way we do it.
Over 20 years ago I was lucky enough to be part of the team tasked with taking the concepts and practices described in the seminal book Running Training Like a Business to clients around the world. The book focused not on the solutions being provided but rather on the L&D engine that provided those solutions. For the last two decades I have worked with companies of all sizes across the globe to explore ways to improve the value their learning delivers.
During this time I also worked as part of the rapidly emerging startup economy. First as strategist for a VC fund during the first dot com run then as manager of a 50 million dollar fund and advisor to startups, angel investors and startup ecosystems in both Delaware and New Orleans. Then 5 years ago, I saw an opportunity to bring these two domains and the passion I had for each, together.
W. B. Yeats said, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” This is the same fire sought after by startups as well, in the form of virality and exponential growth. With the support of Ed Trolley and David van Adelsberg, the authors of Running Training Like a Business, I set out to turn the practices of high performing startups into principles for use by L&D organizations. The book includes approaches to speed, team, product, communication, data and even failure. The lessons from early stage companies like Uber, Air BnB, Slack and a multitude of others are captured in my updated look at what it means to run training like a business today.
Taking a page out of the startup toolkit I open sourced the book in January. The principles were too important and the mission too critical to limit the spread of these ideas. It also allows the book to be a living thing and not a snapshot. Like an app on your phone I have released 2 updates to the book this year with more to come as we gain more experience with its approach. Running Training Like a Startup is my contribution to addressing the challenges we, as L&D pros, face.
Abraham Lincoln viewed learning, “as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in”. As an L&D community we must engage with new ideas and new approaches. Call today’s business environment what you will. But hanging out in the desert with its vibrant and beautiful ecosystem reminds me that even in the harshest environments we can adapt and thrive.
Note: In case you think I am just a sappy romantic about L&D, read this tough love post from a couple weeks back.
Running Training Like A Business 2.0 