Don’t acquire more just-in-case skills and knowledge (instead, try these 8 solutions to thrive in the future of work)

Why remember when you can google for information in today’s highly digitised world?

This is the future of work and play.

Moore’s Law states that the number of transistors on a microchip double about every two years. With the exponential growth in technology, the amount of knowledge and information that is generated and available to us has also grown substantially. And it will grow more exponentially that it is virtually impossible to remember or know everything.

Buckminster Fuller, the architect who invented the geodesic dome, later became a futurist and systems theorist. In his book Critical Path, he came up with the “knowledge doubling curve.” He estimated that if you could measure the cumulative knowledge of human civilisation, from the year of Jesus birth, it took 1,500 years for it to double. But from there, it doubled again by 1750. From there, it doubled every hundred years, up until WW2. After the way, it doubled in 25 years. By the 80’s, it was every 12 months. Some current estimates put the number at every twelve hours.
So, if you’re born today, it’s doubled twice before dinner.

When information is so readily available at our fingertips, why remember when we can just google it? When we know how to ask for the information, why try and remember everything that we need to know? Why not treat the Internet and the digital world as an extension of our own memory?

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The half-life of a learned skill is five years

According to John Seely Br and Douglas Thomas, authors of A New Culture of Learning, the half-life of a learned skill is about five years. 

Deloitte asked, “What does it mean in a world where careers span 60 years, even as the half-life of learned skills continues to fall to only about five years? In the past, employees learned to gain skills for a career; now, the career itself is a journey of learning.”

As a result, people will only need to acquire knowledge in enough amounts just to get the job done and be paid for it. They will most likely embark on just-in-time education and life-long learning. Continuous learning and experiencing will be the keys to remaining relevant in the future of work and play.

UiPath surveyed office workers from around the world and uncovered that nearly half worry they will be out of a job within five years because their skills will be outdated. Without reskilling and upskilling opportunities, employees fear that they are becoming obsolete.

Why remember when you can now google

In today’s highly digitised world, people must be able to make the connections between the problems that are confronting them and the digital tools’ ability to help them solve those problems. There are many digital tools and platforms to choose from that we are spoilt for choice.

People have to know why they should use a particular tool now to solve a particular problem within the context they find themselves in. The considered use of the appropriate digital tools in particular situations can make the work easier to yield superior results.

This is where the younger generations are good at using different types of technology to find things or just googling for answers.

It then comes down to this when we are trying to solve future problems — What questions to ask, for what purpose, when it is appropriate to ask them, and under what circumstance.

A reasonably competent worker does know how to use the digital tools that are at their disposal or have enough knowledge and skills to be able to figure them out. They just cannot make the connection between the problem and the tool’s ability to help them. They just need to discern and be sensitive as to when and why certain tools are used in a particular situation and at that particular time.

The ability to discern and to identify opportunities and limitations in different contexts and be able to interpret and anticipate the impact of one’s actions are crucial ingredients for our future learning and workforce productivity. 

People need to draw upon a mental library of questions and strategies that they have previously learned and experienced to solve problems. Equally important is their ability to build and constantly curate (maintain) this library of questions for future use. The quality of this library will determine how successful problems can be solved.

It is, therefore, tempting to frame the challenges facing workers today as stemming solely from the lack of knowledge or skills. This is not usually the case when we are being immersed more and more in a digital world where information and knowledge are so readily available at our fingertips. This is where just-in-time learning rather than just-in-case skills and knowledge acquisition will become a norm. 

We only need to focus on teaching people why to use particular digital tools in a particular context and time to solve a specific problem.

In doing so, people will rely more on their:

• Ability to discern the situation and problem.
• Attitudes and behaviours to engage with their work, their workplace and with digital technologies.
• Understanding of the available digital tools and platforms.
• Existing knowledge and skills to use these digital tools and platforms (technology).

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Experience and the ability to discernment and apply particular technology within their context and time will become more critical in the future of work as people are achieving the outcomes they desire in a highly digitised world.

The quality of questions and strategies that are curated and maintained in our mental library can only improve over time with experience and applications of different digital tools in varied but different situations. 

We have to constantly curate our mental libraries rather than simply increasing our knowledge, skills and competencies. 

People working in highly digitised environments that are saturated with vast amounts of information and knowledge must build and curate personal libraries of appropriate questions and strategies so that they can draw on them as and when required and applied just-in-time in various personal and work context. 

Rather than solely focusing on the acquisition of more knowledge and skills, people need to focus on their attitudes and behaviours in discerning, building and curating quality personal mental libraries through rich and varied experiences and learning.

Self-taught can be a powerful approach for many in a digitised world, as shown in the diagram below.

The fact that we learn from experiences has been underlined by the work of Lombardo and Eichinger (1996). They have created the following 70/20/10 model:

• 70% from challenging assignments (or perhaps on the job experience),
• 20% from developmental relationships, and
• 10% from formal coursework and training.