How to run at the speed of the world

Revolution is in the air and it’s about time. The status quo is unjust, unhealthy and unsustainable. Job satisfaction is low. Insecurity is high. Inequality is rife. As the authors of the World Economic Forum and PwC Upskilling for Shared Prosperity report stated, “Our economies are no longer delivering what people need. By giving people opportunities to build the skills they will require, we can start to create more inclusive and sustainable economies and societies where no one is left behind.”

Acquiring new skills – and, even more importantly, a new mindset – is the answer. The report finds, “Upskilling can be more transformational when it leads to developing attitudes and aspirations that will equip people with the skills to continually adapt to and take part in the changing world of work… This includes critical thinking, creativity or even self-management. It is often these skills that make people more versatile, resilient and adaptable – and more able to participate fully in the Fourth Industrial Revolution economy, whether working for a business or starting one of their own…”

Transforming minds and organisations

In his airy office overlooking Regent’s Park, where the trees are just starting to blossom, François Ortalo-Magné is musing on attitudes and aspirations in the rapidly evolving landscape of what’s still referred to as business education, when what we really mean isn’t education in the traditional “chalk and talk” sense; it’s learning. As the world turns ever faster, our only hope of riding the vortex without spinning off into the void is to move with it. This isn’t about acquiring a few shiny new tools – we’re talking personal and organisational transformation. Daunting? Exciting? Maybe both.

As Dean of LBS, Ortalo-Magné must continually reassess the School’s proposition. What do we give people that’s different? Why do they come, and why should they? The answer, informed by his conversations with MBA and other degree students, alumni, corporate clients and the wider community of business leaders, reflects external and internal shifts: changing demographics, as detailed by LBS professors Lynda Gratton and Andrew J Scott in their bestselling book The 100-Year-Life, and a renewed desire for meaningful work that has impact – closely allied to the realisation that business must play a key part in addressing the climate crisis and other global challenges.

And people are simply doing work differently. Professor Gratton’s new book, Redesigning Work: How to Transform Your Organisation and Make Hybrid Work for Everyone addresses how employers can best tackle the huge changes in the workplace wrought by Covid; notably the tricky task of making a combination of working from home and in offices work sensibly.

More than ever before, personal and professional development go hand in hand. “The simple fact is we live longer now, we have an inner desire to progress and we face a changing context throughout our lives,” says the Dean. “That progress is much more in our hands now, compared to when single-organisation careers were the norm. We used to be happy to delegate our growth to an employer because there was this implicit contract with them that as long as we performed well enough, they would support our career progression and we would stay with them. Now that is no longer on offer – and we want more control. People are taking ownership of their own journey and that means taking ownership of their own learning.”

Owning your development

Is this desire born out of necessity; a reaction to a lack of job security? The Dean shakes his head. “Today’s graduates are not necessarily interested. They want to move around. Many heads of recruitment and company leaders I speak to say they’re more worried about employees leaving than employees outstaying their welcome. Employers turn to us to provide learning opportunities as part of their retention strategy.”

Taking charge of your own development, rather than waiting for your company to notice your potential and send you on a course, is an empowering move. Naturally Dean Ortalo-Magné is keen to position LBS as the perfect petri dish for minds to come alive and potentially grow in new directions. “Who are you going to trust with your learning?” he asks. “The school that nurtures your alumni community is uniquely positioned as a trusted partner because its success is a direct consequence of the success of its alumni.”

Tansy Rothwell, Executive Director of Learning Innovation at LBS, admits: “Lifelong learning is a massive buzzword.” There’s a reason for that, though. “It’s no longer a luxury, it has become a necessity. In India, Sri Lanka and to some extent Korea and China, the culture of learning is so fundamental to the way that they approach their life, it’s baked in at an early stage for them, so they are constantly evolving. That hasn’t been the case for us in the UK, or in Europe.”

She points out the need for everyone to evolve their career, taking her own as a case in point. “I didn’t know anything about digital learning 20 years ago, or that I would be working in this space now. The world is moving so fast, you’re going to need to evolve your career. You’re going to need to take a ‘just-in-time’ approach to learning – or rather, just ahead of time – to engage with micro learning chunks as well as a more holistic and proactive view so you can pivot as you move through your career.

It’s not what you know...

“Rather than being process-orientated and knowledge-rich, people’s skillsets need to change so they are analytical and creative. Problem-solving is a key skill identified in a World Economic Forum report in 2020 and we’re all experiencing much more ambiguity and complexity in our roles. So, when we’re thinking about what we do in the learning space, it’s not just that you need to know what AI or blockchain is – you also need to equip yourself with the skills to understand what they can do for you and your current challenge.

“There’s less need for retention. It isn’t about stuffing people’s heads with knowledge; it’s about giving them the skills and mindset to explore and use what they need when they need it. Learning brings with it an openness to be curious. Doing something new, whether at work or in your personal life, learning is the first aspect of that journey into how something works and diving into the new area.”

Outside work, Rothwell keeps bees. She tells me about some of her early efforts and how she applied this same curiosity to managing their swarming. “I tried every technique in the book. None of them computed with my bees! But now, I’ve got to know the bees in my own colonies and I can see when they’re about to swarm and I can handle it. If you tell a beekeeper my method, they’ll suck their teeth and tell you you’re doing it wrong. Experimentation is one of the key aspects to learning for me – being willing to fail and learn from that failure. What you learn on that journey of experimentation is just as important as the outcome. The techniques and theoretical knowledge I gained about swarm control gave me confidence to look at the evidence and apply unconventional approaches to my colonies.”

She tells me about an extraordinary institute in the Netherlands where there is no curriculum. Instead, students decide what they want to learn, and can even change that goal as they go along. What they learn is beside the point – they are learning how to learn. Rothwell harbours the same ambition for everyone who comes through LBS: to learn how to learn. She makes the point that, in order to tackle big challenges, you need to have the right conversations – and that means learning how to ask useful questions.

Photograph: Rob Greig