COLUMN - What's Next?
IThis often translates into entrusting tasks to employees with more experience, rather than assigning them to someone new. By taking the safe route to results, leaders potentially miss out on innovation, creativity and improvement.
Rookie Smarts explores an intriguing question: “When does what we know get in the way of what we don’t know?” It suggests the need to become perpetual rookies, increasing our learning cycles and preparing our organizations to do the same - that is, to become re-learning organizations, as opposed to merely learning ones.
Wiseman agrees with Fernández-Aráoz’s premise that the business world is dynamic, stating that “given the pace of business, only 15% of what we know today is actually going to be relevant in five years.” If this is indeed the case, recruiting solely for current competency levels only addresses a company’s short-term hiring goals,
giving it a five-year window at best.
Where does this leave us? Whether you want to hold onto your competency framework and amend it by adding a few ‘current’ attributes or you embrace the bold cutting-edge trend, change focus and shift towards assessing potential and learning capability, I believe that the face of finding, promoting and retaining talent in a competitive marketplace will change over the next five years. And, like all change, it will come at a price.
Hazel Jackson is CEO of Biz-Group, a leading training and development company based in Dubai. Hazel’s primary role is to scour the globe for the latest training and talent development tools, resources and systems to figure out what is needed in the Middle East. Her nickname in the company and native genius is “What’s Next?”