You only have to look at the likes of Net­flix and AirBnB to know that many prod­ucts and ser­vices are only one plucky start up away from becom­ing obso­lete. Tech­nol­o­gy has rev­o­lu­tionised the way we access and share infor­ma­tion and ser­vices for­ev­er. How­ev­er, in the midst of change, one old truth holds true: an organ­i­sa­tion can­not be more effec­tive than its peo­ple. Is it time to re-think the way we approach peo­ple devel­op­ment?


Does your people development strategy prepare staff adequately for the future?

It’s more impor­tant than ever that teams have the right knowl­edge and exper­tise to adapt to the chal­lenges they face and dri­ve inno­va­tion, wher­ev­er they are.

In this dynam­ic envi­ron­ment, I believe there are some key con­sid­er­a­tions for build­ing com­pet­i­tive advan­tage through peo­ple development:

3 key considerations for people development

  1. We need to think dif­fer­ent­ly about exper­tise. We need to nur­ture, through the act of learn­ing, adap­tive experts who not only cope with change, but lead it.
  1. We need to apply what’s known about skill trans­fer. Lead­ers of L&D need to dig deep­er and get to the heart of skills trans­fer to under­stand the crit­i­cal inter­ac­tions for suc­cess. This is vital for organ­i­sa­tions to make rapid and sus­tain­able changes to work­ing prac­tices and respond to new chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties in an agile fashion.
  1. We can no longer think of learn­ing and knowl­edge man­age­ment as sep­a­rate dis­ci­plines. They need to be part of the same sys­tem­at­ic, organ­i­sa­tion-wide approach to over­come knowl­edge silos and learn­ing bot­tle­necks. This will help peo­ple access the learn­ing they need when, where and how they need it.

Sad­ly, in many busi­ness­es, the learn­ing tools, process­es and val­ues work against these three areas.

What can be done? I’ve expand­ed on these points and posed an alter­na­tive approach in a new white paper “Vision for Learn­ing Organ­i­sa­tions”down­load it here. 

We’d love to hear your thoughts — share them below.

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Build­ing com­pet­i­tive advan­tage through peo­ple development