Moving to Higher Ground
Just as in the last blog entry, let’s start with an intriguing quote:
“My message is that what’s happening now is just the tip of the iceberg…What is really necessary is for everybody to wake up to the fact that there is a fundamental shift that is happening in the way people are going to do business. And everyone is going to have to improve themselves to compete.”
- Rajesh Rao, founder and CEO of Dhruva Interactive as quoted in The World Is Flat, Page 191 (emphasis added)
Take a look at this picture.
In the picture, a man is walking forward, away from the camera, gait casual as if on a lazy morning stroll. Around him a few people have begun to realize what is happening and are beginning to pick up their pace looking for a place to run. He seems oblivious of the coming danger, though from his angle he has the best point of view.
This picture is from a Wickipedia article about the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Earlier in the day a quake of 9.15 magnitude had occurred about 160 KM (100 miles) away from the spot where this picture was taken. In the end, the death toll from the resulting tsunami would reach over 200,000 people, with deaths occurring as far away as 5000 miles from the epicenter.
I wonder how many of us are like the gentlemen in the picture, strolling along casually, not really understanding how an event happening 100 miles away, much less 5000 miles away could impact our lives.
In this blog I will talk about:
· The tsunami that is coming our way, initiated by the tectonic shifts in world markets
· What you can do to prepare yourself as an individual
· What you can do in your professional life to help your company to prepare itself
Here Comes the Big One!
I have limited myself to using only three quotes from The World is Flat - one at the opening of this blog, one just below to describe the coming tsunami and one describe what to do about it. So, here’s the quote I selected to describe the coming fundamental shift in the tectonic plates of commerce:
Page 125 – The advantages for manufacturing in China, for certain industries, are becoming overwhelming, added [Jack] Perkowski [of ASIMCO], and cannot be ignored. Either you get flat or you’ll be flattened by China. “If you are sitting in the US and don’t figure out how to get into China,” he said, “in ten or fifteen years from now you will not be a global leader.”
In your personal life, think of it this way. Any job that is manual and repetitive will be automated. Services jobs are going to India and manufacturing jobs are going to China…or Columbia…or the Czech Republic. Any job that is labor intensive will be outsourced or off-shored.
So, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to just stand there watching the tsunami come at you, or are going to climb to higher ground?
Learning to Learn is the New Survival Skill
On the front page of Cultureshift.com, I have a quote by Eric Hoffer. "In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."
Please stop and re-read that quote. Are we in “times of change?” I think we’d agree, yes, we are in times of dramatic change. So, it’s good to be a learner.
Here is my last quote from The World is Flat:
Page 236 – There is only one message: You have to constantly upgrade your skills…so, my advice to them [my daughters] in this flat world is very brief and very blunt: ”Girls, when I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, ‘Tom, finish your dinner – people in China and India are starving.’ My advice to you is: Girls, finish your homework – people in China and India are starving for your jobs.”
In other words, learning, or more precisely, learning-to-learn is THE critical competency for 21st Century workers.
The 19 December 2005 issue of Fortune magazine has a great article on Andy Grove. I’d recommend you read it because it beautifully illustrates the core competency of being a life-long learner. On page 122 Andy Grove is describing what happened at Intel when their core business, computer memory, had turned into a commodity overnight.
“…I turned back to Gordon [Moore, CEO of Intel at the time] and I asked, ‘If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?’ Gordon answered without hesitation, ‘He would get us out of memories.’ I stared at him, numb, then said, ‘Why shouldn’t you and I walk out the door, come back, and do it ourselves?’”
Andy Grove and Gordon Moore (of “Moore’s Law” fame) were ready to learn how to learn. The memory business had been very profitable for them. It was what Intel was known for, before they were in the microprocessor business, before they were “Intel Inside.” But they had to be ready to learn an entirely new strategy to survive.
Helping Your Company Survive
Obviously it’s a good thing if you learn to adapt and survive as individuals, but of course we’re not just individuals, we’re part of a community. This is especially true of the community we call our employer. We’re all in this together and we all have a role to play.
If you are a CEO, you might want to put a hard emphasis on the soft sciences. Most companies have specialists in Organizational Development, Industrial Psychology, Human Performance Improvement and Training & Development, yet we’ve usually viewed them as a necessary and moderately useful expense. If we’re really honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that sometimes we’ve regretted the dollars we’ve spent in the area of Human Resource Development (HRD). Just think what we could have done if we would have applied those budget dollars to “important” projects.
But now, these experts in human performance are becoming a core part of the leadership team. Many organizations are adding a Chief Learning Officer or other Human Capital leaders to the Senior Leadership team. The HRD department just got pulled from the back of the corporate consciousness to center stage.
If you are a Training Manager or other HRD professional, you may find yourself squinting in the unaccustomed glow of the spotlight. But, ready or not, here you are. Your CEO has some serious questions, and you’d better have some answers. You’re going to need to learn what the new competencies are and then help people in your organization achieve them.
Everyone is going to need new competencies, from Supply Management to IT to Skilled Labor. As an HRD specialist, you’re job is to lead your company into 21st Century competencies.
Next Time
In the next blog we’ll look at our typical reaction to change, and how we can choose the most useful path when change comes into our lives.
“My message is that what’s happening now is just the tip of the iceberg…What is really necessary is for everybody to wake up to the fact that there is a fundamental shift that is happening in the way people are going to do business. And everyone is going to have to improve themselves to compete.”
- Rajesh Rao, founder and CEO of Dhruva Interactive as quoted in The World Is Flat, Page 191 (emphasis added)
Take a look at this picture.
In the picture, a man is walking forward, away from the camera, gait casual as if on a lazy morning stroll. Around him a few people have begun to realize what is happening and are beginning to pick up their pace looking for a place to run. He seems oblivious of the coming danger, though from his angle he has the best point of view.
This picture is from a Wickipedia article about the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Earlier in the day a quake of 9.15 magnitude had occurred about 160 KM (100 miles) away from the spot where this picture was taken. In the end, the death toll from the resulting tsunami would reach over 200,000 people, with deaths occurring as far away as 5000 miles from the epicenter.
I wonder how many of us are like the gentlemen in the picture, strolling along casually, not really understanding how an event happening 100 miles away, much less 5000 miles away could impact our lives.
In this blog I will talk about:
· The tsunami that is coming our way, initiated by the tectonic shifts in world markets
· What you can do to prepare yourself as an individual
· What you can do in your professional life to help your company to prepare itself
Here Comes the Big One!
I have limited myself to using only three quotes from The World is Flat - one at the opening of this blog, one just below to describe the coming tsunami and one describe what to do about it. So, here’s the quote I selected to describe the coming fundamental shift in the tectonic plates of commerce:
Page 125 – The advantages for manufacturing in China, for certain industries, are becoming overwhelming, added [Jack] Perkowski [of ASIMCO], and cannot be ignored. Either you get flat or you’ll be flattened by China. “If you are sitting in the US and don’t figure out how to get into China,” he said, “in ten or fifteen years from now you will not be a global leader.”
In your personal life, think of it this way. Any job that is manual and repetitive will be automated. Services jobs are going to India and manufacturing jobs are going to China…or Columbia…or the Czech Republic. Any job that is labor intensive will be outsourced or off-shored.
So, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to just stand there watching the tsunami come at you, or are going to climb to higher ground?
Learning to Learn is the New Survival Skill
On the front page of Cultureshift.com, I have a quote by Eric Hoffer. "In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."
Please stop and re-read that quote. Are we in “times of change?” I think we’d agree, yes, we are in times of dramatic change. So, it’s good to be a learner.
Here is my last quote from The World is Flat:
Page 236 – There is only one message: You have to constantly upgrade your skills…so, my advice to them [my daughters] in this flat world is very brief and very blunt: ”Girls, when I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, ‘Tom, finish your dinner – people in China and India are starving.’ My advice to you is: Girls, finish your homework – people in China and India are starving for your jobs.”
In other words, learning, or more precisely, learning-to-learn is THE critical competency for 21st Century workers.
The 19 December 2005 issue of Fortune magazine has a great article on Andy Grove. I’d recommend you read it because it beautifully illustrates the core competency of being a life-long learner. On page 122 Andy Grove is describing what happened at Intel when their core business, computer memory, had turned into a commodity overnight.
“…I turned back to Gordon [Moore, CEO of Intel at the time] and I asked, ‘If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?’ Gordon answered without hesitation, ‘He would get us out of memories.’ I stared at him, numb, then said, ‘Why shouldn’t you and I walk out the door, come back, and do it ourselves?’”
Andy Grove and Gordon Moore (of “Moore’s Law” fame) were ready to learn how to learn. The memory business had been very profitable for them. It was what Intel was known for, before they were in the microprocessor business, before they were “Intel Inside.” But they had to be ready to learn an entirely new strategy to survive.
Helping Your Company Survive
Obviously it’s a good thing if you learn to adapt and survive as individuals, but of course we’re not just individuals, we’re part of a community. This is especially true of the community we call our employer. We’re all in this together and we all have a role to play.
If you are a CEO, you might want to put a hard emphasis on the soft sciences. Most companies have specialists in Organizational Development, Industrial Psychology, Human Performance Improvement and Training & Development, yet we’ve usually viewed them as a necessary and moderately useful expense. If we’re really honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that sometimes we’ve regretted the dollars we’ve spent in the area of Human Resource Development (HRD). Just think what we could have done if we would have applied those budget dollars to “important” projects.
But now, these experts in human performance are becoming a core part of the leadership team. Many organizations are adding a Chief Learning Officer or other Human Capital leaders to the Senior Leadership team. The HRD department just got pulled from the back of the corporate consciousness to center stage.
If you are a Training Manager or other HRD professional, you may find yourself squinting in the unaccustomed glow of the spotlight. But, ready or not, here you are. Your CEO has some serious questions, and you’d better have some answers. You’re going to need to learn what the new competencies are and then help people in your organization achieve them.
Everyone is going to need new competencies, from Supply Management to IT to Skilled Labor. As an HRD specialist, you’re job is to lead your company into 21st Century competencies.
Next Time
In the next blog we’ll look at our typical reaction to change, and how we can choose the most useful path when change comes into our lives.
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