Business Organizations and Learning Culture--Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Skillsets

Business organizations need to re-assess their understanding of the importance of critical thinking and problem solving skillsets for their organizations. News articles are appearing with such titles as :

"New Graduates Will Not Be Employable Unless They Possess the Soft Skills of Critical Thinking and Problem Solving"

At first glance such a statement seems entirely reasonable and given that we are living in an age of increasing information and knowledge many organizations would agree with such a statement. However, suggesting that critical thinking and problem solving are "soft skills" does not recognize that these skillsets are essentials and not the "nice if you have them type of skills".

In fact I would go so far as to say that business organizations should NOT hire university graduates who can not demonstrate efficiency in these skillsets.

Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills

Hard skills have been defined as teachable abilities or skill sets that are easy to quantify. Typically, you'll learn hard skills in the classroom, through books or other training materials, or on the job. Some examples of hard skills as pointed out by HR departments are:

• a degree or certificate
• proficiency in foreign languages
• computer programming
• machine operation

Soft skills have been defined as subjective skills that are much harder to quantify. Also known as "people skills" or "interpersonal skills," soft skills relate to the way that you relate to and interact with other people. Some examples of soft skills as pointed out by HR departments are:

• critical thinking
• problem solving
• communication
• team work

I would like to turn this balance on its head by suggesting:

"Soft skills in a digital age should be "primary tier skillsets" because they are foundational to accomplishing all that is involved with the use of hard skills!"

Why change? The reason is tied to the fact that more and more business will be conducted online where collaboration, communication, problem solving and critical thinking are essentials to developing a healthy "brand" in a much greater market for being known. Also, with the development of digital simulations that involve employees collaborating as a group, soft skills are the key to the development of hard skills.

Looking at the definitions and examples above, we are left with an important question:

"Do these definitions align effectively with the 21st century expectations of a globally connected digital business world?"

I would say no and it is getting worse. it has been the goal of business organizations to achieve a balance between hard skills and soft skills. The hard skills would get an individual a job but it was the soft skills that would allow the individual to keep the job.

The balance as a result of advancing technology and the opening up of a business friendly online environment has shifted towards the importance of soft skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration. So, what then is the problem??

Higher Education and Development of Critical Thinking

Coming back to the original headline which was:

"New Graduates Will Not Be Employable Unless They Possess the Soft Skills of Critical Thinking and Problem Solving"

we have to ask what is happening with the development of critical thinking and problem solving skillsets in higher education. After all, this is the pool from which we will draw our future workforce from.

Critical thinking as a skillset is not being nurtured on many university campuses where teaching students WHAT to think has become important than teaching them HOW to think. A recent article is but one of many articles that are coming under the media spotlight in many universities.

Global Editorial: "Why are we killing critical thinking on campus?"

You might ask yourself, from a business perspective, why I should be concerned? If you look at the soft skill traits that non-critical thinkers possess, you should be alarmed.

All the soft skills, as important as they are, will be dispensed with. So skills involving collaboration, problem solving, communication, team work will not work unless they fit the mindset of students who have have bought into political correctness as the right mindset for approaching all things in life. They may be proficient in the use of technology but will they use it to develop and encourage the soft skills or will they use their proficiency in technology to challenge and paralyze the need for soft skills to the detriment of the business?

Your solution might simply be not to hire such individuals but what if it is entrenched in a generation? If you think that I am exaggerating then Google news items about free speech and critical thinking on university campuses. I think that you will be surprised.

So, what is the solution to such a dilemma? 

Political pressure needs to be brought to bear on educational institutions in our societies to make sure that critical thinking and problem solving are systematically embedded, emphasized and taught across all curriculum boundaries and not just in the sciences. It needs to start in primary grades and flow throughout the education system into the realm of higher education. Teaching students how to think instead of what to think leads to employees who know how to think, will listen to all points of view, evaluate evidence presented by different points of view and then be able to make decisions based upon valid, verifiable evidence. It is also a key to arriving at creative and innovative solutions that our societies need in order for effective change that improves the quality of life of all people.

If you look at your future business needs and compare them with 21st century thinking skills that should be emphasized, you will notice a good and useful pattern of harmonization,

If the use of such technologies as VR , Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Robotics are going to be harnessed to enrich your business organization and increase ROI on a global scale, then you need employees who are good critical thinkers, problem solvers and can play nice in the digital sand box with others. Social attitudes that counter this are not only to be discouraged but also countered using whatever political and financial assets are available. With elections on the horizon, the time to re-shape and transform the importance of soft skills is now.

Learning Culture or Training Culture--Part IV-- 21st Century Networked Collaboration

In the previous post I suggested that the type of collaboration that organizations should be involved in is not the version that they were familiar with during their schooling. The advancement of technology involving the World Wide Web has brought about a significant paradigm shift in regards to the reach and the removal of time as a factor in the new way of doing business. Businesses now have the ability to compete with the world on a more immediate scale than ever before. Networking between branches of an organization and its home organization on a global scale has allowed businesses to accomplish more by opening new markets previously untouched and form new partnerships which help multiply client bases in ways that are mutually beneficial.

Credit: www.london-nerc-dtp.org

This new type of collaboration is based upon some important traits that the learning culture of your business organization should have embedded in it. Some of these traits would be as follows:

• The organization has  transformed the traditional "training culture" with its "sage on the stage" approach to the learning of employees with a "learning culture" where ongoing learning is valued and is systemic from the CEO's office down to the base level. This transformation is not just systemic within the home base but is systemic and networked on a global level. All leaders in the area of what use to be the training culture now become mentors and networkers across the many  tiers of the organization.

• The organization has embraced the value of building a learning culture and no longer considers learning as a low priority when it comes to the health of the business. The decision makers consider the learning culture as a key to improved employee performance and their engagement in the mission and vision of the organization as well as an important step to making innovative thinking as a natural mindset throughout the organization.

Credit: Josh Bersin

Credit: www.atd.org

• The organization encourages innovative thinking on the part of employees by enabling them to collaborate with other employees across the global network of the organization by tasking them with problems that enable them to harness their talents to come up with innovative solutions. Then they are provided with a forum where teams may "pitch" and defend their solutions before decision makers. 

• The organization also empowers employees to collaborate beyond normal business hours by providing a "virtual war-room" on the web that they can access as part of their informal learning. This would mean the harnessing of mobile learning as well as micro learning by enabling access for employees from any digital device to this war room, other participants globally as well as big data reservoirs and cloud data bases relevant to the problem they are tasked with solving. Engagement of employees occurs when the problem they are tasked with is memorable or challenging, meaningful and motivational.

• The learning of the individual employee is nurtured, tracked and opportunities are provided for the employee to stretch beyond his or her capabilities. The business organization should have in place a staff member who would fulfill the role of a "Learning Principles Expert or Guru" whose principal duties would be some of the following:

1. Establish a "learning profile" for each employee and track their learning as they progress through the organization. and determine their proficiency in regards to talents that could be harnessed for the continuing health of the organization.
2.  Provide employees with opportunities through networked groups to grow their abilities while helping the organization grow and perform.
3. Stay current with advances in learning, especially research dealing with Neuro-Cognitive learning.
4. Develop irresistibly engaging learning experiences in coordination with the instructional designer that enables employees to collaborate by becoming engaged in simulations and branched scenarios where they are confronted with task problems that change depending upon the decisions they make. Feedback is immediate and displays clear consequences to the decisions that were made.  This should involve not only collaboration groups based in the home organization but also employees of the branches of the organization. This could be accomplished through a "blended e-Learning" setup or by a completely immersive virtual experience similar to "Second Life". 

• Re-defining the relationships between the instructional designer and SME is crucial for the simple reason that in a 21st century learning culture, learning is not about putting huge amounts of facts into the heads of employees. We have computers for that and soon we will make use of advanced AI algorithms that will be able to take on many of the repetitive, time consuming, administrative tasks thus freeing human beings to use their creative and innovative talents to the fullest. The ability to wonder and be curious are characteristics that separate humans from machines. Subject Matter Experts can no longer claim to be the "fountain of knowledge" in a given subject because knowledge is increasing at an exponential rate across many disciplines. Their role needs to change so that they become mentors by directing employees to online knowledge banks or big data reservoirs and help them clarify their thinking on tasks by asking them the right but crucial questions. It is not about input of information and output. It is about guided thinking and systems thinking that will enable collaborative global groups arrive at innovative solutions to the problems that they have been tasked with.

Next---- Collaboration and Virtual Borders in New Technology