The future work of leadership in our organizations will not only be the necessity to stream new learning but, to act as catalysts to cascade and infuse that learning through our organizational networks and systems.
The constant has and is changing and in some ways, it both scares and exhilarates us to our very core. Not just because it’s changing, but because we are not truly sure where this change is taking us, or even what that destination will eventually look like.
However different that future might be, in order to get there, we first have to come to grips with the idea and understanding that we are no longer the gatekeepers, no longer the guards to the wonderful world of learning and knowledge. But understand, this is not so much a local phenomena, as much as it is a global one. And for whatever gatekeepers that do remain, our world is focused on tearing them down in triumphant fashion.
From education to business, we live in a world that has become an open source.
A worldwide platform of collaborative information that we can both take from and add too. The only key needed in this open source world is the ability of our individuals and organizations to better equip themselves to access this information in ways that enhance their capacity to synthesize and utilize this information effectively.
This no longer about just enhancing the learning experience, as it is about leaning into new possibilities of what learning is, what it is becoming, and what it could be. It is this thought that pushes the conversation beyond engagement, to one of relevance.
We can no longer rest on the laurels of the past. We have to take a long hard look at the learning we are providing, for both students and adults, and begin to ask ourselves if what we are providing is truly relevant for preparing our individuals at all levels to deal effectively and successfully with a rapidly changing and evolving world.
And if the answer is we are not, then we have to determine what needs to change.
This is not just about 21st century learning, this is determining if we are envisioning new avenues to prepare individuals at all levels for the profound shifts being presented to us by the exponential economy?
And how are those new avenues truly preparing our individuals and organizations to be creative and innovative problem-solvers able to provide real value for themselves and their organization?
The exponential economy does not just ask it, as much as it demands it. The new literacy of learning demands much more from our students and our adults.
This is not just about technology, even though technology plays an enhanced role in this process. This is about exploring the possibilities of our imaginations and invoking the tools and platforms that allow us to best push these possibilities into realities. And for the organization, this is about evolving forward in more agile and adaptable ways that allow those possibilities to guide our conversations in order to overcome the obstacles and assumptions that have often stood in the way of progress and momentum.
From ‘formal’ to ‘third spaces’ we need leaders and pioneers who are willing to grapple with the uncomfortableness of change and the status quo that holds it back. Leaders who can us push forward in the face of uncertainty and unknowns, that have previously caused us to recoil into the safety of what we have always done, always been.
This will be deep and difficult work. It will require leaders who are willing to be the pioneers and the architects of a new ecosystem of learning.
Leaders who are willing to prepare their people and their organizations for the exponential economy and beyond.
Leaders who are willing to be modern day learning catalysts.
DCulberhouse 