Peter
I was interested in your observations particularly the points
quoted below:
>- Even with good anticipatory systems, companies will encounter
>significant knowledge and skill gaps due to new technologies or new
>business models
>
>- Some of these gaps will even more significant as they involve knowledge
>and skills that do not build on those already established in the company
>(e.g. from hardware engineering to telecommunications, or software)
>
>- The time required to address the gap via learning mechanisms (as
>distinct from acquisition or alliances) will often be greater than the
>time made available by market and competitive forces.
When I was Director of the West Midland Employment Service (a British
Government agency helping unemployed people get jobs and paying them
unemployment benefit), we devloped a workshop designed to help our people
in the Region. They were facing a situation in which their traditional
lifetime job security was being removed by the Government. Areas of their
work were being put out for outside contract and people were being made
redundant. The Government had said that this contracting programme would
grow and more jobs were likely to be lost in future.
People were now facing the prospect for the first time of having to start
new careers outside the government service at any time and with little
prior warning of redundancy. There was a feeling among our people of
powerlessness and despair. So we tried to develop a workshop which would
help them accept the current reality and look at ways in which they might
ensure that they not only survived in this situaition but might actually
prosper in it.
We addressed the issue of "how do you behave to increase your prospects of
success when faced with the certainty of major change in the future, but
you did not know the nature of the change, its timing or its scale".
It seems to me that that the approach we identified for prospering in this
situation could also apply to organisations with the needs you describe
above.
The key behaviours we tried to encourage for managing in a situation where
- change is inevitable but the outcome is unclear- are these:
KEEPING A LOOKOUT
Understanding possible futures
Gathering intelligence about what is out there
Being aware of and understanding potential strategies
Using information - strategically
BROAD SPECTRUM PREPARATION
Identifying the concerns/fears
Psychological readiness
Transferable skills training
Talking to people who have already prospered in dealing with
uncertainty
CAPITALISING ON THE STRENGTHS IN YOUR SITUATION
LOOKING FOR OPORTUNITIES WITHIN THE SITUATION
For the organisation
For its people
MAKING A SUCCESS OF THE PRESENT
No longer taking present success for granted
Tracking the positives
HELPING PEOPLE FEEL IN CONTROL OF THEIR FUTURE
-- Martin Raff VISTA Consulting - for a better future martin@vistaraff.win-uk.net phone and fax: +44-1789 840418