Fierce Excerpts: Searchlight Intelligence

by | Oct 12, 2015 | Creative Process, Digital, Fierce Excerpts

*Image: Searchlights light up the sky over Hollywood at the 1940 film premiere of Charles Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator.” Image © Bettmann/CORBIS

Now Reading | Developing Mastery in a Digital Age. 

I loved this article as soon as I saw it posted today. Here is what got my attention:

“Intelligence about the future is a key resource for building robust strategic trajectories for companies. We live in a world that increasingly requires what psychologist Howard Gardner calls searchlight intelligence. That is, the ability to connect the dots between people and ideas, where others see no possible connection.”

The article reiterated what we have learned to be true in our industry:  we must always be evolving, always reinventing, and always learning. It is a constant requirement for success. The Fierce blog exists solely as a vehicle for us to look ahead at what’s next and look back at what we’ve learned from the past and share that learning here.

The article quotes a recent Deloitte study, Global Human Capital Trends 2015, where 85 percent of the respondents cited learning as being either important or very important. Yet, more companies than ever report they are unprepared to address this challenge.

A few more excerpts from the article: 

The best leaders are the best learners.

Leaders that stay on top of society’s changes do so by being receptive and able to learn. In a time where the half-life of any skill is about five years leaders bear a responsibility to renew their perspective in order to secure the relevance of their organizations. It is rarely recognized, but the core activity in any change or transformation process, personal or organizational, is learning.

As we attempt to transition into a networked creative economy, we need leaders who promote learning and who master fast, relevant and autonomous learning themselves. There is no other way to address the wicked problems facing us. If work is learning and learning is the work, then leadership should be all about enabling learning. In a recent Deloitte study, Global Human Capital Trends 2015, 85 percent of the respondents cited learning as being either important or very important. Yet, more companies than ever report they are unprepared to address this challenge.

John Hagel, John Seely Brown and Lang Davidson have described the shift toward a massive transformation from institutions designed for scalable efficiency to institutions designed for scalable learning. The key is to find ways to connect and participate in knowledge flows that challenge our thinking and allow us to discover new ways of connecting, collaborating and getting work done faster, smarter and better.

By working strategically with PKM, everyone in an organization can become part of a sensing organism, listening at different frequencies, scanning the horizon, recognizing patterns and making better decisions on an informed basis. 

Read the entire article here: http://www.druckerforum.org/blog/?p=1046