Reinvention Mandate: Succeeding In 2020 And Beyond

This article first appeared on the Forbes Coaches Council website here.

Digitalization, globalization and artificial intelligence (AI) are bringing fundamental and massive changes to the ways we work and live. Covid-19 has accelerated these technological and societal shifts, possibly signaling an "imminent restructuring of the global economic order."

In the face of rapid and continuous change, the need to reskill and upskill entire workforces is one of the most significant challenges we face today and for the foreseeable future. From the boardroom to the classroom, leaders are wrestling with developing talent at a previously unknown pace, building complex initiatives and systems to support workforce transformation.

While these efforts are critically important, they are not sufficient. Training and skills inventories alone will not sustain the level and frequency of skilling required. Instead, we need to put people’s ability to grow, change and evolve at the center of the skilling process.

Meeting future workforce needs requires an in-depth understanding of the human side of reskilling and upskilling: We must decode the black box of human reinvention. Doing so will enable companies to build more effective, people-focused solutions to the learning challenges that the future of work presents and provide solutions that support, nurture and ideally accelerate the process of reinvention.

Where should we begin?

Let’s start with what we already know about the predictable stages of adult development.

The demands of modern culture require most people to grow beyond their current cognitive and emotional skill set. In his book In Over Our Heads, Robert Kegan describes three stages of development (or orders of mind): socialized mind, self-authoring mind and self-transformational mind. Kegan’s theory describes our internal process of making sense of the world, with each stage building on the one that went before.

According to Kegan’s research, most adults today find themselves transitioning from socialized mind to self-authoring mind. He also points out that one stage of mind or consciousness is not “better or worse” than the other. What is important is recognizing and understanding the demands of our external environment and embracing the complexity of consciousness required for its navigation.

As a leadership coach, I have witnessed my clients struggle and grow as they navigate the ambiguity and uncertainty of living and working in a world transformed by a global pandemic. I have also seen the challenges and opportunities such growth presents — it has required my clients to develop in ways they might not have planned for nor expected.

Humans have evolved as long as we have walked the planet.

What is different this time around is that reinventing ourselves is no longer optional — living and working in 2020 and beyond mandates reinvention.

Events are coalescing to provide a human development opportunity unlike any we have experienced before, one that is focused on deeply felt human experience: our identity (professionally and personally), coping with failure, navigating uncertainty, being vulnerable and holding firm to a vision in the absence of knowing how to get there.

As 2020 drew to a close, I found myself in conversation with my colleagues, Jenny Stine and Janine Matho, discussing how we have reinvented ourselves in the past and the reinventions we sense for ourselves in the future. We have been struck by the similarities of our individual experiences — themes that pop out like golden threads.

One notable theme is the confidence to enter and stay in "learner" mode. This mode runs counter to the perfectionist "high productivity" culture prevalent in so many organizations. Yet, to make the future of work leap, that's precisely the spirit that organizations must not only embrace but foster.

Another theme is taking risks and putting into place the support structures that allow us to grow through uncertainty. It is one thing to say that the world has changed and a career for life is gone — it is quite another to navigate and thrive in that new world.

What else?

The global pandemic and other recent shared experiences have inspired us to ask, “What else?” What are the mindsets and skill sets that support human reinvention? Is there a predictable set of stages? A process? Principles that we can decode?

As organizations seek to equip themselves for the future of work, they must understand the complex process of human reinvention to support and nurture it at scale.

Throughout 2021, we will be in pursuit of these "reinvention mandate" questions. We are interviewing professionals who have, mainly on their own accord, engaged in the process of reimagining, retooling, and evolving their work and careers. Our focus is not on understanding how outliers or highflyers have succeeded but rather how regular people find and succeed upon new paths. We are also talking to corporate leaders who have succeeded in dramatically upskilling their workforce with people-focused approaches.

While I will always believe in the transformative power of one-on-one coaching, it alone cannot address the human development needs we face today. I believe the key to meeting these needs lies in stories of reinvention. In my next article, I will share what we learn as we unlock the black box of reinvention to make workforce development more effective.