Strategic doing to chart pathways for a New Workforce
My colleagues Linda Fowler and Hamilton Galloway are making a presentation next week to the Heartland Conference, an important workforce development conference that covers the Midwest region.
In their presentation, they will be outlining some of the work that we've been doing in Southeast Wisconsin and in Will County, Illinois. Linda, Hamilton and I are working to develop new frameworks, methods and tools that can bridge the gap between economic and workforce development and among educators, workforce development professionals, economic development professionals and business executives.
It's a tall order.
In our approach, we are merging both new thinking about strategy in open networks -- strategic doing -- with new tools to help define and strengthen the career pathways for individuals to follow. A large part of this task involves designing a new visual language that can connect educators, economic and workforce development professionals, and business executives.
One of the biggest challenges we face is the inadequacy of our current set of tools. Employers cannot easily express what they need in a new hire. Educators cannot quickly evaluate the content of their curriculum in terms that make sense in the workplace. Workforce development professionals labor under a system of measurement that is clumsy and outdated. And economic development professionals are generally ill-equiipped to deal with workforce issues.The slides above outline the current status of our work.
