TDP Development Ltd

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New Skill-sets and Core Competencies for
Knowledge Workers The Shift to Individual
Responsibility for Lifelong Learning
Andy BELL
Director of TDP Development Ltd. United Kingdom
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New Skill-Sets and Core Competencies for
Knowledge Workers

• The Shift to Individual Responsibility for
  Lifelong Learning

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TDP Development Ltd

• Andrew Bell
• Director

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TDP Development Ltd

• Areas of work 
• q Work in Accountancy and Financial Services
• q Competency Research and Modelling
• q Assessment and Training Consultancy with UK
  based Accountancy Professional Institutes
• q Development Work with Senior Finance
  Professionals Private/Public Sector

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The Knowledge Age

• Chinese Imprecation 
• I curse you May you live in an Important Age

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The Knowledge Age

•  For Countries in the vanguard of the world
  economy the balance between knowledge and
  resources has shifted so far towards the former
  that knowledge has become the most important
  factor determining the standard of living
  Todays most technologically advanced economies
  are truly knowledge based
• World Bank 1998 World Development Report

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The Knowledge Age

• The emergence of knowledge based economies has
  profound implications for the determinants of
  growth, the organisation of production and its
  effects on employment and skill requirements and
  may call for new orientation in industry related
  policies
• OECD 1998

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The Knowledge Age

• The Knowledge Economy
• A knowledge driven economy is one in which the
  generation and exploitation of knowledge has come
  to play a predominant role 
• It is a general phenomenon - encompassing the
  exploitation and use of knowledge in all
  production and service activities not just those
  classified as High-Tec or knowledge intensive
• The value of organisations resides entirely in
  its patents and its Staff

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The Knowledge Age

• Why is Knowledge Important?
• Four Driving Processes
• Advances in Information and Communications
  Technology
• Increased speed of scientific and technological
  advance
• Global competition
• Changing demands and expectations from consumers

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What are the implications?

• Organisations
• Must nurture and utilise their knowledge assets
• Shorter product lives
• Respond to increased competition
• Anticipate and react to the reshaping of
  political landscape
• Innovate and collaborate
• Develop smart systems integrating Hard Knowledge
  management systems and Soft formal and informal
  networks developed between people
• Develop new learning cultures that innovate and
  transform

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What are the implications?

• Investors and the Financial Community 
• Wealth creating potential is tied up in
  intangible assets including the knowledge of the
  workforce
• Valuing assets becomes harder and they are
  increasingly mobile
• Increased risk and uncertainty in investment
  decisions
• Flexibility in financing crucial to
  organisational growth and delivering returns on
  investment

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What are the implications?

• The Policy Makers in Economic and Educational
  Spheres 
• Create a framework supporting continued
  technological and scientific excellence
• Develop a culture of enterprise and innovation

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What are the implications?

• For Employees The Knowledge Worker 
• Acquire and maintain new and relevant skills
• Develop as a Reflective Practitioner
• Take personal responsibility for continuous
  learning throughout their lifetime
• Take responsibility of their intellectual capital
  as well as their well-being and life balance

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What are the implications?

• Educators and Trainers
• Learner Centred approaches to education and
  continued learning
• Dynamic and Interactive systems
• Learning systems, which encourage ownership
• Based on a model of shared learning
• Learning Systems which encourage experiential and
  reflective practice
• Focused on developing the effective Reflective
  Practitioner

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The Knowledge Worker

• Knowledge workers are not simply the holders of
  specialised knowledge requirements change
  rapidly. Rather the knowledge worker must
• Sense and respond to unstructured knowledge
• Create and produce structured knowledge
• Connect the two to create value to the
  organisation

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Shift to Personal Responsibility

• Core Skills Sets and Competencies for the
  Knowledge worker
• Overarching
• Continuous Learning
• Reflective Practitioner
• Developing Mastery
• Develop competencies which support learning and
  which themselves can be learnt

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New Skill Sets and Competencies

•   Information Cluster 
• Sourcing knowing where to find information and
  knowledge and how best to access it 
• Questioning - challenging data and information
  to ensure its is the right knowledge and adds
  value 
• Sensing - being responsive and open to new
  information, often requiring suspension of
  judgement until all the information is available.
  It requires perceptiveness

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New Skill Sets and Competencies

• Social Cluster 
• Networking - building a network where
  information and support can be located or steers
  as to where they can be found 
• Team-working crucial to the success of the
  knowledge worker is the ability to collaborate
  and share knowledge 
• Dialoguing - the ability to work without
  preconceptions and to value all the arguments and
  viewpoints

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New Skill Sets and Competencies

• Cognitive 
• Analysing - using logic and systems thinking,
  reasoning and mental modelling based on
  rationality 
• Creating - deploying an emotional approach
  thinking laterally and creatively working with
  the imagination 
• Reflecting - thinking about what has been learnt
  from the experiences gained and being able to
  self reflect

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Implications for Professional Education and
Training Systems

•  Traditional Models 
• Input led
• Didactic
• Concentration on technical knowledge -
  Curriculum led
• Focused on summative assessment and qualification
• Outside of the workplace not part of it
• Viewed as the key to starting the journey not the
  journey itself
• Remote and difficult to access

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Implications for Professional Education and
Training Systems

• Emerging Systems
• Ongoing - designed for lifetime and lifestyles
• Learner Centred
• Encouraging innovation and creativity through
  challenge
• Dynamic Accessible and Credible
• Eclectic using a variety of approaches and
  methods
• Encouraging sharing and leaning within a
  community
• Encouraging self ownership and personal growth
  character building developing the reflective
  practitioner

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New Skill Sets and Competencies

• People cannot afford to choose between reason
  and intuition or head and heart anymore than they
  would choose to walk on one leg or see with one
  eye
• Peter Senge