Chief Learning Officer’s January 2012 issue contained a relevant article on “The Real Education Gap”.  The article describes the lack of communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking skills present in today’s workforce.  The article suggests that “82% of American schools fail to teach curricula that imbue students with the skills leadership demands.”  One could argue that school should (and are) teaching students reading, writing and math.  The challenge lies in the need for other skills to excel in today’s modern workplace and global arena.

The 2010 American Management Association (AMA) Critical Skills Survey uncovered the need for the “Four C’s”:

• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Effective communication
• Collaboration and team building
• Creativity and innovation. 

The most important of the “4C’s” is communication, which includes thinking clearly, figuring out what information is most important and then communicating back clearly.  Given my experience in training and education, I believe it would be fairly simple to practice these skills, even with existing content.  Revising content so that is culminates in real-life, practical application would be an easy fix for organizations. 

Ultimately, if practitioners ask the question “How does this training change behavior?” it is more likely the content will have some practice and skill development built into the design.  The article concludes with “organizations that develop their people have more success across all performance metrics.”  I think this is an obvious insight because as the old adage goes:  Don’t worry about training people that then might leave, instead worry about not training employees and having them stay!