"Even before the current crisis, changing technologies and new ways of working were disrupting jobs and the skills employees need to do them."

Across all industries and sectors, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced organizations to adapt to a largely new paradigm of work. Whether we are working from home or practicing social distancing, things have changed. In this article from the McKinsey Institute, we see that the wave of massive societal change was already coming, the pandemic merely accelerated the process. 

So, what do we do now that the future many saw coming is upon us? As this article suggests, companies and organizations need to double down on their employee learning. But this does not simply mean learning specific technical skills related to one's current position. Rather, the workforce of today needs to refocus on social and emotional learning, adaptability, critical thinking, and creative problem-solving.

Read on to learn about McKinsey's policy recommendations in the face of the new normal.

Continuing with the previous article's assertions, many are realizing that entrepreneurial skills (read, entrepreneurial skills within an organization) are necessary for modern organizations to thrive. 

The adaptability of entrepreneurs is clearly an advantage for new ventures, but within established companies and organizations, it can appear difficult to replicate the skills and perspectives. The trick is to have leadership within your organization that realizes their workforce needs to be able to go out on their own and make themselves useful within the scope of the team's needs. 

How can you make your work-life more like that of an entrepreneurial venture? If you are a manager, what can you do to make entrepreneurial attitudes and skills more of the norm for those you supervise? 

In the above pieces, we see an optimistic view of the future of the work. Learning to adapt to the effects of COVID-19 may in fact hasten the learning the world so desperately needs. That being said, these changes do not happen overnight, nor are they comfortable. 

"Covid-19 has been devastating for many reasons. There are the distinctive features of how the virus spreads and sickens us. There is the insufficient preparation, infrastructure, and leadership.

"Naturally, there's the social inequality that guaranteed that the virus would run its wildest among people with the least resources. The list goes on and on. But it's worth examining how the wreckage has also been made worse by a feature of our psyches -- namely, how poorly we handle ambiguity."

Ambiguity tolerance is at the heart of much of the learning we as individuals and as a society must do to adapt to the challenges of a globalized world. Read on to understand how COVID-19 is not just exposing opportunities, but also flaws in how we handle the world around us.

"America’s 1,100 community colleges represent the obvious infrastructure for reskilling and upskilling a workforce that must be reinvented at scale for a new economy. Yet, for community colleges to live up to their promise, they need to shift their focus.

"Even before the current crisis, it was increasingly clear that too few community colleges were ready to rise to the challenges posed by the new economy."

Community colleges are often considered the obvious choice for retooling a workforce after an economic downturn. But trends prior to the pandemic reveal that the workforce of tomorrow may require shifts to the education of today. 

This brief piece outlines suggestions from a recent report, “The Indispensable Institution,” which highlights how community colleges can make themselves more adaptable and attractive to the demands of the 21st Century workforce.

Many of this month's links focus on the structural changes we are seeing brought on by COVID-19. But, as we also see, these changes were inevitable, the pandemic simply sped up the process. So, the question is, how do we put into practice the changes we need to see organizationally? How do we adopt human-centered learning in our classrooms, our organizations, and our communities?

Meeting learners where they are, and knowing how to truly hear them is a start. Enter the new book by Rodney Walker, Wounds You Can Not See.

"Primed to be one of the nation's premier resources for trauma-informed mentorship and education, Wounds You Can Not See is the educator's guide for nurturing post-traumatic growth in students with high ACE scores. Through a comprehensive blend of SEL principles and entrepreneurship education, practitioners in the field are empowered to reach students where they are, helping them to reframe their adverse experiences as an asset to their growth."

With the passing of Sir Ken Robinson earlier this year, we felt it was important to highlight a talk he gave in 2010 about shifting educational paradigms. In the talk, Robinson outlines how much of our education is predicated on outdated modes of organizing ourselves in an industrialized world, and how much of it is killing our student's abilities to think creatively and divergently.

Enjoy this animated adaptation of his talk "Changing Education Paradigms," and consider how the message remains all the more relevant today.