The Hard Truth. Harvard Business Review January – February 2019.
Professor Gary P Pisano.
The UK Digital Strategy was updated on 4th October 2022. The section on Digital Skills and Talent is worth reading in full because it highlights a hard truth. It notes that the digital skills gap is estimated to cost the UK economy £63 billion per year in lost potential gross domestic product (GDP), and that this skills gap is increasing resulting in a workforce inadequately equipped to meet the demands of the digital age.
We are also told that many companies cite lack of available talent as the single biggest constraining factor to their growth, and that increasing the supply of digitally and tech enabled workers at all levels will be crucial for our long-term economic prosperity and is integral to unlocking productivity improvements across the economy.
This prediction also applies to defence, given the pace of technological change, growth of data and the challenges of multi-domain transformation. The UK Integrating Operating Concept informed us that as we looked further ahead ‘the pervasive availability of data via enhanced cloud connectivity, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and quantum computing will allow not just a new generation of weapon systems, but an entirely new way of warfare’. This new way of war is going to be driven by people, and we need - and are going to need more - tech warriors to carry this fight.
So, there is an imperative for change. As the Integrated Operating Concept again noted ‘Defence will need to take the initiative if it is to retain its competitive edge’. When it comes to workforce planning, I fear that we have hesitated because we do not speak with brutal candour and are uncomfortable with the uncertainty that comes with experimentation or simply trying something new. Skills mapping and aptitude testing of our Cadets may be a good place to start for a whole host of logical reasons, and I want to return to this possibility in the future.
I have spoken before about the approach that Defence is taking to its workforce planning – all very traditional, with good people trying very hard, yet not very creative. Turning to the Digital Skills strategy you see a series of initiatives – all very traditional, with good initiatives that chip away at the challenge, yet not very creative. At a recent Defence Technology Conference, I found almost unanimous agreement that none of these initiates would solve the digital / tech talent problem for industry or defence. We need a 21st Century talent management system that delivers at scale today. If no-one thinks we have cracked this problem then surely it is time to try something new and even imagine what it would be like to fundamentally reshape how talent works, where talent is found, how labour markets are wired and how people learn and choose careers. Innovation is never easy, but the hard truth is unless we try, we are doomed to mediocrity. WithYouWithMe are not the only show in town, but their talent creation, hiring and matching platform (Potential) offers a path out of this dark wood. Let’s have the courage to try something new.
