Please read the attached article and summarize it in a 500word submission.You can use an essay format,or a bullet point format,but give it an original title.Please read the article carefully before starting,do not skim it. I
Four Skills Tomorrow’s Innovation Workforce Will Need Four Skills Tomorrow’s Innovation Workforce Will Need Tucker J. Marion, Sebastian K. Fixson, and Greg Brown The young digerati will lead innovation, but they’ll need business awareness, an entrepreneurial attitude, bottom-line focus, and ethical intelligence. Throughout history, new technologies have demanded step shifts in the skills that companies need. Like the First Industrial Revolution’s steam-powered factories, the Second Industrial Revolution’s mass-production tools and techniques, and the Third Industrial Revolution’s internet- based technologies, the Fourth Industrial Revolution — currently being driven by the convergence of new digital, biological, and physical technologies — is changing the nature of work as we know it. Now the challenge is to hire and develop the next generation of workers who will use artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing, genetic engineering, 3D printing, virtual reality, and the like in their jobs. The problem, strangely enough, appears to be two-sided. People at all levels complain bitterly about being either underqualified or overqualified for the jobs that companies advertise. In addition, local and regional imbalances among the kinds of people companies want and the skills available in labor pools are resulting in unfilled vacancies, slowing down the adoption of new technologies. Before organizations can rethink how to design jobs, organize work, and compete for talent in a digital age, they must systematically identify the capabilities they need now, and over the next decade, to innovate and survive. For more than 10 years, we’ve been studying the impact of digital design and product development tools on organizations, their people, and their projects. 1 We’ve found that the competencies companies need most are business-oriented rather than technical. That’s true even for brick-and-mortar companies that are trying to become more digital. MIMITT SLOSLOAN MANAAN MANAGEMENT REVIEWGEMENT REVIEW Copyright © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2020. All rights reserved. • Reprint #61313 • https://mitsmr.com/2S32Vc9 https://mitsmr.com/2S32Vc9 And most companies are beginning to realize that they can’t just hire all-new workforces; there aren’t enough qualified recruits, and the expense would be enormous. Instead, they need to retrain and redeploy existing employees and other members of their communities, in addition to hiring and contracting new ones to fill their needs. However, rapid technological change has rendered skill cycles shorter than ever; key competencies of even a decade ago are passé today, and most of tomorrow’s jobs remain unknown. Waiting for the fog to clear isn’t an option. Companies must identify and develop the core skills their employees will need going forward. Our interviews, surveys, and case studies have revealed that most companies focus on refining the skills their people already possess, which doesn’t prepare existing employees or new hires for the business challenges they’ll face when using emerging technologies in their jobs. We’ve also found that young digerati, many of whom come into the workforce from narrow academic streams, are typically more captivated by digital technologies than they are by business problems. And yet, given the sweeping changes that the new technologies are likely to bring about, companies would do well to cultivate four broad business- oriented competencies in tomorrow’s innovators. 1. Omniscience To know it all may be a godlike, even insufferable, goal. But tomorrow’s talent must aspire to understand everything — or at least much more than they currently do — about their businesses. Employees must grasp key connections: links between physical machines and digital systems, between each step of the value chain, between the company’s current and future business models. 2 And they must know their customers’ businesses — how and when their customers’ products and services are used, how their customers’ organizational processes work, and the related challenges and opportunities. That’s the only way companies will be able to evolve from selling products and services to delivering outcomes — a process that will likely change the very businesses they’re in. For instance, a major medical device manufacturer we studied has moved from developing R&D-driven solutions to delivering patient outcomes, which has become possible because of new technologies and big data. The company needed to quickly employ more people with a systemic understanding of everything it does, including patient care and rehabilitation and treatment efficacy. To move the needle on patient outcomes, it’s critical to understand all those aspects of the system and the associated variables. Thus, the business will demand that existing and new employees have a broader understanding about the underlying science, the delivery technologies, and the industry than almost all of them, other than top management, currently possess. Breadth of knowledge cannot substitute for depth, either; employees must also be able to make deep dives into the vertical aspects of the business when necessary. Let’s consider another example: The Canadian company Dental Wings is using recent advancements in digital design, digital imaging, and additive manufacturing, as well as a collaboration platform, to rethink its dental implant business. From the dentist’s initial assessment to patient recovery, the company has started adopting new technologies to improve its processes and provide better care. For instance, all-new imaging capabilities provide more accurate pictures of the dental site that can be used not only to create digital models for implants, but also to develop tools to help surgeons define the optimal surgical paths. That reduces exploration of the implant site, which helps reduce recovery time and lowers the risk of infection. To innovate at each step, Dental Wings’ employees need to understand how the new processes and systems connect and work together. The need to know more holds true for people in every function, but especially so in R&D and product design. In the not-too-distant future, product designers who are designing new earth-moving equipment will have to use AI and internet of things (IoT) sensor data to model, analyze, develop, and modify features in near real time. Once in the field, each prototype and its digital twin will operate simultaneously so that the designers will have access to data 24-7. They must be trained to use it to develop improvements for the current model on the fly as well as to better design the next generation of equipment. In almost every brick-and-mortar company, dozens of digital platforms will have to be coordinated, the data mined, MIMITT SLOSLOAN MANAAN MANAGEMENT REVIEWGEMENT REVIEW Copyright © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2020. All rights reserved. • Reprint #61313 • https://mitsmr.com/2S32Vc9 https://mitsmr.com/2S32Vc9 and the insights used in a harmonized effort between the human team and AI systems. Orchestrating all that data, whether from design outcomes or field performance, will require people who understand the value of each data point and how all the pieces fit together. It will also require knowledge across myriad disciplines, such as mechanical and electrical engineering, computer sciences, and product development, because the variables in a complex system interact in many ways. For instance, the location of a sensor on a suspension lever (a mechanical issue) will affect the data that the sensor electrically measures, which will in turn affect the mathematical algorithms that determine the lever’s accuracy. Companies whose employees can manage and navigate complex data-based systems will be best equipped to improve the performance of their products, reduce maintenance costs, and attract and retain customers. A Perfect Storm of Megatrends Businesses tend to overlook the fact that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is gaining ground just as two other major shifts are exacerbating the skills shortage. First, there’s a demographic shift. With the baby boomer generation retiring and the working-age population declining in many countries, automation will likely replace many of the people who are leaving the workforce. Succeeding generations, such as the millennials and the centennials, seem to have different career aspirations than previous generations, as several surveys show. i Many would prefer to work for startups rather than incumbents. However, most large companies are old. Just 26 of the Fortune 500 companies were created in this century — like the centennials, who will soon constitute half the U.S. workforce. These young workers have high expectations of employers, making it tough for traditional corporations to attract the young talent they need. Second, as technologies change the way we work, they’re creating a dynamic that differs from that of previous industrial revolutions. In the past, technology boosted the precision and productivity of workers with manual skills, enabling them to do tasks previously performed only by highly skilled and well-compensated artisans and craftspeople. Artificial intelligence and robots will have the opposite effect: They will increase highly skilled workers’ precision and productivity but end up replacing many low-skilled workers, such as those on assembly lines, service desks, or maintenance teams. Even though some of those professions will survive, the necessary skills are changing fast: Miners will have to operate machines remotely, truck drivers will have to monitor self-driving rigs, and so on. Workers at all levels must learn to collaborate and coexist with learning machines. 2. Entrepreneurial Mindset Although it may sound obvious, innovation teams will need to become more enterprising to succeed. They must become boundary pushers in terms of not just the products they wish to develop, but also the processes they use. The two are closely linked. In large businesses, R&D and product development teams are organized like most other functions. They must follow the company’s guidelines about sourcing hardware, materials, and technologies to do their work and can use only IT-approved tools. R&D must adhere to time-tested procedures and rules for sharing information about or testing prototypes and product designs. And traditional R&D teams usually work in a centralized way, relatively insulated from the outside. All that works well when business is as usual, but these are extraordinary times. R&D is meant to push technical boundaries, so R&D teams must learn to redraw organizational boundaries to keep pace with technological change. Essentially, they must become digital intrapreneurs, using the latest tools or, if necessary, creating them. That involves experimenting with new software and systems outside those recommended by IT, and even developing some solutions in-house. MIMITT SLOSLOAN MANAAN MANAGEMENT REVIEWGEMENT REVIEW Copyright © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2020. All rights reserved. • Reprint #61313 • https://mitsmr.com/2S32Vc9 https://mitsmr.com/2S32Vc9 For incumbents, that can be a shock to the system — most people are used to working on proprietary systems and tools, getting things “right” before launch, and offering better products over time. Moving toward open systems, beta versions, and constant iteration can feel like a clash of civilizations in established companies, but they need to do so to innovate for today, as well as tomorrow. Collaboration is central to this effort. One study of 152 managers found that companies that used digital tools for collaboration improved performance — as measured by the number of concepts and prototypes developed — during the early stages of innovation. And another study of 400 companies showed that