Building capability; whose responsibility is that?

Hi there, today I want to pose an interesting question to you, those who work in private and public enterprises. The question is, capability building, whose responsibility is that? I thought I will reflect on this topic as there are so many summits and conferences happening these days. The topic of these summits and conferences seem to revolve around ‘capability building to face future challenges’. Our aspiration as a nation is to become the hub between Dubai and Singapore. Well and good. But in this journey capital expenditure and infrastructure will be the easy part.

The more challenging part will be human capital development. Are we a learning nation (or a learning organisation)? Or are we a nation that likes to follow and limit our learning to few books, or want someone to tell us what to do. The key question is whether we ready to face Financial City, Mega-polis or the economic opportunities presented by many of the infrastructure development projects that are proposed? Leave aside the macro picture and think about your own workplace. Are you ready to move two slots up in the next five years? Remember the western world is going through economic and social turmoil.

They could easily come, take our better paying jobs! We often complain that our income is not enough. Think about it. I have this conversation with my factory staff very often. If you have the same output year after year, and expect your salary to go up, where is value creation? You could expect your income to rise only if you ‘do more’ each day. Another crazy though… are you doing a job that a machine (a cheaper option) can do better and faster than you or are you doing a specialised job which is difficult to imitate or replace? If you are doing a run of the mill standard job, with no productivity improvement, better to forget about a decent raise! Some of my colleagues ask me why life has to be unfair.

They ask me whether their long service has any value or importance. I tell them that life is unfair and we are as good as our last month’s performance. Sometimes we blame our organisations for our plight, our stagnation, our income, our social status and possibly a VRS at the end. Does this blame game bring any good to you and your dependents? I trust not. I feel we have a similar situation with university education. Some of the professionals are scared of free trade agreements. They are used to protected sectors and industries. If you are strong, why do you worry about competition? If you know you are the best, can others beat you in your game? Talking about university education, we know that our crème de la crème goes to state university (of course there are some issues with proportional system)

. But can you believe they cannot find suitable employment while industry complains that they cannot find the skillset they need? If they are the best shouldn’t they figure out that they too have ownership to develop themselves for employment? ‘Ownership’ is the key word here. Let’s not blame anyone around us for our situation. Our destiny is in our hands. The state, schools, universities, employers can do more of course, but don’t wait for them, take your career into your hands. Don’t allow your organisation to chart your career path. And remember, do more work in less time, do more value adding work than others. This means capability building! Let’s talk about this more next week. (Write your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected] or even challenge me! Have a great week.)