Narrowing The Skills Gap: Harnessing The Power Of ‘Learning Quotient’
Leaders can drive innovation and boost business agility by learning from Finland and Singapore’s education systems—but they must develop and delegate
- Why LQ is crucial for businesses to navigate rapid change and stay competitive by empowering workers to update skills with a growth mindset
- How progressive companies are moving away from credentials to prioritize learning agility, investing in diverse resources, innovation, knowledge-sharing, and AI-powered personalized training
- Ways business leaders can learn from education systems that nurture LQ through practical learning and policies encouraging lifelong learning
Crowe Global’s Art of Smart content helps leaders make smarter decisions and solve the biggest challenges of today and tomorrow. Narrowing the skills gap is arguably the most business-critical issue.
At the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual conference in Davos in 2023, a couple of months after OpenAI released ChatGPT and introduced the world to generative AI, forward-thinking speakers heralded “learning quotient” as the new IQ. Simply, LQ measures someone’s adaptability and desire to update their skills throughout life. And it’s becoming essential for businesses, and their leaders.
A recent study by United States firm Crowe LLP, The Volatility Strategy: How Leaders Are Seizing Opportunities In Both Calm And Turbulent Times, launched in collaboration with Forbes, found that 53 percent of respondents are currently addressing talent shortages as a ‘source of volatility.’ Further, more than a quarter (28 percent) of executives surveyed said a lack of appropriate staff with the necessary skills impeded the organization’s efforts to benefit from volatility.
Meanwhile, the WEF’s Future of Jobs Report 2023 showed that over 85 percent of the surveyed 803 companies—collectively employing more than 11.3 million workers across 45 economies—identified increased adoption of new and frontier technologies and broadening digital access as the trends most likely to drive transformation in their organizations.
Yet, in light of recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, IBM predicted in 2023 that 40 percent of the existing global workforce would need to be reskilled by 2026. Clearly, old methods of recruiting, retaining, and developing workers need to improve in the digital age. New ways of thinking about skills and playing to individual strengths are required so workers are better suited to expanding and evolving roles.
As the rate of change accelerates, businesses are moving away from credential-based hiring and toward one that prioritizes learning agility. But what is LQ?
Business and individual agility
“LQ and also adaptability quotient (AQ) refer to similar capabilities like problem-solving, curiosity, creativity, innovation, growth mindset, being prepared to make mistakes, and continuous improvement,” says Paul Brewerton, who almost two decades ago set up Strengthscope. This UK-based company provides a strengths-based approach to reveal workers’ unique strengths to help organizations build a more diverse, empowered, resilient, and agile workplace. “However,” the psychologist continues, “LQ and AQ lack the strong theoretical underpinnings of more established concepts like IQ and EQ.”
He states that developing LQ has become even more crucial for individuals and organizations “to navigate the ambiguity and rapid change of the post-pandemic business environment. It’s about knowing your unique strengths and being situationally agile in applying them for maximum effectiveness in different contexts.”
Yet relying on one’s strengths alone is no longer enough, especially for business leaders, says Brewerton. “If I do the same thing, the same way, repeatedly, and don’t gain a positive outcome, that’s not high learning agility. That’s a sign of someone with a habituated way of using their strengths and skills, but it isn’t serving them anymore. For those people, life will be problematic now and in the future because you have to develop that capacity across situations to read a room and respond to a challenge thoughtfully and quickly.”
While leaders must grow their LQ muscles, it is in their gift to empower their organizations by shifting away from a command-and-control-style model and investing in upskilling or reskilling. “Some progressive organizations have deployed strategies to encourage people to develop a growth mindset, experiment with new thoughts and ideas, ask for forgiveness rather than permission,” says Brewerton. “It’s so important to be able to fail safely, without being judged or criticized. If you say you want people to develop a growth mindset or LQ, you can’t squash them if they try things and it doesn’t work out.”
Stressing the importance of leadership driving cultural change, he says: “If you have an entrenched way of thinking in your organization and want to be more adaptable and agile, it’s a long-term commitment, and it’s not going to be straightforward. You must use all the levers in your control and rewire people-management departments, such as human resources, to ensure you’re hiring the right people to bring up the LQ from day one.”
Lessons to learn from Finnish schooling
In many cases, business leaders might have to return to school to improve organizational LQ. Finland’s education system is a prime example of a radically different approach that fosters adaptability from a young age through play rather than examinations, a later start to formal schooling—aged seven—and a more relaxed learning environment, points out Brewerton.
But the answer to Finland’s success isn’t a simple one. Marjo Somari, Senior Specialist at the Finnish National Agency for Education, highlights that local municipalities are actively involved in designing and delivering the local curriculum. Great attention is also paid to the student-teacher ratio and to giving students the necessary support regarding their mental and physical health. Finally, students are never set on one educational trajectory.
“There are no dead ends in the education system, which means whatever decision you take earlier in your education career, you can change it,” Somari said in a 2023 interview. “You don’t necessarily study maths to go to university. Similarly, if you study vocational education, you can still go to universities.”
Finland is also big on learning over testing. Only one standardized test is taken at the end of secondary education. Otherwise, students are encouraged to learn by exploring the world around them instead of sitting in conventional classes.
The corporate sector is slowly but surely learning the lessons from Finland, argues Aleksandar Ackovski, Co-Founder and CXO at Coach Microlearning, a Macedonian learning platform described as the Duolingo of corporate training. He believes that learning and development departments must be at the forefront of business innovation. If students learn best by doing, so do employees need to have a variety of ways to learn and develop their skills.
"Employees should have access to various resources that cater to their interests and career goals. It’s the employer’s responsibility to create spaces where employees can share their expertise and learn from one another,” says Ackovski.
As a platform, Coach uses AI to process .docx files and convert them into gamified, bite-sized learning modules. This process removes many barriers that make it challenging for L&D programs to keep up-to-date. It also helps deliver personalized training that tackles individual skills gaps in each employee.
“Organizations have to foster a culture of innovation if they want to attract and retain top talent. That starts with how they hire and develop their workforce,” adds Ackovski, echoing Brewerton’s comments.
Project-oriented approach
Jean-François Morizur, Founder and CEO of French deep tech company CAILabs, a global leader in laser communications for space and defense, fosters LQ within his scientific team and prioritizes upskilling his team members.
A 2023 Harvard Business Review study found that companies prioritizing scientific leadership experience higher levels of productivity and innovation, outperforming their competitors in the market. Elon Musk also underscores the significance of scientific leadership in driving innovation within deep-tech companies. “A company is a group organized to create a product or service, and it is only as good as its people and how excited they are about creating,” he stated.
Typically, CAILabs hires fresh PhD graduates. They have deep technical knowledge but have to learn other skills for the business arena, says Morizur, who holds two doctoral degrees in quantum optics from Sorbonne University and the Australian National University. “You need to hire people for their trajectory within the company,” he says. “We need our people to develop skills like project management and client relationships. I must empower them to adapt in their evolution.”
Morizur continues that leadership roles also require great adaptability. Strategy, building a strong leadership team, and fostering the right culture are essential. For example, as a company grows, leaders must shift from doing everything themselves to learning how to delegate and effectively enable others.
This transition can be challenging, especially for technical founders, but it is necessary to scale. “Delegation is not natural to me,” he concedes. “But I know I need to support my leadership team. And my definition of helping should evolve from basically doing it or solving a problem to enabling somebody else to solve it.”
Acquiring non-academic skills
Elsewhere, following the coronavirus pandemic, Africa has transformed its workforce almost singularly by leveraging LQ. Young people with high LQs have taken over the continent’s workforce at both entry and senior levels, especially in the tech and marketing industry.
Increasingly, students are using their college years—periods of high LQ—to learn additional non-academic skills and enter the workforce via entry and mid-level roles, both within and outside the continent.
“Students are becoming more aware of the in-demand skills needed in the job market, and many are proactively seeking to acquire them alongside their traditional education,” says Ibrahim Oredola, Co-Founder of SkillNG, a Nigerian skill acquisition startup.
SkillNG has worked directly with students to build these skills and serve as partners with businesses looking to hire new talent or upskill their employees. From his experience in harnessing the LQ of their employees and helping others with the process, Oredola recommends that ensuring the all-round provision of learning resources for employees is important, as well as providing a culture “where the evolving needs of users constantly challenge employees” is paramount as it instills a learning drive that keeps LQ high over the long term.
“The effectiveness of these initiatives are then measured and iterated through various metrics, including employee performance, engagement, and industry reputation,” Oredola says.
According to Oredola, Singapore’s education system is a global benchmark for nurturing high levels of LQ because of its system-wide commitment to innovation and adaptability. He points out specific programs and policies—such as the SkillsFuture Earn and Learn Programme, Applied Learning Programme, and Learning for Life Programme—that abridge academic work with practical experiences. All this, “coupled with a strong bilingualism policy, contributes to the cultivation of high LQ graduates who are invaluable resources for business success,” Oredola says.
Imagination, inquisitiveness and interconnections
Indeed, according to the Gitnux Marketdata Report 2024, the Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore is the most intelligent country in the world regarding education levels, cognitive ability, and innovation capacity.
But Singapore, like many developed Asian nations, is sometimes accused of producing academically smart but creatively stunted graduates who are reluctant to think outside the box or challenge authority for fear of being “wrong.”
In a 2019 article, Crystal Lim-Lange, CEO of Forest Wolf, a global pioneer in future-ready skills, wrote about Singapore educators being discouraged from using experimental and innovative teaching methods for fear of denting the school’s league table ranking.
“We now live in a complex world of massive disruption where not even the best experts can predict the jobs of the future,” she wrote in the pre-pandemic piece, urging change. “Half of the companies on the S&P 500 will not exist in the next 10 years. More than half of the work tasks in the world can already be automated.”
Further, in words leaders today should heed, Lim-Lange warned: “The human brain is not accustomed to change at this speed, not to mention the proliferation of new threats to the psyche such as digital addiction and social media. The result is that burnout, anxiety and depression are increasing at scary levels.”
In a bid to encourage Singaporeans to look beyond test scores and rankings as a measure of success, the government has implemented initiatives for everyone, from school children to CEOs, to encourage a culture of lifelong learning and innovation.
In December 2017, the country’s then-Education Minister Ng Chee Meng first spoke of the need to nurture the “three Is”: imagination, inquisitiveness, and interconnections.
Four years later, the Singapore Ability Scales (SAS)—the country’s first-ever comprehensive assessment of cognitive functioning, as opposed to intelligence—was launched for school-age children. The joint initiative between private sector assessment experts GL Education, Nanyang Technological University, and the government is a robust psychometric tool that allows practitioners to compare pupils’ core diagnostic abilities easily. Psychologists and researchers developed SAS to assess children ages 5 to 18 in three areas: core, diagnostic, and achievement scales.
Further up the ladder, both workers and employers are incentivized to level up with help from the government’s SkillsFuture initiative, which, as SkillNG’s Oredola mentions, provides subsidies and credits for career-spanning professional training.
Some of Singapore’s most prominent companies have taken advantage. Watsons pharmacy says the industry-specific training has improved its responsiveness to business challenges and enabled it to maintain a competitive edge. FairPrice supermarkets used the lull during the pandemic to retrain employees to adopt new ways of thinking and learning.
Meanwhile, semiconductor manufacturer ams Osram has embraced digital transformation by introducing new technology to its production lines, and many staff have been retained and retrained to take on higher-value roles. Valerie Lee, Senior HR Director, explains how ams Osram “believes that by elevating the capabilities of our workers and supporting innovation and adaptability, we can effectively meet the dynamic demands of this ever-evolving industry.”
Digital upskilling opportunities
Meanwhile, Singaporean super-app Grab—used by millions across the region for on-demand mobility, food delivery, and financial services—has teamed up with everyone from multinational corporations to local social service agencies to help the government’s vision come to fruition.
Thanks to a collaboration with Mastercard, millions of informal workers—people without formal working arrangements—and small businesses on the Grab platform can now access digital upskilling opportunities, including AI fluency courses and technical certifications. Grab has also partnered with the special education center APSN to help train students with learning difficulties for a future in the digitized food-delivery sector.
“Grab is dedicated to elevating the skills of our team members to foster innovation and propel growth, not only within our company but also in the larger tech ecosystem in the region,” a spokesperson says. “We want to create a workplace where individuals and teams are motivated, high-performing, and empowered to thrive.”
Laura Denholm, a Singapore-based talent scout and Business Director at We Are Aspire, says: “Singapore is a hub where different skills and cultures intersect to create a thriving business landscape.”
Business leaders worldwide must abandon traditional working methods, where—much like in Singapore’s schools of old—those at the top hold their knowledge and power close. Along with providing opportunities for lifelong learning, the companies of tomorrow should strive to cultivate a safe environment where curiosity and innovation are recognized and rewarded, even at the risk of failure.
“The continuous investment in future-proofing the skills of your workforce is critical for companies that want to lead from the front and grasp the exciting opportunities that lie ahead,” adds Denholm.
Oredola of SkillNG argues that although Africa and others have their own approach and cannot copy-paste the same methods as Singapore due to economic and sociocultural differences, valuable lessons can be learned—especially when emphasizing practical application over theoretical knowledge.
Much of the learning happens within the younger generation, but businesses and institutions must pay attention to the older generations to ensure an inclusive approach to LQ development. “Encouraging older employees to upskill themselves is essential for collaboration, faster movement, and especially bridging the gap between generations,” Oredola adds.
Ultimately, LQ—at all ages and levels—is better for business today and tomorrow.
Key takeaway questions
- How will you shift your organizational culture to prioritize learning agility and adaptability over traditional credentials and skills?
- What strategies will you implement to provide your employees with diverse learning resources and opportunities to continuously upskill and reskill?
- How will you leverage AI and personalized training to address individual skills gaps and foster a culture of innovation and knowledge-sharing?
- What lessons will you learn from education systems like Finland and Singapore to nurture LQ at all levels within your organization?
- How will you create a safe environment that encourages curiosity, experimentation, and innovation, even at the risk of failure, to future-proof your workforce?
