Learning delivers the best return

Three trends are shaping our personal and business lives: information is coming at us at an accelerating rate; jobs are changing faster and faster; and society, work and even leisure pursuits are becoming more complex. The accelerating pace of information means that the individual needs to know how to absorb information more rapidly. Faster change means that workers and the organisation they work for must learn to adapt training more quickly. Increased complexity of work means that the ability to analyse situations logically and to solve problems creatively are skills that everyone needs, and must be trained in the workplace and studied at home. In other words, the individuals and companies who can out‐learn, out‐think and out‐create their competitors will be the ones who thrive in the twenty‐first century.