What’s Your Talent Investment Plan?

“Knowledge and skills have become the global currency of 21st-century economies, but there is no central bank that prints this currency. Everyone has to decide on their own how much they will print.”

–Andreas Schleicher, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

Schleicher’s quote is from Pass the Books. Hold the Oil by Tom Friedman in the March 10 New York Times. The piece talks about how performance on Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, exam is correlated with how few natural resources a country has. The fewer the natural resources the better the performance on the exam. As another contributor to the article, K.R. Sridhar, founder of a fuel cell energy company in Silicon Valley says, “When you don’t have resources, you become resourceful.”

Those countries with the least natural resources have learned that in order to compete over the long term on a world stage they need to invest in educating their student populations.

Over the past few years, most businesses would say they’ve learned a difficult lesson of what it is like to live in a resource constrained environment. And the ones that will achieve continued success are those who have continued to invest in developing the skills and capabilities that will bring the biggest return on investment for their business. There’s no one perfect solution for every business. It needs to work in your business and in your business environment.

In the 21st century, competitive advantage comes from the strength of the people you have. As Schleicher argues “the only sustainable way is to grow our way out (of the recession) by giving more people the knowledge and skills to compete, collaborate and connect in a way that drives our countries forward,”

What is your talent investment plan?