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Penny Pritzker at ASU + GSV Summit: We need a generation of lifelong learners

At Day Two of the ASU + GSV Summit, the former commerce secretary talked with WorkingNation's Ramona Schindelheim about the technological forces reshaping the nature of work and whether the United States is prepared for these changes.
By Ramona Schindelheim
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Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker wants the country to take notice of a major generational shift happening as the workforce adapts to the digital age.

“If you step back and recognize that artificial intelligence, automation, globalization and general technological innovation are not going away, but are changing the way we work at a more and more rapid pace, then we need, as a country, to ask whether we are preparing Americans for this generational change that is going on,” Pritzker said during Day Two of the ASU + GSV Summit in San Diego.

The very nature of work is changing rapidly as a result of technology. Jobs are being eliminated and others are being created. It’s disrupting the way we do business. It needs to disrupt the way we educate and reskill our workforce.

Photo – Council on Foreign Relations

A Council of Foreign Relations report, prepared by an independent task force co-chaired by Pritzker, recently warned that failure to address the challenges posed by new technologies would “affect U.S. national security” and make the world a more unstable and less prosperous place.

“We need generational change and a social movement to help more Americans succeed and adapt. The big idea that we propose out of the report, and something I fundamentally believe, is that we have to be lifelong learners. It means the idea of the way I was taught — I go to school until my mid-20s, and then I go to work for the rest of my life without any form of formal education — just isn’t sustainable,” she told me.

Another big idea is that we, as a society, have to work to make pathways to careers clearer. “We have to make it easier for an individual to understand ‘how do I get from where I am to where I want to be?’ There has to be a lot more transparency in the pathway from my current situation — whether I am in school, sixth grade, eighth grade, twelfth grade or I am in mid-career — to the job I want,” according to Pritzker.

RELATED STORY: ASU + GSV Summit: Reinvent education today for tomorrow’s jobs

Pew Research finds that 70 percent of Americans fear that robots will take over their jobs. “The angst is real. It is out there. And we need systemic change in order to address that.” Pritzker said the CFR report offers up a menu of policy options and actions that local and national government, business leaders, and nongovernmental agencies (NGOs) can implement.

“This is part of the local movement. This where the mayor, the governor or business leaders could come together with the university leaders, the community college leaders, and the K-12 education leaders and say ‘look, we need to better connect education and work,’” she told me.

Eighty-two percent of Americans want to see more skills and jobs-based learning going on in their communities.

“There are a lot of ideas as to how to create system change, but it is not a magic bullet,” Pritzker said. “It is more of a generational commitment to say we are going from the industrial age to the digital age, that we’re in the digital age, and people’s lives are being affected and we need to change educational and training systems to adapt to that reality.”

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.

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