The Expertise Economy: How the Smartest Companies Use Learning to Engage, Compete, and Succeed

By Kelly Palmer and David Blake

Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 240 pp., $29.95

If you need to create an environment that enables employees to truly own their learning, help employees learn every day within the context of the work they are already doing, or determine how to use the extraordinary volume of available data to create strategies that help employees and the organization to remain ahead of the skills learning curve, then The Expertise Economy should be your next read. Palmer and Blake pour their rich experience at LinkedIn, Degreed, and other cutting-edge organizations into the definitive user's guide for anyone interested in personal or organizational learning.

The book is based on the undeniable premise that "Developing your employees' skills at a rate equivalent to the rate of changes is the key to a sustainable competitive advantage. We need people who have the latest skills and who build new ones quickly."

The authors offer a sweeping, comprehensive overview of the forces and factors affecting learning today. Drawing upon studies and the insights of gurus and luminaries, Palmer and Blake provide critical grounding in such issues as motivation, purpose, neuroscience, growth mindset, resilience, and emotional intelligence. They also explore the changing employment landscape and its implications for development as well as the science of learning as they debunk popular myths and replace them with contemporary research and day-to-day practices playing out in the real world.

The Expertise Economy is filled with compelling examples of cutting-edge, technology-based products in the marketplace today (along with low-tech strategies such as peer-to-peer learning and the power of reflection) that can be easily implemented even under a tight budget. This book offers a range of examples of how real organizations are evolving their practices to enable 21st century learning.

Perhaps most important, the authors draw upon their own experience and expertise, concluding each chapter with actionable advice and specific steps for putting their ideas into practice.

The Expertise Economy is sure to become a classic and the go-to resource for talent development professionals who are ready to respond to the realities of modern business dynamics. In the authors' eyes, expertise never has been so crucial to a person's or company's success as it is today.