Opportunity-Oriented: Imagining What Could Be, Not Accepting What Is
Opportunity-Oriented: Imagining What Could Be, Not Accepting What Is
December 20, 2019
At a Glance
Future-Focused Workforce Board Behaviors | Workforce boards that actively seek out new opportunities can increase their influence and expand the range of services they help make available to their communities.
Too often, workforce development boards place constraints on themselves based on the status quo, resource limitations, lack of capacity, and other hurdles. By burdening themselves with such barriers, which they may perceive to be insurmountable, workforce organizations may become incapable of reaching their potential as community leaders and drivers of innovation that power regional growth and development. Without the ability to open themselves up to new opportunities by envisioning what could be rather than accepting what is, workforce boards may not make the most of their capacity to be economic engines within their communities.
An opportunity-oriented approach to providing services is one of four future-focused behaviors identified by AWAKE. These behaviors were vetted by a diverse group of workforce professionals from across the country to ensure they are reflective of the core characteristics, priorities, and commitments needed to prepare and transform America’s workforce system to ensure that all workers and learners succeed.
Opportunity-Oriented: Imagining What Could Be, Not Accepting What Is
Future-focused workforce boards have expansive visions of what they can achieve, and they pursue the resources and talent necessary to meet ambitious goals. They are aware of strategic opportunities to expand their influence at all levels across a diverse set of stakeholders.
Opportunity-oriented leaders and organizations are helping to usher in a new era of service delivery and operations at workforce boards and AJCs across the country. They may not have all of the answers as to how the U.S. workforce system must evolve and transform in order to effectively support all types of workers and learners in the new economy, but they are finding creative ways to experiment, fail forward, and engage in disruptive conversations about how the workforce system can keep up with the pace of change.