I found myself reading about the LPI Capability Map and the headline findings of an L&D skills gap in the middle of the night last night (catching up on your reading has to be one of the upsides of being up with your way-too-hot-and-teething 16month old.)  

If you haven't read about it, you can see a good summary here:  http://bit.ly/13u1SiA.

In short, L&D professionals believe they are highly skilled in traditional things (like delivery and design) but are lacking skills in the 'modern' L&D practices/requirements such as designing collaborative learning, information architecture or managing the finances of the L&D function.

After settling the little guy and being able to get back to bed, I found myself wondering "why?".  Why is it, if these (and many other) things are the future of learning and development, why are these the areas that L&D practitioners have development needs?  Why are we not investing out time, effort (and most likely) money to develop our abilities to do these things well.  

Is it because we are scared of moving away from what we know?  Is it because we don't know how to get this new knowledge?  Is it because we just have so much to do in the 'day job' that we can't find the time to invest in upgrading our own skills?  Or is it just because some of these things are so new to the function that they are still evolving and we will have to learn as we go?

Whatever the reason the one thing we do know is that both learners and organisations what to see this shift in learning, so there is no avoiding it, we have to address the gap.  But now the question is how....

Why do you think the skills gap exists and how do you think it should be addressed?