Vidya Krishnan, Chief Learning Officer at Ericsson, speaks with Merav Yuravlivker, Chief Learning Officer at Data Society, in a video interview about organizational challenges with AI skills, tackling accessibility and scale, remaining gaps, treating skills as a product, the difference between facilitating learning and enabling change, the future of work, constructive creativity, and the company as the classroom of the future. 

At the onset, Krishnan discusses the challenges, decisions, and insights that shaped the journey of embedding AI skills at scale. She acknowledges that the approach taken was “a bit unconventional.”

Explaining further, Krishnan says that the focus on a single skill area of AI initially raised concerns. “Are we being too small? Are we trying to do too little?” was a recurring question, she adds.

Despite broad consensus on the value of AI, Krishnan and her team encountered early hurdles in securing buy-in. However, this resistance led to the realization that it cannot be based on consumption but qualification.

Tackling accessibility and scale

Another significant challenge was the scaling aspect, says Krishnan: how to make AI learning “attainable, accessible, and available at scale.” Fortunately, the timely implementation of the learning and upskilling platform Degreed in the learning ecosystem proved pivotal.

According to Krishnan, it turned out to be a vital tool in the ecosystem for enabling easy access to not only the content and the pathways but also the assessments and the people who could help with being ready for those things.

Measuring what matters

Skepticism around measuring impact was another barrier. Krishnan observes that while there was comfort in traditional learning metrics, her team took a different route. “We counterintuitively said, ‘We think the only thing that matters is how many people are at what level of skill and where they are.’”

This shift demanded new capabilities. “We were very new in the space of people analytics,” she says, and the absence of effective dashboards meant the team had to build from scratch. “I’m fond of saying that I think skills are like oxygen. They’re vital, but they’re invisible. And analytics is what makes them visible.”

Creating visibility is not just about analytics; it is also about data visualization. “We had to reinvent our roles to make these analytics not only visible but valuable,” says Krishnan.

Speaking of the existing challenges, she says, “We have left people behind. There are underrepresented groups that are not showing up in the critical skills.” She points out that disparities often align with “gender, geography, and generation,” prompting critical questions such as “Why aren’t those people participating as much? Why are these people so underrepresented?”

Treating skills as a product

Moving forward, Krishnan states that all the challenges have taught her the lesson to simplify the process and treat skills like a product. She elaborates, “Within our team, we own AI as a skilled product, which means we own the roadmap. We have executive sponsors who take responsibility and accountability for how many people at Ericsson have AI skills.”

“That inventory and the size of it, the adequacy of it, is their responsibility, and so it became a business co-ownership,” she adds.

The most crucial takeaway, according to her, is that skills cannot be owned solely by learning and development (L&D) or HR, and they are co-owned by the company.

Difference between facilitating learning and enabling change

Krishnan emphasizes a fundamental distinction between facilitating learning and truly enabling change. “Our job is to create conditions in which people can change themselves. We can’t change them.” She believes real transformation begins internally, with a desire for change that reshapes beliefs, spurs learning, and ultimately drives action.

This mindset led to a focus not just on delivering content but on creating visible consequences that motivate behavior change.

Delving further, Krishnan states, “Creating conditions is a harder, different set of responsibilities than curating content, putting assessments in front of people, and urging them to complete it.” While those actions support learning, she sees the core mission as something far more transformative: “The job is to create conditions in which people can and will change their own skill sets, mindsets, and toolsets.”

Leaning into a culture of change

One of Ericsson’s strengths, Krishnan believes, lies in its history and identity as a technology company. Adaptability is part of the organization’s DNA. “We have been changing as technology changes all the years we’ve been in existence. We started out as a telegraph repair operation in the late 1800s, started by a man and a woman. And that’s not what we are now.”

She draws a powerful analogy between technological evolution and personal growth: “Technology is inherently upgradable. When you look at your phone, you don’t want to stay on 2G or 3G forever. You want 4G and 5G. You hope and anticipate one day, 6G and everything beyond. If that’s inherently upgradable, so are we.”

That belief in human upgradability, just like technology, has shaped Ericsson’s culture and learning philosophy. As Krishnan puts it, “Right now at Ericsson, there’s zero tolerance for zero learning.”

Reimagining the future of work: Human potential, progress, and purpose

Looking ahead to a world shaped by rapid technological change, Krishnan emphasizes the importance of not only anticipating the future but also learning from the past.

She explains that shifts in work have always occurred as a result of time, technology, and human resilience. “Tomorrow’s jobs in many areas are constantly replacing yesterday’s jobs.”

The central question, Krishnan believes, is not “Will AI replace human jobs?” but rather, “Will the work of tomorrow replace the work of today and yesterday?” Her answer is, “Resoundingly yes.”

But she also offers an empowering perspective: “Like always, that can either happen to you or through you.” The true opportunity, Krishnan says, is “to enable a company and a workforce to make that happen through them rather than to them.”

Krishnan offers a second, critical insight — one that challenges the conventional corporate narrative around productivity. While acknowledging its value, she warns that this is not enough.

At some point, she says, “The rapid penetration and proliferation of these tools is going to make that productivity a commodity.” True competitive edge, according to Krishnan, comes from something deeper. “It comes from progress, vision, creativity, and competitive advantage,” she says.

That advantage lies in “imagining the unseeable and finding solutions to long-standing problems in ways others have not. Krishnan stresses, “That’s the other caution for us, to recognize that there’s something even more valuable than short-term productivity that we need to be chasing and preparing our people to usher in.” And that value, she asserts, can only be unlocked through “a generative combination of human and artificial intelligence.”

The power of constructive creativity

Krishnan’s third reflection focuses on the culture needed to make innovation possible. “The first two things can only happen when a company can weaponize constructive creativity.”

She warns of the risk of fear-based cultures, including fear of the unknown, fear of lack of control, and fear of ethical lapses. “If you permit fear to permeate the workforce in the name of productivity, you are actually creating conditions in which that creativity can’t happen at scale.”

Instead, Krishnan believes, companies must learn to “monetize multi-generational creativity” and foster a workplace where courage and value creation take precedence over anxiety and hesitation.

Jobs change, callings endure

Furthermore, Krishnan urges a shift in focus from the impermanence of roles to the permanence of purpose. “Jobs have always changed, but callings have not,” she says. Despite the evolution of titles, tools, and tasks, the deeper reasons for work comprise “the calling to help people, the calling to heal people, the calling to enable people, and the calling to manage people.”

The company as the classroom of the future

Companies have a very special role to play in re-establishing trust, says Krishnan, and a company is the classroom of the future.

She states, “It’s our sacred duty to create creativity in our people that they can then use to harness these powerful tools for good.”

Reflecting on the power of creating supportive learning environments, Krishnan describes it as a simple but transformative idea: offering others what one wishes to have experienced. She illustrates this with a powerful analogy:  “Imagine what school would be like if instead of being given an exam once you were given it two or three times, and the only score that mattered was the one on the third try. You would stop obsessing about getting a bad grade on the first one. The focus would shift from judgment to improvement.”

This kind of environment is what truly unlocks a person’s boldest potential, says Krishnan.  Looking to the future, she says, “Companies are increasingly going to compete on how effectively they can remove fear.” The real edge, she believes, will lie in their ability to create psychological safety: “constructive and creative psychological safety at scale.”

Wrapping up, Krishnan emphasizes the importance of taking a systematic, not programmatic, approach to building workforce capabilities. While large-scale programs with high visibility and immediate impact can be attractive and valuable, she cautions that they are not sufficient on their own.

“The appeal of a program is always strong,” she acknowledges, citing the excitement around major launches and quick wins. However, she stresses that long-term success comes from sustained, integrated efforts. “Skills never go out of style,” she notes, and the strength of a workforce’s capabilities is the single most important factor in executing strategy.

Being systematic means embedding skills development into the fabric of the organization so it happens “again and again and again,” says Krishnan. This requires attention to interdependencies, continuous improvement, and the discipline to regularly reassess, just like with business strategy, she concludes.

CDO Magazine appreciates Vidya Krishnan for sharing her insights with our global community.