The Five Skills for The Future You
The Skills That Keep You Perpetually Relevant
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We are now in an era of perpetual irrelevance; a time when change in business models, technology and socio-economic factors far outweigh the ability of people to keep up.
This exponentially has two dimensions:
The blurred lines in how customers transfer expectations from their different experiences
The speed at which change occurs, where ideas that seem to belong to a lab are now available in mainstream daily use applications
Professionals worldwide grapple with anxiety, anticipation on how these disruptive changes impact them.
The future-skills urgency has seen many points of view and options. Should you skill deep into one area? Should you get certifications in new areas like machine learning or cyber security? Should you learn a new language?
The number of gig workers across the world continues to increase given the shrinking of full time jobs in traditional sectors. So how would you transition to becoming a gig talent in a specialized area? What skills would you need to be successful?
If you are a manager or an experienced professional leading teams, will your job still be relevant when new collaboration technologies and models reduce management layers in companies? Is there a differentiated value you bring to being a manager or as experienced professional?
Does experience matter when knowledge is captured through AI models and distributed widely? How would you value experience when a novice can use a GPT tool to create a business plan? Where does experience actually create economic value to an enterprise?
It is critical to build a core set of ‘perpetual skills’ that transcend any functional skills and help individuals adapt faster.
In Ambiguity, People Seek Comfort In Tangibility
As companies and individuals grapple with the what and how of future-skills, we see a bias for tangibility.
This has led to an explosion of tech biased courses that are skilling people in areas like machine learning, cyber security, project management, UX/UI, data analytics, software development, digital marketing.
But the underlying skills needed to adapt and a world of perpetual change is often not invested in as it is not easy to skill or measure effectiveness in these areas.
Imagination
Unimaginative Leaders Are The Greatest Threat To The Future Of Your Company.
There has never been a time in our history that demands new paths to solve complex problems facing our world.
Every single thing we touch today in our daily lives represent ideas that were born from brilliant imaginative minds.
We talk about ideas like Uber, Air BnB, iPods, apps and more that have had significant impact on our lives.
But there is imagination all around us. Parking meters, tooth brush, paper cups, scan and pay, thermometers, keyless carignition, kitchen microwave, zoom calls, car reverse cameras, digital maps on smart phones, voice assistants, chatbots, home cleaning robots, audio headphones, phone camera scanner, QR codes, 3D movies, voice activated baby monitors, 3D printers, smart health monitors, airplanes and more.
The value of imagination lies all around for us to appreciate. Great companies are imaginative. Great leaders use imagination to rally people to the power of the future and transformation.
As Don Draper in Mad Men says, ‘Imagination in the minds of the customer has no constraints, no budgets. You occupy that space, then there is no limit to how you connect with people.
The fact is, companies don’t transform because they have a big idea. They transform because the curiosity of their people and their customers gives them the big idea.
Immortal ideas have long influenced our cultures and economies.
For the number of companies that rise and fall each year, the ideas that fuel them live on for the next bright entrepreneurial mind to reinvent and bring them to life.
Imagination creates economic value far greater than technology itself.
But how many companies nurture imagination as a culture element or as a skill for their leaders or in succession processes?
There seems to be the notion that the intangibility of such skills creates a resistance to investments. It is not easy to measure ROI in the short-term. But in long-term, imagination will keep companies and individuals relevant for exponential changes that come from outside your domain or industry.
The issues our world faces today are complex, inter-connected and ambiguous. They have not been experienced before.
Therefore the criticality for imagination has never been greater.
Comprehension
If one cannot comprehend the complex, then they cannot comprehend the path to future.
Have you been in a discussion with other people and after listening to the same information, each walk away with a different understanding?
In the ever increasing complexity of change, professionals and leaders are inundated with streams of data, information and opinions from a multitude of sources, often with biases.
The ability to bring it all together, make sense of it, but have a construction of all the elements in one’s mind, determines the nature of strategic choices to be made.
The difference between Apple & Blackberry in the initial days of Smart Phones is the comprehension of leaders in both companies faced with a similar set of data, information and choices to be made.
The nature of comprehension as a skill like all the Fast Future Five is that it is intrinsic to the individual. This makes it difficult to understand as to why people understand the same data differently.
In a time where much of the change is outside of the normal domain knowledge of individuals or the interconnections are beyond a deep specialization over years of experience, the key factor that determines the success of a company, project, new product initiative or transformation directly links up the ability to comprehend complex, unfamiliar, uncomfortable contexts.
It is not surprising that we often give up as we cannot fully comprehend the change in front of us and resort back to comfort zones of experience or functional expertise.
How can companies build and assess this skill in their workforce? Do they even have this on their radar of future skills for their leaders?
Often we talk about the speed of disruption and it is mistaken to be an outcome of execution - the ability to act with a single purpose in mind.
But in reality, speed is an outcome of comprehension. Companies, leaders, teams that comprehend a context or challenge better, executive better.
Clarity
Lack of clarity is the single most derailing factor in change.
Clarity is an under appreciated attribute of both companies and leaders alike.
Have you ever listened to a leader in your company and were left thinking, what did the person actually say?
We have many managers in companies who have made it an art to speak but not convey clarity.
The companies that are successful demonstrate clarity. Have you listened to the earnings calls of the top valued enterprises? Despite their mammoth size and complexity of operations, the clarity is astounding.
With new business models, technological advances and scientific developments it is easy to understand if one is not clear about their nature or impact.
But clarity is a direct outcome of comprehension and yet is more multi-dimensional. It involves visual thinking, design, articulation, personal courage and deep cultural sensitivity.
Clarity provides for people to make smart choices. It cuts through the unnecessary but also helps people appreciate sophisticated concepts and engage people at all levels of an organization.
Clarity provides for the courage to say no when the context does not fit. Clarity is the input to great strategy and brilliant execution.
As an intangible skill, clarity is subjective assessment based on who you ask. When clarity makes it too simple, the gravity of the context is not appreciated,
Clarity is not a skill that only leaders in companies need to have. Clarity is a professional skill that helps in career progression, collaboration and performance.
How can companies build clarity as a cultural behaviour? How can this in turn drive simplicity in business and experiences for the customer?
Clarity needs to be rewarded and recognized both in day to day work as well as in strategic choices made by next generation of leaders.
Design
Poor design is the lazy route to a customer.
Remember the next time you drive a car, you can thank an entire generation of designers who made mobility possible.
Design is the hallmark of a company that truly strives to build outstanding products and services.
You experience great design.
It could be paying an utility bill online, or shopping in a physical retail store or using an app to order food or seeing that magical pair of shoes or receiving a notification on your smartphone that reminds you of an upcoming activity.
You know when you experience poor design.
Have you heard of any company that says they aim to be 2nd or 3rd best in providing customer centricity? While every company says they are absolutely customer centric, there are the winners and laggards.
Design centric enterprises create 3X value as compared to their industry peers. Yet we see companies and leaders struggle with even the concept of design - to their business model, strategy, products & services and organization.
Why is it so hard to inculcate design as a key capability in organizations?
First, it is expensive. They need to commit time, money and resources to drive design in every aspect of the business. They must be in this for the long haul. Second, they limit design to products and services, they are unable to apply it as a principle to even how a company is run. Third, a deep misconception that design is a methodology or a step-by-step process.
Companies that have made design central to their business see not just customer advocacy but also employee advocacy.
Does your employee engagement survey ask if their company is a design centric company?
If you were to think of all the admired leaders in your company, most likely they are design centric.
Their principle of design allows them to create experiences for their teams and customer alike.
In many talent development programs, we do not see the prevalence of design as a key leadership attribute. We also do not see it widely used in succession planning or talent identification processes.
Many of the personality assessments have been built in the industrial era. They have not been adapted to 21st century platform business thinking.
But professionals and leaders who go the extra mile in applying design in everything they do, transform their businesses.
Execution
High-quality execution is an exception, mediocrity is the norm
No Company lives in theory. Neither should you.
In a world full of GPT co-pilots, a 5-year old can give a go-to-market strategy for your product that is so well articulated while many professionals struggle to do so.
The singular differentiator future skill for professionals is actually getting it done.
In the hype of AI and all the new possibilities, we forget that the majority percentage of one’s life is still outside of the scope of such hype; doing laundry, walking your dog, vacuuming your house, eating food and importantly having people conversations.
Of all the Fast Future Five, execution is the premium skill to have. This is especially important as we see massive relocation of jobs and skills across categories due to how business models are changing.
While the minimum wages for fast food workers in California increase leading to layoffs, the jobs simply shifted to gig workforce as delivery workers joined food delivery platforms.
Platform business models as digital natives employ just 1/4th of the workforce of a traditional company.
In all of these, the only value you bring to any type of employment - formal or gig is the ability to get things done.
While we admire Apple for their design, clarity on their ecosystem, their US$ 3 trillion is from their execution.
Each of their products have created multiple patents, new materials have been created, new assembly or manufacturing methods had been put in place with a complex supply chain and a geo-political environment to navigate.
They execute.
Companies have excelled at rewarding execution. They have engineered innovating ways to reward both short-term and long-term performance.
But tie-in execution to the other four of the the fast future five? That would be the game changer.
We have also seen the consequences of performance reward leading to multiple financial crises, collapse of well know company’s and causing loss of life.
But execution when done well, creates value and wealth for all stakeholders including employees.
There are two key dimensions to this:
Drive a high-quality execution mindset
Drive execution as an outcome of imagination, comprehension, clarity and design
Are Intrinsic Future Skills Learnable?
Yes.
There is never a doubt about the teachability and learnability of the Fast Future Five skills. But like all habits, these are learnable through a combination of methods, actions and rewards.
There are three simple yet powerful ways to learn the Fast Future Five:
Learn inter-connectedness: look at all the related areas, subjects to the work you do, understand influences, trends, disruptions from those and apply that to how your job or work would change in the coming three years
Practice 2 by 2: Learn more about two other industries and two other domain areas. If you are in manufacturing, learn B2C business models, if you are in technology, learn platform businesses. If you are in Supply Chain, learn finance. If you are in Marketing, learn machine learning
Practice 2 by 2 in self-actions: Read a lot, we mean a lot. Write a lot, Both of these help demonstrate your comprehension and clarity that are critical translators to your imagination or design or execution
Encourage yourself to build for the future. It is often easy to stay in the ‘line of sight’ - ‘why do I need to learn something else when I still have the pressures of my today’s job.’
But when change comes suddenly, you are left out.
Make future a central focus on your thinking and doing, this will reflect in how your career builds and importantly your perpetual success.