Uncertainty is the new normal.
Work as we know it has changed. The world of work we know now is undeniably different from the one we knew before the pandemic.
Today, any field including legal, finance, biotech, infotech, nanotech, energy, healthcare, education etc. is wide open to revolutionary transformational developments. There’s a major shift happening in the skill sets people need to succeed in the future of work.
Many countries are doing everything they can to prevent an unprecedented economic downfall — that means borrowing to provide crisis minimum income for millions of people in certain developed countries and grants or soft loans for businesses to survive.
But the bitter truth is, there is so much your government or the company you work for can do for you. At some point, many businesses will have to cut jobs to sustain themselves.
The real question is: what can you do to become indispensable in our fast-changing world of work?
Indispensable means that you are so good and efficient at what you do that your employer can’t let you go. It means you have the right skills almost every employer is looking for in the people they work with.
The good news is — you don’t have to miss out on anything: you can reinvent yourself, improve your skills or learn new skills to improve your career success.
With the current global work transformation, remote work-styles, and the uncertainty about work, the future will favour those who can adapt fast.
The careers of tomorrow may look vastly different than they do right now, but those who can stay flexible and open-minded have a better chance of succeeding despite the uncertainties.
Skill demands are changing so rapidly. You can start preparing yourself for the future of work by investing in yourself and what matters to you.
A personal growth mindset will prepare you for the future
Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning., said Benjamin Franklin.
People with a flexible mindset and the ability to learn fast will increase their odds of success. A growth mindset is no longer an advantage — it’s a necessity.
“Becoming is better than being,” says Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
People with a growth mindset believe that their abilities can grow with time and experience. They are excited by challenges and use obstacles to their advantage.
In a world where everything is rapidly changing, the only thing we need to continuously craft and master is our skills.
Your life and your career is one big learning curve. Your ability to learn better and faster can help determine your success and your potential for growth.
“Think about what you want out of life and make a small change. Before you know it you have made a big change. People don’t realise that the only constant in life is change and nothing stays the same, ” Sue Llewellyn, a UK-based social media consultant tells Financial Times.
People with a growth mindset acquire career skills in a short period of time to improve their skills in all areas of their lives.
The need for adaptability has never been greater than it is now
In the age of instability and risk, adaptability is the new competitive edge.
The world of work is changing at an increasing pace — adaptability enables us to dwell on new circumstances and stay on top of the situation.
In Adaptability: “The Art of Winning in an Age of Uncertainty” Max McKeown argues that, “All failure is failure to adapt, all success is successful adaptation.”
Our ever-changing world is unlikely to ever slow down. So, what mattered yesterday (e.g. skill, knowledge, social circle, etc.) very much so might not be worth a dime tomorrow.
The ability to change (or be changed) to fit new circumstances — is a crucial skill to master. Leon C. Megginson once observed, “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
Change used to be slow and incremental — today it is rapid, radical and unpredictable.
Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
Adaptability enables us to dwell on new circumstances and stay on top of the situation. Of course, this skill is best when combined with insight, giving us a fresh perspective before the change itself.
Growth depends on how adaptable you are. To stay relevant, most companies will need people who can change with time.
Critical thinking is a 21st-century essential skill
Francis Bacon, a figurative painter once said:
“Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.”
The ability to actively and skillfully conceptualize, apply, analyse, synthesise, and/or evaluate information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication is of immense importance right now.
When facing a tough problem, the majority often fixate on one or two dimensions. People who can look at problems from different angles often end up solving the problem in a completely unexpected, often elegant way.
At the same time, they expose how narrowly the majority had viewed the problem, or whether it even was a problem.
Critical thinkers are inventive and are more likely to devise new ways of doing things that add value to the work environment, making systems and procedures more efficient.
They offer new perspectives about the current problem and how to better solve them. Critical thinkers will be indispensable in the near future.
The ability to manage your emotions in times of uncertainty is a crucial skill to master
In a very practical sense, we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels. Highly emotionally intelligent (EI) people rank high on responsiveness, empathy, listening, and self-awareness.
And they excel at interpersonal interaction. The reason emotional intelligence is so widely valued is pretty simple. It plays a role in everything.
In Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, author Daniel Goleman argues that “People with well-developed emotional skills are also more likely to be content and effective in their lives, mastering the habits of mind that foster their own productivity; people who cannot marshal some control over their emotional life fight inner battles that sabotage their ability for focused work and clear thought.”
People skills are so important now and will continue to be in high demand in the future. EI allows us to create relationships with others, provides insights into people’s motives and allows us to predict responses.
Any discipline that benefits from the emotional intelligence that only humans can provide will be in high demand today and in the future.
If you are not a people’s person, it’s not too late. You can still learn how to better relate to others. You will need soft skills to thrive in the future.
The ability to effectively collaborate with others online is key to your career success
For many employers, spending many hours in an office is no longer a necessity. Since the pandemic, many working systems are migrating online at an amazing rate.
Working in the cloud is increasingly shifting work lives away from the office. The ability to use online tools and resources to work better with teams from different locations is more important than ever.
The need to communicate with and lead remote teams is creating a new management style, not necessarily difficult to learn, however, team members may need to unlearn and re-learn new ways to interact better for higher productivity.
Collaboration skills enable you to successfully work with others toward a common goal. Good collaborators need to be able to work with others seamlessly and effectively.
Collaboration today and in the future requires interpersonal skills, communication skills and better knowledge sharing.
The future is up to you
The future is yours to shape.
You have the power to change and adapt your skills to stay relevant and indispensable.
You need to start spending time preparing for the future even when there are more important things to do in the present and even when there is no immediately apparent return to your efforts.
If you find yourself trapped for the foreseeable future, remember you can reinvent yourself and learn important skills to stay relevant.
Choose to make the most of the future of work no matter how uncertain things may be right now.
If you’re not sure what you want to do next, yet you know you want a change, you should go ahead and get started, with a focus on strengthening your core skills.
While learning new skills may not be the top priority for many people, proactively acquiring new skill sets could make a huge to your career in the future.
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This post was previously published on Entrepreneur’s Handbook and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Fran Pulido