The Skills of the Future
Things are changing more quickly than ever before as we continue to delve deeply into this technologically disruptive era. The work culture of the future will require various abilities in competency from a single individual as the nature of occupations, the breadth of professions, and career directions grow shorter like episodes. And despite all of this, there are some skills that one will need to maintain their level of activity over the long term. Not only will one need these skills, but they will need to master them in order to survive. More importantly, these skills will go beyond simply being academically gifted and receiving top grades in school.
To begin with, critical thinking is becoming one of the most important skills for the upcoming workforce. As employers, we will need our workforce to be more proficient in critical thinking and problem solving than ever before. People who are more clear in their thinking and can communicate very clearly about their objectives and procedures will surely be in more demand. Critical thinkers, with their factual thinking and rational thinking, know that there can be multiple routes to the desired outcomes and it is no longer a time where only higher management or senior people in the organisation know all the answers to all problems. Critical thinkers understand that in these times of disparate and diverse information and data, it is critical to weigh all of the evidence before drawing conclusions. One has to learn to separate facts from opinions and assumptions. Such thinkers know how things are connected to each other by understanding different viewpoints and not chasing arguments and opinions that only reinforce our beliefs and discard those that challenge them. Such a skill is very necessary for the future so as to come to conclusions that are logical and backed by facts. And this will only make a difference between the success and failures of future organisations by providing them with a competitive edge. If the sole aim is to earn a profit without thinking critically and empowering decision-making, it will surely make failure imminent sooner or later.
Collaboration and networking skills will also play a significant role in future work scenarios. Working across lines and with diverse stakeholders yields diverse types of results and knowledge in innovation. Consequently, it is crucial to work across disciplines in order to develop the mobility necessary to learn from others and to be visible within and beyond the current work environment. The future will also want to see the level of agility, resilience, and adaptive skills in the individual. Be it any area and discipline of work, one will have to be really aware and able to adapt to career opportunities appearing in the future horizons and see how careers are changing like episodes.
Moving further, entrepreneurship and initiative skills are another very important skill set in today’s world. Unfortunately, the word “entrepreneurship” is just limited to starting a business of your own and working on that, whereas in the actual sense, it is a skill and a spirit that everyone must employ and imbibe in their working behaviour. People must have this skill, even at their jobs, to have ownership of the projects they work on. Taking risks is all about being an entrepreneur and being resilient after failure. If one can possess these skills in today’s world, the approach towards the work we do today can change a lot. Even oral and written communications are very essential skills in an era where we need to present ourselves in the most efficient way. We need to have this skill of documenting things, showing things, and telling how things work. Our language skills are very important. We live in a globalised world and communicating with everyone, whether it’s orally or in a written form, is very important.
To be able to access and analyse information is very important, and to have this skill to access information and analyse raw data into meaningful decision making is very important when we are living in the data age. In the age of data, one must be able to use disparate pieces of information to make meaningful decisions. Such a mindset is a future mind. And finally, it is curiosity and imagination that are the most important skills of all if we are to learn and grow continuously. To continuously learn new things and solve new problems, one needs to acquire diverse ideas and innovative programmes for growth. We will have to choose and create and design our jobs and careers in such a way that we can learn a lot and continuously learn. We must have a free environment to explore, think, and imagine new scenarios for the future. We cannot simply stop learning because of educational or resource limitations; in this day and age, everything is so accessible that self-directed learning will not stop simply because some degrees or qualifications are obtained.
