Time to Ditch the Focus on “Skills” — Bridging To The Future
Bridging to the Future believes that academic qualifications and technical skills are fundamental to economic independence. However, they need to be set in a context of practicality, adaptability, and application.
There is a tendency for governments, public sector organisations, and the education sector to focus on Skills and academic qualifications, including “employability skills”; institutions are providing skills workshops, etc. to that effect. Bridging to the Future has relaxed this rigid term “Skills” into QEAS — Qualities, Experiences, Attitudes, and Skills. The main goal of QEAS is to scope outwards the idea of “skills” into more relevant and practical attributes. We believe that we need to focus instead on a wider base, which is perhaps less quantifiable, but has greater impact in reality.
Skills are often referred to as “soft” or “hard” skills. For example, being bilingual, academic qualifications, typing speed, programming ability, are all considered “hard” skills as they can be taught and measured. On the other hand, “soft” skills include teamwork, communication, negotiation, motivation, and time management.
However, we would argue that many of these latter “soft skills” are not simply skills. For example, if we take communication, there are different forms that it could take, including visual and verbal communication. Although communicating verbally is a skill, i.e. it can be developed (as a “hard” Skill), it can be developed and enhanced (through Experience), it can be innate (as a Quality), and can require a particular “can-do” Attitude, i.e. the style can have a major influence on the impact of communication and this still should be combined with Attitude.. As you can see, although verbal communication is usually termed as a “skill”, it has many more parts to it.
On the other hand, although visual communication can be taught, Experience is a far greater factor than Quality or Attitude. Good visual communicators have taught themselves from experience and by attending workshops. In doing so, they understand how to give across information, know that any innate Quality needs to be honed.
Another example: self-motivation has been previously termed a “soft” skill. However, self-motivation is certainly not a skill someone can learn! It is a Quality and an Attitude that lies in a person’s character. Experience, through work or personally, can help to either increase (or decrease) someone’s self-motivation, but it is not a Skill that you have or you do not have.
Another benefit of QEAS is that it allows individuals to be who they are, without struggling on if they lack certain “skills”. For example, let’s take an entrepreneur looking to start their own business, but they are not skilled in mathematics (mathematics is encompassed by all of QEAS). A coach/mentor should bring out the entrepreneur’s confidence and leadership talent, instead of continuously trying to improve their mathematical ability. As their confidence improves, and as they develop business Experience (including an understanding of the relevance of maths), their ability is likely to develop as a result.
QEAS tells us that we need stop relying on narrow definitions, as QEAS encompasses a concept, rather than quantifiable attributes. As such, it is also not always necessary to define “hard” and “soft” QEAS. More interestingly, Qualities and Attitudes may be considered “soft”, as they define a person’s character. Experiences and Skills can be “hard”, as they may be taught or developed. However, Experiences can certainly change someone’s Attitudes, and someone’s Qualities may influence how easy it is for them to pick up a new Skill. As you can see, QEAS provides a thought — things we commonly perceive to be “skills” do not have to be exclusive. Instead, coaching someone in QEAS can enable them to develop personal Qualities, have meaningful Experiences that may change their Attitudes, whilst learning a new Skill.
DT
