The five most important future skills

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

 IN THIS ARTICLE:

The future is already here

Changing the way we think about development

The most important skills for the future of work.

Welcome to the future

“The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed.”
- WILLIAM GIBSON

 When ATMs came on the scene, economists, politicians and the media panicked. With people no longer required to give the correct change and stamp deposit slips, we were experiencing the early stages of the robot revolution. Automation was to rob bank tellers of their jobs!

The reality, however, was far more nuanced. In fact, there are more bank tellers now than ever. Rather than widespread job loss, the automation of routine tasks has allowed tellers to shift their focus to higher value tasks like customer and relationship management, financial services and sales.

Examples like this are playing out across all industries and organisations. As the nature of work changes, new technology is introduced and social norms evolve, we need a different set of skills from our people and leaders. The pandemic abruptly accelerated this process, as we sprang into action learning to work remotely, manage business interruption and adapt to virtual environment.

The challenge for ambitious professionals is working out what to focus on, if we don't want to lose currency. What skills should we be teaching and learning? How do we make sure we aren’t being left behind?

The answer lies in reframing the question.

Asking better questions

For decades, we’ve followed a classic trajectory for leadership development: we teach people to be operational experts, then we give them some management training and, if they’re lucky, some personal development stuff to work out their Myers-Briggs or what bird they are.

But it’s not working anymore. The half-life of a skill has dropped to less than five years – which means that while your typing skills may have served you for life 20 years ago, that new coding skillset will be out of date in little more time than it takes to do a degree.

Our development pathways are lagging behind, resulting in leadership teams full of experts in their field, who know how to balance a budget but are battling with the stuff people really need from them.

Things like… how to respond well to change when things are uncertain and volatile. How to make good decisions in a complex environment. How to create smarter systems for complicated organisations, and how to maximise performance when people are overwhelmed. How to connect meaningfully and get people on board with change, when the way forward is unclear and their jobs feel under threat.

Strategy is the future of work

All of these skills are strategic skills.

Rather than trying to predict the technical and operational capabilities we need the most, we should be thinking about how to tackle our strategic capabilities, so that we’re OK even when our operational demands change.

The strategic capacity of our leaders is the most important determinant of personal and organisational success.

When we prioritise quality thinking, big-picture perspective and insightful questions, we create a culture that bends and flexes to uncertainty, we build powerful organizations and equip people with what they need to succeed regardless of what’s happening around us.

Strategic leadership is all about context. Strategic leaders ask questions like: “what’s going on?” “what does that mean?” “what should we be thinking differently about?” and “what are we not seeing?”.

Strategic leaders have mastered five critical skills.

Five untaught strategic skills

FLEXIBILITY - To cope with change

DECISIONS - To set direction

SYSTEMS - To solve tricky problems

PERFORMANCE - To make things happen

INFLUENCE - To have more impact.

   1. Flexibility

To lead through complexity, we need to be OK with change. Flexible leaders know that leadership isn’t about getting things done in spite of their environment, but because of it.

They have the awareness, agency and resilience to withstand pandemics, natural disasters and technological disruption, because they stay flexible to the world around them.

Old question: How do we manage risk?

Better questions:

How do we prepare for inevitable disruption?

What did we learn from this?

2. Decisions

Making good decisions is a learned skill. Decisive leaders know it’s not what they think, but how they think that matters, focusing on providing direction that drives action.

They know that no cost-benefit analysis will save them, without the skills to capture diverse input and build in tolerance for change.

Old question: What should we do?

Better questions:

How should we think about this?

What’s the smallest possible choice we can test?

3. Systems

Strategic leaders think in systems, because they know that successful organisations dismantle siloes and work out how things fit together.

Systems leaders don’t settle for what’s in front of them, focusing instead on the messy stuff – context, relationships and dependencies. They stop finger-pointing and problem-solving, to pull levers and dissolve issues before they take hold.

Old question: How do I solve this problem?

Better questions:

Why is this happening?

How do we change the conditions, to stop it taking hold in the first place?

4. Performance

True performance isn’t operational excellence or time management – it’s focus. Strategic leaders understand that their most valuable resource is their attention, optimising their environments and teams to invest in the factors that make a real difference. They know that once they eliminate distraction and insist on value, quality and accountability, there’s nowhere left to hide.

Old question: How do I be more productive to get more done?

Better questions:

Which activities contribute the most to our big goals?

How do we reduce or simplify other tasks?

5. Influence

Influential leaders know that political savvy isn’t slimy; it’s non-negotiable for impact at scale. They know that their integrity, reputation and relationships are what makes the difference. As our environment continues to shift, it will be the leaders who can bring others with them whose ideas will take hold.

Old question: How can I persuade them?

Better questions:

Why should they care?

What value do I add?

Lessons that count

In the knowledge economy, we’ve got access to all the technical information and instruction in the world at the touch of a button. If you need finance knowledge, watch a video and get your head around it in 15 minutes. If you need marketing expertise, Google for a freelancer and book the job in online.

But if you need to understand how best to adapt to your environment, how to make quality decisions that capture the big picture, how to drive focus and how to take people along on the journey… well, it’s time for strategic leadership. Let’s shift the dial.

IN SUMMARY

The future is already here

We need to change the way we think about development

The most important skills for the future are strategic skills

Five key strategic skills are

Flexibility

Decisions

Systems

Performance

Influence

Asking better questions is the most important skill of all.

Find out which of the five strategic skills you most need to work on, in this handy three minute quiz. Then, receive a FREE cheat-sheet to start you on your way!

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