Bernard Marr is a world-renowned futurist, opinion leader and thought leader in business and technology with a passion for harnessing the potential of technology for the benefit of humanity. He is one of the popular books "Future Skills: The 20 skills and competencies everyone needs to succeed in a digital world" author, so I am sharing the insights of the docents of KTU University added to the list of TOP 10 future competences. More here:
1. Active learning and learning strategies (curiosity)
According to the author of the book, if there is only one skill worth choosing that everyone should develop, it would be curiosity. Regardless of your age or industry, continuous learning is critical to thriving in tomorrow's job market. Curiosity and constant learning help us stay flexible and embrace change, keeping our skills up to date with the major changes happening today. Want to stay relevant to employers and give yourself the best chance to build a successful, fulfilling life? Adopt a growth mindset and develop a desire to learn.
2. Digital literacy
Digital literacy includes the skills to learn, work and navigate everyday life in our digital world. These skills include the ability to use devices, software and applications safely and confidently. People with strong digital literacy skills can easily communicate and collaborate using digital tools, and keep up with new technologies and understand how it can affect their work and business.
3. Flexibility
Are you open to change? In the workplace of the future, change will be even more of a driver than it is today. We will have to constantly contend with new technologies, increasing automation, the rapidly changing pace of work and potential business disruptions, so we will all need to develop the mental resilience to thrive in times of constant change. Adaptability – the ability to adapt to new conditions – is essential to developing flexibility, so adaptable people will remain more open, curious and willing to learn new things because they focus on opportunities rather than obstacles.
4. Analytical and critical thinking
In this era of fake news, social media bubbles and information overload, analytical thinking is one of the most important skills to develop for success. The basis of his thinking is the ability to analyze, so analytical thinking helps to understand more easily in various situations, and critical thinking helps to create new ideas, draw conclusions, summarize them, so by practicing our critical thinking, we will be able to question the validity of evidence and find out what is true and what is not true in different situations.
5. Complex problem solving
This competence encourages you to look at the problem calmly, analyze its possible causes and find potential solutions, plan and apply an action plan. It is predicted that in the future, specialists who are able to solve complex problems will be especially needed by companies providing professional consulting services to legal entities and the entire information and communication technology sector.
6. Creativity
Do you ever wonder what creativity really is? One way to define it is "turning imaginative ideas into reality." In today's world, technology and society's habits are constantly changing, so solutions that worked well a few years ago may no longer be suitable today, and creativity will be one of the most sought-after skills in the future labor market, when more and more routine tasks are outsourced to machines. There is no doubt that raising new ideas, solving problems, imagining for the status quo the implementation of boundaries and ideas in order to solve problems and improve the situation will require the ability to work in less defined conditions in remote teams.
7. Cooperation
The nature of collaboration and teamwork is changing as teams evolve into blended workers, fully remote workers, freelance contractors and other workers who rotate between projects and teams. In this changing workplace, we will have to be able to effectively cooperate and communicate with various colleagues and collaborators, it is worth emphasizing the work with colleagues of other cultures from distant regions.
8. Leadership and social influence
Good leadership means that the potential of all employees can be unleashed so that they can be effective and flourish in that organization. If you think leadership skills are only necessary for being led, think again. Factors such as distributed teams, increasing employee diversity and more efficient organizational structures mean that leadership skills will be important for every employee in every company – whether they lead a project, a team or an entire department. As a result, it becomes increasingly important to share information and best practices more openly, resolve conflicts and take responsibility.
Properly balanced team relations, where any colleague can become a team leader at some point, can be transferred from the labor market to the social environment, thus creating a sustainable society.
9. Emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability to express and manage your emotions. An emotionally intelligent person is aware of how their emotions affect their own behavior and those around them, and can manage these emotions accordingly. The author believes that empathy - the ability to see the world from another's perspective - is the main component of emotional intelligence, so this ability will occupy an increasingly important place in the future labor market, especially in teamwork in positions of various levels.
10. Time management
Developing effective time management skills is crucial for our mental health, because by knowing how to plan and organize our routines, we are able to create a work-life balance and experience greater security. Whether we work from home, work full-time in an office, run our own business, or work in an organization, being able to manage our time effectively is essential. Let's remember that time management is more efficient, but not more difficult work, and employees who manage their time well usually don't need to put in extra hours. They usually know when they are most productive and uses their time wisely by allocating less productive hours to tasks that do not require active mental activity.
Thank you for reading.
