Which skills of the future do you need for your international talent to thrive in the global economy?

It was reassuring to see self-management listed as it is one of the components of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and I strongly believe it’s a key to a successful career.

Over the last 6 years, I trained over 1200 colleagues and 140 students at Haute Ecole de Gestion in Geneva on EQ components and EQ development techniques.  The feedback is always the same: we tend to underestimate our soft skills and we don’t consciously develop our emotional intelligence.

If we zoom into self-management skills listed by WEF we can see that “learning” will play a crucial role in the future of individuals and their organizations.

That made me think about “Future of work” articles on WEF and the statement, that the jobs for life are over. Millennials will have approximately on average 8 different careers in their life span and that means working in different areas of business and moving horizontally across organizations and not necessarily only vertically up. Which means life-long learning and a growth mindset.

A growth mindset translates into accepting failure and changing your inner narrative from “I am not good enough” into “I am learning”.

Once employees will realize it’s a life skill and the company is willing to invest in their growth, they might become more prone to leave their comfort zone and become vulnerable.

Yes. Learning makes us vulnerable and this is against the standard coined perception of the workplace, where we believe we should be tough. We might be afraid of failure, we might be perfectionists or grieving perfectionists, we might have a strong attachment to our expertise as our identity and we all have egos, don’t we?:) does it sound familiar? Do you know anyone like this on your team or in your organization?

What is comforting is the fact that we all have also unlimited potential and creativity that can flourish in the right conditions and I am speaking from experience as a trainer and a coach.

So how can you help yourself and your teams to move to this zone of learning bliss?

Gaining an understanding of emotional intelligence and its components can be a simple mind-opening exercise that will put the right words on the challenges. Then discussing EQ development techniques, sharing your experience and different perspectives with the group,  and realizing that “this stuff” can be learnt, will trigger the desire to change. Then it’s practice on the job and in life.

I would like to hear what skills you see as a must for your workforce and how do you plan to develop them. Do you have your own personal strategy to ensure you arefuture-proof?

At Adhemis we recently launched an International Talent Development offer for our clients operating in a multinational environment and employing global talent. We can bring your current workforce on a learning journey aiming to develop their emotional intelligence, communication skills, and cross-cultural sensitivity. Get in touch to learn more. We will be happy to grow your talent and help your organization thrive.

Ewa Duraj
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Notes:

If you would like to explore this topic further I can refer you to WEF reports on the Future of work and Harvard Business Review podcast can give you more details and some inspiration on how to future-proof your company workforce continuity.

https://www.weforum.org/projects/future-of-work

https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/podcast/Pages/default.aspx

Learn to Learn article HBR https://hbr.org/2016/03/learning-to-learn