7 Skills needed to Succeed in the Great Transition

7 SKILLS FOR THE GREAT TRANSITION

1. Mindset. A fixed mindset will be one of the greatest weakness of the Great Transition. Whether you engage in Carol Dweck’s, Growth Mindset, David Kelley’s Design Thinking in Design for Strengths, or Systems Thinking as defined by Peter Senge where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, developing a learning organization with reward the process of improvement is and will be essential for success and sustainability. Each of theoretical principals embrace change, evolution, reimagination, learning and knowledge seeking for organizations.
2. Context. The role of circumstances, setting, place, hierarchy, diversity and culture in effective communication. How setting context for what you are doing matters in an organization.
3. Critical thinking. The art of ‘breaking out’ thinking, analysis without paralysis, knowledge seeking, what is knowing versus knowing enough for experimentation, how to break apart preconceived notions, revamping or revitalizing concepts, ideas, and pre-conceived biases. Identifying implicit bias, incorporating diversity at scale, and thinking together rather than apart.
4. Judgment. Individual judgment versus judging. Ability to identify cause and effect throughout the entire cycle of business for which each person is a part of. The art of decision-making, defining decision-trees, systems thinking judgment/decision actions, and design thinking value, business, people, and process judgment of stuck versus reimagination opportunity.  Knowing the difference between ethics, values, culture, vision, policy, regulation, practicality, and effect.
5. Trust building. Building trust in interpersonal skills whether in face-to-face or virtual interaction will be invaluable skills throughout our evolution. Equal participation amongst group members, high emotional intelligence and clear visions and goals are key to building trust throughout the organization.
6. Reimagination. Believe it or not, some people need to be trained to fantasize. Fantasy is the ability to let go of any preconceived notion, idea, or set of beliefs to see create new, unrestricted imagination. To reimagine processes, procedures and practices require training people how to let go of preconceived ideals and start from an ideal endpoint in mind. Thinking should be unhindered, free, and unstructured initially and most people don’t know how much their life experience, cultural norm and implicit biases restrict their thinking. For most people, the ability to clear one’s minds of everything they think they know and rebuild from a completely different mindset takes reconditioning and training. Whether this is done through design thinking, growth mindset, or systems thinking or a combination the process is to develop these skills.
7. Leadership. Leadership techniques, principals, and guidelines will continue to evolve through the GREAT TRANSITION and will vary by geography, industry and organization. Making AI agents more human while maintaining ethical standards, diversity and minimizing bias while simultaneously leading people through change, becoming a beacon of direction, motivation and skills reevaluations and replacement will take great ongoing skills training for leaders, employees and machines. The leadership role will inevitably be more complex.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is its own standout human superpower now and throughout the great transition. Goleman and Boyatzis describe EI in Emotional intelligence has 12 elements. Which do you need to work on? , “There are many models of emotional intelligence, each with its own set of abilities, that can be organized into four domains: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Nested within each domain are twelve EI competencies, learned and learnable capabilities that allow outstanding performance at work or as a leader.”

Justin Bariso, Inc. Magazine @JustinJBariso, describes them in 13 Signs of High Emotional Intelligence as you, “think about feelings, pause, strive to control your thoughts, benefit from criticism, show authenticity, demonstrate empathy, praise others, give helpful feedback, apologize, forgive and forget, keep your commitments, help others, and protect yourself from emotional sabotage.”

The importance of the seven soft skills and emotional intelligence now and in the future cannot be underestimated. Ensuring all employees, individuals, and teams as well as leaders at all levels are equipped requires a dedicated training and coaching program that is flexible enough to meet all levels of competency. Are your employees ready? Where do they fit on the scale of competency? Are you ready to equip them? Are your resources in place? These are questions you should be asking and answering with confidence and with an executable strategy.