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Most experts agree that the role of soft skills in the post-coronavirus reality will grow significantly. About what kind of “flexible” skills will be vital and why, said Dmitry Green
About the expert: Dmitry Green, CEO and co-founder of Almamat career IT accelerator.
Adaptability and flexibility
On March 22, the day after the decision of Rospotrebnadzor to close fitness clubs for quarantine, the Moscow network of cycling studios Velobeat wrote on Instagram that it was renting exercise bikes. The issue price was 5 thousand per week, and online training was carried out in social networks with payment at will. The model fully justified itself: in nine days, all 60 bikes of the studio found new owners, those who wished to line up, and the proceeds from rent and training helped save the team and the premises of both studios.
This example is very indicative: companies that were able to quickly adapt to new conditions survived the quarantine with the least losses – and someone was even able to benefit from the situation. Not only businesses had to rebuild: many people who were left without work by the epidemic began to learn new professions or offer services that are in demand in the current situation.
In any crisis, those who can find new opportunities in it and adapt to them survive, so adaptability and flexibility come to the fore in the new reality. Yes, a pandemic may never happen again (at least I want to believe it), but their own “catastrophes” occur in the life of each of us, it’s just the first time that so many people have been affected. The world is changing at a tremendous speed, and crises, unforeseen events, the constant transformation of markets are its inseparable elements.
Therefore, it is so important to be able to benefit from any situation: not to try to resist the circumstances, but to see how they can play into your hands.
Adaptability is often talked about as a personality trait, but in reality it is an acquired quality that usually develops under the influence of circumstances, as happened during the pandemic. People have had to adjust to Zoom meetings, online delivery, webinars, antiseptics, and sharing a room with a small child. Another thing is that not everyone managed to do it effectively – therefore, quarantine led to layoffs, loans and diseases of the nervous system. Those who have trained this ability in themselves during their lives have done much better.
How to pump
Most people with a high level of adaptability did not develop this quality in themselves systematically: they simply, accidentally or intentionally, often found themselves in situations where they had to use it – so it got stronger naturally. If such situations rarely occur in your life, start creating them yourself.
This does not mean that you need to immediately change your profession or move to another city: we train adaptability just to make it easier to decide on such big steps. Learn to get out of your comfort zone gradually by doing things that are unusual for you. Start small: instead of your usual restaurant, dine somewhere else; order a dish you haven’t tried before, change your route to work, sign up for squash training. If you run a business, try new formats and look for alternative tactics – this will give you a ready-made arsenal of measures in case of a crisis, from which you can choose the most optimal ones.
What to read on the topic:
- Leonard Mlodinov, Elasticity: Flexible Thinking in a Constantly Changing World
- Bradley Staats, Never Stop Learning: Stay Relevant, Reinvent Yourself, and Thrive
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragility. How to Capitalize on Chaos (Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder)
- Klaus Schwab, The Fourth Industrial Revolution
Time management
During quarantine, employers realized that many processes can be carried out remotely without loss of quality and with significant savings on office space rental. However, remote work often confuses managers with its difficulties with controlling working hours. For this, many use programs that track the actions of employees – but this approach, to put it mildly, is not too delicate and is unlikely to increase team loyalty.
A likely option in the face of massive layoffs is to lay off those who are not sufficiently motivated to work remotely or are not able to structure their schedule. As a result, the value of time management skills and self-discipline will increase significantly.
Another trend confirms this: one of the global forecasts for the post-coronavirus labor market is that the place of full-time employees will gradually be taken by freelancers, whom companies will invite to solve specific problems. So, already now, most of the Google workforce consists of temporary contractors.
Work on a piecework model places higher demands on soft skills than a format with a fixed rate and a fixed working day: here you need to be able to estimate the time it will take to complete a particular task, distribute your resources among several clients, correctly prioritize – all that can be attributed to time management.
How to pump
There are a huge number of time management methods today – from the Pareto principle to the Pomodoro method. To master them, you can search for information on the Internet, read thematic literature or take a training course. After that, try to apply these tactics in your life – some will probably not suit you, but over time you will find “your own”.
What to read on the topic:
- David Allen, How to Get Things in Order. The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” (Getting Things Done. The Art of Stress-Free Productivity)
- Gleb Arkhangelsky, Time Drive. How to manage to live and work
- Dan Kennedy, Tough Time Management. Take control of your life” (NO BS Time Management for Entrepreneurs)
- Brian Tracy, Time Management
- Carrie Gleason, The Personal Efficiency Program: How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed and Win Back Control of Your Work
- Richard Branson, “To hell with everything! Get it done” (Screw It, Let’s Do It: Lessons in Life)
Communication skills
Contract work and freelancing are inextricably linked with communication skills. The constant search for new customers implies the expansion of business ties and a greater volume of communication than before. If a full-time IT specialist or a designer is allowed to be a self-contained misanthrope, since communications in many companies are conducted in a task setting system, then as a freelancer they already need to be able to negotiate with different customers, present themselves, discuss the price tag and tasks. And communication even with one client is unlikely to go through ServiceDesk – almost always these are live conversations in a messenger or by phone.
How to pump
The same principle works with communication skills as with all soft skills: constant training, starting with small steps.
For example, call instead of texting. Or update your resume, send it periodically in response to interesting offers and do not refuse interviews, even if you did not plan to change jobs right now.
Firstly, you will improve your self-presentation skill and stop being nervous in situations of stressful dialogue. Secondly, this way you can really get an interesting offer.
What to read on the topic:
- Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
- Mark Goulston, Talking to Crazy. How to Deal with the Irrational and Impossible People in Your Life
- Larry King, How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere
- Mark Rhodes, How to Talk to Absolutely Anyone. Confident Communication in Every Situation
Lifelong learning: the ability to learn
Finally, the ability to learn will come to the fore in the new world. Technologies are developing at a tremendous pace today, and the quarantine introduced earlier with a massive transition to online has accelerated these processes even more. To stay in demand in new conditions, you need to constantly upgrade your skills.
In conditions of a limited labor market due to the crisis, professionals who are aware of all the changes in their field and who own up-to-date technologies will have the least problems.
In addition, now more and more professions are somehow connected with digital competencies. The global teleworking revealed their shortage, at the same time proving that in the 2020s, almost any employee should be an IT specialist to some extent. Digital technologies will also have to be monitored by non-technical professionals, as they are now used everywhere from HR to the music industry.
How to pump
By focusing on the task of continuous learning, the pandemic solved it at the same time, albeit partially: total quarantine gave a powerful impetus to the development of distance education, including additional professional education, so changing a profession or updating your skills has now become much easier. Make it your rule once a month to learn something new: you don’t have to jump straight into C#, especially if you’ve previously worked as a music teacher, for example. Try new techniques first that might help or make your job easier. Try cooking a new dish, sign up for a tennis workout, or challenge yourself to sit on the splits. If you are a leader, take courses on motivating subordinates or optimizing processes: even if this knowledge is not useful to you right now, you will at least train your brain to better absorb new information.
But it is important to remember that any training is meaningful only if it is obtained for a specific purpose. Buying courses for show is pointless: their task should be real knowledge that you will apply in your work. This is what will be valued in the new world – the knowledge and skills reflected in your portfolio. In the post-coronavirus reality, it is no longer possible to stay in a dying profession, wait for everything to settle down by itself and go into the red on credit cards: you will have to be active and be able to constantly leave your comfort zone.