Applied skills, like programming, will not be important in the new complex world. This is reported by the authors of the report “Skills of the Future”. We tell you why thousands of skills will become useless, and what is worth learning in the XNUMXst century
Knowledge and skill form a skill
To form a skill, you need to acquire knowledge and work it out in practice. Knowledge is information that we receive and remember for ourselves. There are many sources of knowledge: books, articles, lectures, personal communication, advice from a mentor. Let’s take driving a car as an example. The study of the structure of the car, the rules of the road and the theory of driving is knowledge.
The application of knowledge in practice, the first and not yet worked out experience is skill. The skill will be driving around the city or training ground. This is what we get rights with, the skill is not yet formed.
For example, Margaret Heffernan, the former CEO of five companies, explains why less technical and more human skills are needed in an unpredictable world:
The skill will be formed when the skill reaches automatism – we will learn to perform the task equally well, without losing quality, regardless of changes in external conditions. Confident driving regardless of the weather, emergency situations and other external factors is a skill.
“Basic skills” – the basis of any activity in the new world
In the 20th century, the main task of mass education was to teach people to read, write and count. Then literate workers formed skills for specific professions in technical schools, universities and courses. At that time, professional tasks hardly changed. It was enough to hone a few skills to climb the career ladder – for example, from a worker to a shop manager. By the beginning of the 21st century, about 85% of the world’s population had basic literacy, but narrow professional skills were not enough. A complex world required new basic and professional skills.
Every industry has a small core of common skills that most workers use. At the center of this core are “basic skills”, such as the ability to read, write, and count. These skills are possessed by all working people, regardless of the field of activity.
The authors of the report identified a set of competencies and “basic skills” that will be in demand in any field of human activity.
- concentration and attention control. They help to cope with information overload and manage complex technology.
- Emotional literacy. Helps to preserve oneself and interact with others through emotions, empathy and empathy.
- digital literacy. Helps to work in a digital environment, such as AR, VR. The authors believe that digital literacy will be as in demand as the ability to write and read.
- Creativity, creativity. It helps to think outside the box, to create something new in the conditions of automation of routine work.
- Ecological thinking. It helps to understand the connectedness of the world, to perceive one’s activities in the context of the entire ecosystem, and to support evolutionary processes.
- Cross-cultural. It helps to overcome the generation gap, to understand other cultures and subcultures, to find a common language with them.
- Ability to learn / self-learning. Helps to learn throughout life and independently master skills in a rapidly changing world.
The authors of “Skills of the Future” note that a person’s education should not be limited to “basic skills”. In the 21st century, it is important to move from a utilitarian industrial education to an integral educational paradigm. The traditional paradigm strictly singled out education from other spheres of life, and included only students in order to prepare them for the future life. The new paradigm is continuous – it involves learning for all people throughout life. Such an education system focuses not only on the transfer of knowledge and the development of skills, but also on supporting the development of a person as a full-fledged author in all areas of his life.
“Long tail” – skills that will follow you for the rest of your life
It is dangerous to expand educational programs indefinitely to include all sorts of skills and knowledge. According to the “Skills of the Future” study by the Moscow School of Management “Skolkovo”, most of the skills of specialists in a “difficult” workplace are unique, highly specialized skills. They are used by one or more employees in each enterprise or in the entire industry. Hundreds and even thousands of specific skills that are needed to perform specific tasks in specific conditions create a “long tail”. For example, a programmer uses “basic” and professional skills every day – communicates with colleagues, reads instructions, writes code in a programming language. The skill of working in Photoshop and HTML is applied twice a year – they and a hundred other skills create a “long tail”. With the complication of the world, such a “tail” is constantly increasing – and this is normal.
The Skolkovo Moscow School of Management screened the professional skills of 2 engineers in 2014. Engineers worked in leading companies in aviation, shipbuilding, the nuclear industry, and the production of new materials. The researchers looked at 400 employees’ LinkedIn profiles for each category. Engineers of different specializations indicated from 950 to 1500 skills.
As a result of the study, it turned out that the majority of skills – 80-90% in each of the areas are found in less than 1% of engineers. Of these, about half of the skills are absolutely unique and occur only once in the entire sample. Only 30% of the skills were indicated by the majority of engineers.
The authors of the report propose to focus on the development of “basic skills”, supplementing them with professional skills. Choose educational programs that focus on them, and study highly specialized ones on your own.
New Model Includes Personal Development Skills
In modern management theory, skills are divided into “hard” (hard skills) and “flexible” (soft skills). Hard skills help you perform specific tasks with a verifiable measurable result: driving a car, programming in Java or knowing Spanish. Soft skills help to solve life and professional tasks with a result that is difficult to track and verify. For example, communication with colleagues, time management or projects. Most educational programs emphasize hard skills. Flexible ones complement and give additional qualities.
The authors propose a new model consisting of four skill levels.
The authors of the report assemble the matryoshka in a different order. It will be based on “existential” and meta-skills – they determine the character of a person and form the ability to control the internal and external world. The next layer will be cross-context skills, on which any human activity relies. On the outer layer are contextual skills. They will change depending on time, tasks and context. To cope with the challenges of the new world, you will have to learn all your life.
The competency layers of the new model reflect different human life cycles. Contextual skills, including hard skills, can be acquired in months or years, but due to the changing context, they can quickly become obsolete. Cross-context skills take longer to become obsolete, but they take longer to master.
Metaskills and existential skills have the longest life cycles. Usually acquired in childhood, such skills rarely change, but it is possible. If you rebuild existential skills purposefully, many aspects of life will change. Therefore, psychotherapy and spiritual practices often transform people even in adulthood.
Remember
- A skill is a skill that has been worked out to automatism, which is based on knowledge. To form it, you need to study and practice.
- Develop “basic” skills. They will come in handy in any business.
- The “long tail” of skills you rarely use will grow.
- Don’t focus on highly specialized skills in your training, and don’t worry if you don’t use them anymore.
- Try on a new skill model. Work on hard, flexible and new skills for the 21st century.
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