As we progress further into the fourth industrial revolution, the skills we possess are important in our professional and personal lives. Whether you are starting your career, looking to get a promotion or just improve yourself, the skill you possess or the new ones you learn will help you accomplish that goal.
The disruption caused by Covid-19 to the way business is conducted and how we work reminds us of the rapidly changing landscape and the opportunities it creates. In no particular order, here are the top most important and valuable skills you need to learn that are in demand from employers.
Data and Analytics
What is data analytics? Data analytics is the process of gathering raw data and analysing so that a conclusion is made from that data and information is made available. There are several techniques and processes involved which we will not cover in detail at this point.
The data gathered can reveal important aspects of any business and the information obtained can help business improve their processes, define strategy and other actions that will result in a better product, better customer satisfaction, identify potential problems and manage them.
This is one skill that cannot be underestimated and can be applicable in a wide variety of fields. Evolving economies, digitisation and the rise of AI are factors that mean many decisions are data driven and the ability to capture, process and analyse data is essential.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence is the ability to recognise, understand and manage your emotions, and the emotions of others. Emotional Intelligence was popularised by an American psychologist by the name of Daniel Goleman and these are the key elements to it.
- Self-awareness: This involves being aware of your emotions and how your actions based on those emotions impact people around you. It also means being aware of your strengths and weaknesses in different settings.
- Self regulation: Being in control of your emotions in situations that would suggest otherwise. It also means avoiding making rushed or emotional decisions and being in control.
- Empathy: Possessing this still means you are able to understand at an emotional level, how people feel based on the situation they are in. It allows you to connect with them at a deeper level and make them feel more valued.
- Motivation: In simple terms, you set a high standard for yourself, your work and you consistently work towards the goals. You maintain your focus and remove distractions and when you encounter setback, you find a reason to continue even better.
- Social skills: Social media is a medium through which this can be realised however that is only one aspect of it. Social skills include understanding body language, communicating effectively, conflict resolution and inspiring people around you and this transcends Social Media.
Emotional Intelligence is an important skill in our personal and professional lives and whilst you cannot simply just learn it, there are ways to practice aspects of it and improve daily. You may be a parent, or working in a team in any capacity, a consultant or an executive. In any of these settings, having a better understanding of what Emotional Intelligence is and looking for ways to improve it will yield positive results in your personal and professional life.
CommunicationÂ
Every day we interact with people and we are either talking to them, talking about them or sometimes hoping they talk to us. If you are looking for ways to connect better with people, to improve your team building skills, to deliver a message concisely and to be more assertive, improving your communication skills is a great place to start.
There are several aspect of communication so let us explore a few of them.
Listening
Listening skills refer to your ability to receive and interpret the message being spoken. Another aspect of this is Active Listening and in this case you are not simply listening to what is being said you are looking to understand the full context of the message.
Poor listening skills can result in many problems. If you are unable to listen to what has been said, any questions asked off the back of that are likely to be irrelevant because they would have been covered or will be out of context.
Listening shows you are engaged and interested in what is being said. Also, listening is not simply a function of the ears – your ears hear sounds but your brain interprets it and tries to make sense of it. Your posture, eye contact and note taking are also important aspect of listening effectively.
Written
Written communication includes emails, text message, reports, social media posts and any situation where communication is done in writing. Depending on the situation and what the desired outcome is, being able to communicate effectively through writing is an important skill.
In a professional environment we are writing reports, negotiating, convincing stakeholders, or in a personal setting, writing posts to followers and in this different settings your ability to effectively communicate in writing can make a difference in the outcome.
Think of it this way. Writing is another opportunity to create a powerful first impression of yourself especially as more people are working remotely and we interact with people more frequently across a wider geographical area.Â
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Read our post here to discover more ways you can improve your writing.
Verbal
This involves how we speak and similar to writing skills, this is done on a daily basis however one major difference verbal and writing is that with spoken communication, other aspects of our message delivery is considered.
Aspect of our voice such as tone, timbre, pronunciation and clarity will be noticed by the party person being spoken to or any observers. Having good verbal communication skills are important because allows you to deliver a message and enforcing its importance.
Verbal communication occurs in different settings such as interviews, presentations, sales pitch, appraisal reviews and meeting clients and in all these settings, the level of your verbal communication can shape to a larger degree how you are perceived, how your message is understood and what action is taken off the back of that.
Interpersonal
Interpersonal skills refer to how you deal with people in different situations. It could be inform of conflict resolution, building rapport with a team, active listening or just showing empathy and care.
Your ability to relate to people whilst applying other aspects of effective communication is very important and this is a skill that is increasingly useful.
Body Language
It is said a large portion of communication is non-verbal and that alone is saying a lot. Body language refers to the non-verbal signals we use to let observers know how we are feeling or what our intentions are.
These signals include your posture, facial expression, hand movements, feet and small gestures and in some cases these gestures are unconscious to the person making them but are clearly picked up by the receiver.
Being able to understand body language and use your body language to convey a message or as part of delivering a message is important. For example during a presentation do you turn your back towards the audience? Do you fail to maintain eye contact? Are you fidgeting when questions are asked? All these actions can be interpreted as a lack of preparation or a lack of interest.
On the receiving end, are slouched in your seat? Are you actively listening and taking notes? Are you responding with nods and eye contact? Perhaps you are biting your nails or even using your mobile device.
No words may be said to the person presenting however it will not be too difficult to deduce the lack of interest in the presentation.
Understanding body language and how to use your own body language as part of delivering a message is important because body language on its own may not mean much but combined with speaking and interpersonal skills, it will be much clearer to the observer and when used properly, the message is effectively delivered.
Time Management
It is very easy to get distracted these days even in the workplace. A quick dash to grab coffee, a glance at our phones to see the latest trend on Tiktok or Instagram Story frequently enough adds up and can eat into time we could have been spent doing frankly, what you should be doing.
Time management is about allocating time to the individual tasks that need to be completed and dedicating that time to working on those tasks. If the task requires more time that was thought, there are ways such as escalating, asking for a second opinion on it. The fact that you are not spending time aimless browsing the Internet does not mean should spend all of it on single tasks.
Being able to manage your time is an important skill and developing and displaying this skill will show that you are disciplined, focused, able to delegate and allocate your resources appropriately.
Problem Solving
Problem solving refers to your ability to solve problems. Simple right? Not quite because this skill, depending on how technical and specific a job is may require some background knowledge in that field.
Before you come up with a proposed solution the first step is to understand what the problem is and as simple as it sounds, this in itself is a problem – that needs to be solved.
Having the ability to gather relevant information on an issue, analyse the data to get a better understanding of the problem, looking at the resources required to solve that problem and taking the correct steps in the right order to solve that problem in a nutshell is how you solve a problem.
In many cases this involves working with people and systems, communicating, evaluating, paying close attention to detail and persuading. Being able to solve problems is an important skill in any setting and as we see rapid changes in how we work with Technology, your ability to solve problems will be useful for many years to come.
Technology
The fourth industrial revolution is driven by technology across many industries.
Technology skill comprises of the different settings where technology is applied. From word processing, social media, presentation, digital marketing to web navigation, web design and coding having a good grasp of technology will is a good skill.
Rapid advancements in technology has given rise to disruption across every industry and this presents opportunities to grow.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking can simply be defined as analysing facts, to form a judgment. Critical thinking is an important aspect of problem solving and as such you are required to logically and clearly make connections between ideas.
The main aspects of critical thinking are Logic, Argumentation, Rhetoric, Background knowledge, Attitudes and Values. Critical thinking requires an active participation in understanding a particular problem, gathering information and looking at different ways in which a problem can be approached and solved.
Critical thinking helps us determine how valid an argument or proposal is. It allows you to construct an argument or have an opinion that is based on facts and information after biases have been identified and eliminated.
Decision Making
Every day we make decisions on what to eat, what to wear what to watch. The ability to make the right decisions can make or destroy a product or a company. How do you determine your key performance indicators? What products should we focus on? Based on the feedback from the survey, what issue do we address and in which order?
Decision making in its simplest for is choosing between one or more courses of action and considering this within the wider context of essential skill, the ability to make the right decisions critical.
After data has been gathered and analysed, once critical thinking has been applied and different options present themselves, a decision needs to be made. Other aspects of the decision include cost – how much will it cost? Is there enough technical knowledge to take that course of action?
As you improve your decision making skills which usually improves with your experiences, you will see better outcomes from more of your decisions. The ability to make the right decision is vital in any aspect of a company and is an invaluable skill in any setting.
Creativity
It is easy to think of creativity in the context of music, art paintings and even cooking however creativity is an important skill in the workplace. Creativity is one of the pillars of innovation and innovation is realised through technology.
Your competitors most likely have access to the same information but the way in which a product is designed, or how a service is delivered can make a difference. Creativity reveals opportunities in meeting an objective that may not have been considered initially and this can save time and cost, appeal to a larger audience or just keep loyal customers with the brand or product.
With the number of product and technologies made available, the new ways of working across different time zones and remote working especially, the ability to be creative can make you stand out as an employer or an employee and that is key. It is not about being like everyone else but being unique.
Negotiation
When we negotiate the aim it so come to an agreement by means of dialogue. For most of us, the closest we get to negotiating on a daily basis is trying to get a discount when purchasing a product from certain vendors. Being able to negotiate is an important skill and there are many ways in which being able to do so can benefit you and your organisation.
In a situation where you are looking for a better pay package, flexible working hours, renewing a contract, being able to negotiate effectively can help you succeed.
There are number of things you can do to improve the outcome of a negotiation and these include listening actively, building a rapport, ask relevant questions, apply critical thinking, look for win-win situations and consider bringing more to the table.
Cognitive Flexibility
Cognitive flexibility refers to your ability to be mentally agile; it refers to how flexible and how quickly and easily we can move between thought processes. It is an important skill as it allows you understand things in your direct line of work however see a bigger picture and understand the processes in other aspect of the business.
This is an important aspect of problem solving and the more practice we have with this, you will see correlation between ideas, find better ways to adapt and even become more creative.
Learning to play an instrument, developing a new habit, listening to different genres of music have been known to be good ways of forming new connections within the brain and that can help improve our cognitive flexibility.
Prioritising
Prioritisation is about determining what task needs to be done and the order in which they will be completed. This order can be determined by importance, how much time it will take to complete or which task will take the least amount of resources.
Being able to effectively prioritise is a critical skill because if everything is important, then nothing is important and if tasks are not prioritised properly, resources are incorrectly allocated.
We are incredibly busy these days and in some cases we take our work home with us – not ideal but sometimes necessary. As the amount of work we do increases, it is useful to understand how to prioritise so we make the most of the time allocated to tasks.
Team Work
Working in a team is part of our professional and personal lives and whether it is working as a member of the team or being the team leader, your ability to work as part of a team can make a difference in the outcome of a project.
Collaborating in the workplace is part of getting anything done and as we work with people, there is an opportunity to develop other skills such as interpersonal, communication and delegations skills. It presents another opportunity to observe our strengths and weakness and find ways to improve them.
As projects have become complex and we work with different people globally, being able to work as part of a team can improve your emotional intelligence, capitalise on knowledge from other members of the team and this is important to the outcome of a project.
Delegation
Delegating is not just about assigning tasks to other members of your team, it is about delegating authority so you are creating leaders rather than followers only.
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It requires understanding the strengths and weakness of the members in your team, inspiring them, leading and providing guidance where required.
Being able to delegate is an important management skill as it helps you develop people in your team while creating upward opportunities for you or allowing you to focus on other aspects of that task or where more hands are needed
Final Note
Times will change and the priority of these skills will change too however as long as we work and deal with people in our work places and at home, these skills will prove to be even more useful.
There are courses and different ways in which you can learn to improve on these skills and grow your career prospects and as an individual.
