The Global Achievement Gap (Part III): Agility and Adaptability, Initiative/Entrepreneuralism

In the past two issues of News You Can Use, I reviewed the first two of the seven survival skills that are projected to be most in demand in the 21st Century workplace. In this issue I will review the next two skills. They are:

• Agility and Adaptability, and
• Initiative and Entrepreneurialism

As I noted in the previous article, these skills are all transferable skills. These are skills that are sometimes referred to as soft skills. Well, guess what… soft skills are now the ones being projected as those most needed in this century! I am not in any way intimating that solid work content skills will not be needed as well; however, I am saying that they must come packaged with a high degree of transferable skills as well. 

Agility and Adaptability
The portrait of the new world of work that is emerging is a complex one.  The shift from a command and control management mentality, to a team or project approach to accomplishing tasks, has taken place at an intense speed over the past decade.  Rapid change, massive amounts of data, and the increasing complexities of the problems workers have to solve have necessitated the agility and adaptability requirements.

Based on Wagner’s research, we find that managers are reporting that when hiring someone, they know the job will change or may not exist in the future.  This is why adaptability and learning skills are more important than technical skills. To survive, workers must be flexible, life-long learners!  In addition they need the abilities to deal with ambiguity, to learn on the fly, and to handle unforeseen disruptions.  These skills are needed even in factory and assembly line work.

Global Achievement Gap (Part II): Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, Collaboration and Leadership by Influence

In our work how can we begin to address these issues?

In my last article I began the discussion regarding what is being called the Global Achievement Gap. This concept is derived from research carried out by Tony Wagner, co-director of the Change Leadership Group (CLG) at Harvard University. Again, the seven Survival Skills needed for the new global knowledge economy are:

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence
• Agility and Adaptability
• Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
• Effective Oral and Written Communication
• Accessing and Analyzing Information
• Curiosity and Imagination

In this issue I will briefly deal with the first two: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, and Collaboration across Networks and Leading by Influence. Now let’s think about it: how do we define critical thinking and how does it relate to problem solving? According to Wagner, in his discussions with corporate leaders, the ability to ask good questions is one of the key components in developing good critical thinking and problem solving skills.

One of the corporate managers he interviews is the manager of strategic development in k-12 education for Dell Computer Corporation. She explains that over the past 20 years corporations have changed dramatically. Many are no longer run by a top-down management style, with lots of managers where employees are very specialized in their functions. It is now flattened with work no longer defined by your specialty. It is rather now defined by the task or problem you and your team are trying to solve or the goal you want to accomplish. Teams have to figure out the best way to get the results; the solution is not prescribed.

Global Achievement Gap (Part I): Global Labor Market

After a certain age, time flies! It seems like yesterday that we celebrated the year 2000—the change of the millennium. I am so grateful to have seen that year arrive. 2000 was pre-9/11 and the economic crisis of 2008. How things have changed.

One of the changes we are currently faced with is the globalization of the world’s economies and labor markets. I used to wonder who our government was in debt to. Was it the tax payers? Was it the banking system? Now I know, as many of us do, that a great deal of our national debt is owed to China. This is still amazing to me.

Now, our youth are faced with a Global Labor Market (GLM) in which they have to compete. For our first foray into this topic, let’s review what one researcher sees as the challenges for our educational system, and for our youth in moving forward in this brave new world. The following is the list of Survival Skills he sees as a necessity if we are to compete in the GLM, none of which—according to him—our schools are stressing. The skills listed below are excerpted from The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need—And What We Can Do About It, written by Tony Wagner.

User's Response to News You Can Use

Bullet #1:

• No matter how difficult things may seem, people are finding gainful employment every single day! This can't be emphasized enough!

This is a bunch of liberal crap ! Unemployment continues to rise in California, where I am from, as well as in all the other states. Major business are pulling out or have began outsourcing to other countries. Please do not waste my time by sending these false statements to my mail.

Response to the comment:
The comment that every single day someone in California, as well as in other states, finds employment is in no way a false statement. No where did I indicate that this is easy. But as career development and job placement professionals, we have to keep our students and clients motivated and positive so that they don’t give up! You can’t give up when times are tough. It causes desperation.

Living in a community that is quite devastated in terms of unemployment, I would be the last person to ever take the current state of the economy as a joke. However, even considering current state of our economy, the following is a true story of how an African American female resident of Oakland, California -which has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state- has found employment. This person also has only a high school diploma, and no college training.

Help your students/clients through the tough times.

As you may be aware, these are very challenging economic times for us and our country. How can we help our students and clients maintain a positive energy and outlook about their current and future career possibilities? The following are a few simple concepts/ideas that some of you may already be employing:

• No matter how difficult things may seem, people are finding gainful employment every single day! This can’t be emphasized enough!
• They will feel more empowered by taking career or job decisions seriously. These decisions should fit their image, not someone else’s, of who they should be.
• Patience and perseverance are universal and will greatly enhance their possibilities of achieving their goals.
• Leave no opportunity un-explored! Opportunities are all around us but many times we can overlook them.
• Many jobs are available in the hidden job market. It is important to gain assistance from others through networking and recognize and take advantage of opportunity when it arrives!
• It is never too soon to learn good job search techniques. This is true whether they are currently seeking employment or are in college, high school, or even middle school. The security one gains from this knowledge is invaluable!
• With patience and perseverance, anyone with an idea or skill, coupled with a willingness to work hard, can become a successful entrepreneur! Self employment is always an option.

If you have other ideas or concepts that you use with your clients or students, please share them with us, and they will be included in the next issue of News You Can Use.