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.

Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
As reported in the Global Achievement Gap, communities and corporations expect their citizens and workers to take initiative and even be entrepreneurial in seeking out new ideas, strategies, and solutions.

Because in this century we have a growing demand for what has been coined knowledge workers. Knowledge workers are expected to show initiative, to be entrepreneurial and to understand that what they do is important and has a direct impact on the success of the company or institution for which they work.

These workers are found in all industries and at all levels.  Workers are now expected to manage by influence, not by command. They are expected to think and problem solve. Unfortunately, many employers are finding that our schools are not preparing students for these new and growing work environments.