WINGS: The 5 primary skills for the future of work
The lists. You are familiar with them, because in recent years you have been hit with them tremendously hard. Those of the World Economic Forum and Linkedin Learning are by far the best known. But there are many others that aim to make you wiser. They all answer that one crucial question: which skills are really the most important for the future?
“It’s damn hard to make predictions. And certainly about the future!”. A funny, and precisely because of that, very witty statement that — as is often the case — is attributed to a whole series of well-known people. Professional futurists do not talk about ‘the future’ but about ‘futures’ (yes, in plural). And these futures are a series of plausible scenarios that can vary greatly according to a wide range of variable elements. Strictly speaking, there are always a number of certainties, fixed or recurring elements, on which you can build. But the rest — except for Madame Blanche — is just a matter of guesswork.
So it is with the future of work. There is no doubt that technology and extensive automation will increase in importance here. But beyond that? Will social and circular economy have a crucial impact? To what extent will demographic and political changes play a role? What direction will our economy take and what moral or spiritual (r)evolutions may become decisive? We are largely at the mercy of the wonderful realm of hypotheses.
Hard Skills versus Soft Skills
The impact of technology will be felt most directly in our knowledge jobs. Learning new skills in areas such as AI, cloud computing, UX design, nanotechnology or blockchain expertise therefore top the lists. At least, when it comes to what we call the hard skills of the future. When it comes to soft skills, it’s a different story. These skills are intrinsically human and therefore a lot less sensitive to change. They form something of a counterweight to the digital storm that blows in harder every day and that is precisely why they make the difference: pure rational intelligence and knowledge lose the battle with technology, while the applications of that knowledge in combination with behavioral skills become more important.
Soft skills are intrinsically human and therefore a lot less sensitive to change.
Little by little, our education system is also becoming aware of this. Today we are seeing more and more educational programs that focus on practical experience. The work floor is no longer just their market, but is also an important teacher who is much better equipped to provide solutions to the concrete challenges of tomorrow. Schools that invest heavily in this interaction with the professional field are making a good move today.
Unfortunately, the pure soft skills or behavioral skills do not get the same attention in our education system. Are we assuming that maybe you’ll get these from home? Or that you will learn them ‘along the way’? Or are people convinced that behavioral skills cannot be learned anyway? Whichever the case, they are preferably shoved behind a curtain. Like that one moving box of stuff that just can’t find its place in the closet.
However, many agree that the T-shaped professional is the model of the future. With the knowledge skills on the vertical axis and the behavioral skills on the horizontal. At least, that’s the variation I myself like to use. And because the word ‘soft skills’ is not one I like, I immediately gave them a name that is both more accurate and a nice metaphor for the growth potential they offer: WINGS. That stands for Work & Industry Neutral Growth Skills. In this TEDxTalk I will tell you more about it.
The five primary behavioral skills
Back to our lists. Unlike the hard skills, the soft skills lists are a bit more diverse depending on the respective researcher. For example, for World Economic Forum the top 5 consists of analytical thinking, active learning, complex problem solving, critical thinking and creativity. While LinkedIn Learning keeps it to creativity, persuasion, working with others, adaptability and emotional intelligence. Among the other list makers, that top looks different. There you find leadership, communication, negotiation, work ethic and conflict mediation, among other things. You get it: the forest and the trees.
So there are both differences and overlaps. But can there be foundations? Is there such a thing as the “primary” behavioral skills on which all these top skills are based? Just like you have red, yellow and blue, the primary colors that form the basis for composing all the other colors. Or the five basic flavors sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami that are the structure of our complex palate. There is good news: after thorough comparison and analysis of all the lists, it turns out that five basic skills invariably recur. So — as far as I’m concerned — these are the real WINGS. The behavioral skills of the future:
1. CREATIVITY
Creativity is essentially coming up with ideas that are new and useful. Those ideas can be used to solve existing problems and to create new opportunities. A typical creative thinker looks beyond the obvious: he is driven by curiosity, observes challenges from different perspectives and discovers alternatives. He makes connections and uses his imagination to change things, to improve things.
2. CRITICAL THINKING
Critical thinking provides a cognitive framework for understanding how we reason. It leads to reliable knowledge and is a guide through the often confusing battlefield of facts, theories, intuitions and opinions. Reasonable doubt and constructive uncertainty help us to make critical choices and appropriate decisions, both individually and in a group. It invokes curiosity, challenges preconceptions and beliefs, debunks myths and fallacies, and provides a resilient foundation in a world of complexity.
3. SELF-MANAGEMENT
You can only move in the right direction when you know where you stand. Self-management is about breaking the structure of limiting beliefs and actions by discovering the energy that reveals your true power. People who are capable of self-management are confident, goal-oriented and, as a result, relaxed and stress-resistant. They find their intrinsic motivation in the most natural way.
4. SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE
Social intelligence is closely related to what we know as emotional intelligence. In essence, this is about communicating and collaborating with others. Socially intelligent people are very good at listening, motivating and giving feedback. They are also able to convince others and create positive group dynamics. By understanding what is being said between the lines, they can handle the enormous complexity of communication and are able to act accordingly.
5. ATTENTION MANAGEMENT
We also know this skill by the name of time management, but since you can’t really manage time, you can only divide it into useful moments of attention. To achieve our goals, objectives and dreams, we must therefore approach our time with intention. After all, the most stimulating things in our environment are rarely the most important. Those who manage that attention see opportunities instead of tasks. Projects instead of problems. Opportunities instead of risks.
But above all, let it be clear that these WINGS are the primary basis of all those skills that appear in the lists. No less, but also no more. Some specific skills from the lists are bound to need some additional ingredients to flourish. After all, to make fluorescent yellow or metallic blue, you will also need to add some additional components, but the basic colors will always remain the same.
A few examples: take the skill ‘complex problem solving’. This consists mainly of two of the five WINGS, namely creative thinking (finding new and useful solutions) and critical thinking (making choices and decisions). In ‘Working with others’, the WINGS skill social intelligence (communicating, collaborating, persuading, creating group dynamics) is clearly at the root, but also requires self-management (goal orientation), critical thinking (making the right decisions) and attention management (recognizing the right priorities). And finally ‘Leadership’, where our five primary basic skills — make the exercise yourself — will need to be present pretty much equally.
WINGS is a mindset
“Creative? You either are or you’re not. And if you’re not, tough luck to you. You can’t learn something like that anyway!” It is one of those so many misconceptions that I, as a creativity expert, am still regularly confronted with today. As if creativity is some kind of gift from God, an exclusivity that is not transferable. When we extrapolate this to the other four WING skills, you might understand why education would rather not burn its fingers on them. It is, unfortunately, faulty reasoning. If you try to teach behavioral skills the same way you teach knowledge subjects, then you’re pretty wrong. You don’t ‘learn’ behavioral skills, you have to ‘make them your own’. And that’s a big difference.
If you try to teach behavioral skills the same way you teach knowledge subjects, then you’re pretty wrong.
Back to creativity for a moment: it is true that everyone is born with a different creative thinking ability. That is the first level and we call it talent. You can improve that thinking ability by learning the mechanisms behind it and applying them. Just like you do with knowledge subjects, like math, physics or languages for a part. At that point it becomes a skill. That’s the second level. You can call up that skill whenever you think you need it. But a behavioral skill goes further. You have to practice it, make it your own, day after day and in as many different circumstances as possible. Thus that skill becomes a habit, a reflex, a natural way of thinking, acting and reacting. And that’s the third level, what we call mindset.
A change in mindset takes time. That is precisely why it is so important to start early. From childhood onwards, ideally. In this way you can almost literally stir it into the porridge, and those little wings can grow slowly. Is it too late once we reach adolescence or adulthood? Certainly not, but it requires a more intensive approach. If you learn the piano at twenty, you will have to put in a lot more effort than someone who was dropped in at six. It requires a far-reaching openness, whereby you have to step out of your comfort zone and even unlearn a lot of things. Crucial in this is the commitment of both student and teacher and the methodology used.
Is it a crazy idea to integrate WINGS in its entirety into our education system? I am already a big advocate. Maybe this time we should do it the other way around: start in higher education, where the target group will soon be in the work field and will experience firsthand the need for strong behavioral skills. And then move down to secondary and primary education.
Ladies and gentlemen policy makers, we have a serious learning deficit to make up. And this time it really has nothing to do with COVID.
