3 new skills to succeed in today’s workplaces
With remote work and artificial intelligence entering the workforce, the skills you need for career success are changing — and there’s a new “top three” list you need to build.
To succeed in today’s workplaces, you need to 1)showcase resilience, 2)social connection and 3)mattering.
Those core skills determine “who’s able to succeed in the tremendous uncertainty and volatility” of our modern times. Here’s what all these terms mean and how to get started.
1)Resilience
is the ability to feel neutral — or even positive — when you face a challenge or failure.
It contains 5 elements:
optimism,
cognitive agility,
self-compassion,
self-efficacy and
emotional regulation.
Start by identifying which of those is your weakest trait, and get to work on improving at it, she recommends.
If you’re not usually very optimistic, for example, you might start making daily gratitude lists or simply begin visualizing your ideal future self on a regular basis.
Or, if you struggle with cognitive agility, the ability to think of multiple possible scenarios before you focus in on one,
try this exercise:
Outline the worst possible scenario for the situation you’re in, then the best possible scenario and then the three most likely scenarios.
The exercise helps you put the situation in context, making you more likely to keep your head amid any amount of stress.
2)Social connection
Lonelier people tend to receive lower performance ratings from their supervisors, and work friendships
can increase both productivity and decision-making skills, research shows.
But social connection can be hard, even for naturally friendly people, primarily due to three obstacles:
a)The first is a lack of time,
but relationships don’t take as long to form as you probably think.
If you use the last few seconds of meetings to talk about something unrelated to work, those little interactions can add up over time.
b)The second, for remote or hybrid workers, is physical space.
Opt for video and phone calls over emails whenever you can. “We’re wired to track the amount of time we spend with people as a way to build trust,” she says.
c)The third “us/them,” which refers to the way humans tend to categorize others upon meeting: If you hit it off over things you share in common, you’ll see the other person as an “us.” Everyone else becomes a “them.”
You can recategorize people by taking a moment to mentally describe them to yourself, getting as detailed as you can, so you can identify commonalities you didn’t previously see.
That ability to find a way to care for others is a “golden rule of leadership and teamwork.”
3)Mattering
Having a sense of meaning and purpose in your work is crucial.
It becomes the fuel you need to work hard.
Even if your job isn’t “inherently life changing,” knowing that you’re “being of service to another human being is so meaningful,” she says.
Whenever you start to feel like you and your work don’t matter, try to identify whether it’s an internal or external feeling. If your office culture is at fault, you can urge your managers to reinforce it: Regularly showing employees their day-to-day impact is one of the best ways to maintain high engagement and morale at work, notes Kellerman.
If you simply feel like you’re not personally making an impact, you can start tracking your achievements — big and small — so you can chart your personal growth over time. It’s a great way to help make your work feel more important.
