Two Skills for Future Workplaces

          In a fast changing high-tech world, packed with buzz words like "digitalization" & "digital transformation", I've always envisioned future workplaces with smart machines and less people. Fact is, it's not really like that. Workplaces greatly need people with people skills, as well as adaptive project managers.

 People Skills in Future Workplaces : Lead & Learn

           According to several sources, like Harvard Business and Harvard Continuing Education, skills needed in the future workforce do in fact include people skills in the top 10. They can be named differently at times like: people management, social influence; social intelligence; cross-cultural competency; leadership, teamwork, emotional intelligence and others.

           According to the recent Future Skills report produced by Kingston University of London, two of the top 10 future skills (number 3 and 9) are "communication skills" and "ability to build relationships" . A true indication that both current leaders as well as the new generations introduced to workplaces every year, really need to build on such skills.

According to same report, a senior manager in Tiktok says :

"A common mistake that people make when discussing tech companies is that they automatically assume companies like TikTok are only looking for people who can code or data scientists. But in reality, tech firms are looking for a range of employees in non-tech areas like marketing and project management. Tech companies need to do more to explain what working in tech is. It is not just sitting in front of a computer all day".

          It's not just about managing people, though, but also learning from them.  In a world full of new knowledge every day, and endless knowledge sources, learning skills is becoming a key asset. On the job learning is becoming more important than classroom and online learning.

According to some insights from Pearson, the top 5 future skills include "Coordination" - which includes both people and processes, and also  "Workplace Learning Strategies", which includes "Seeking help from others" as one of three learning strategies. So people skills is also about learning from them, let alone leading them.

With a growth mindset installed, we will almost always keep seeking help and experience from others. This itself is a different skill.

 Adaptive Project Managers : The 3-Minute Egg Syndrome

        Apart from managing people, future workplaces also need people to manage constantly changing projects.  From Pearson and Kingston's top skills, I see two of them extremely valuable for Project Managers : adaptability and coordination.

During the lifetime of many projects, so many changes can happen, whether in customer requirements, allocated budget, resources, timeline, scope, etc. We've all seen how pandemics, wars and natural disasters have affected businesses, economies and supply chains. Moreover, we've also seen how fast users change their requirements. Processes that are too robust or highly structured will find it difficult to adapt.

        Project managers not only need to be agile, understanding and adaptive, but they also need to coordinate people and processes. They need to clearly understand customer requirements, whether internal or external customers. Project tasks delivered from department to department or owner to owner are sometimes delayed due to such ambiguities in what exactly is the acceptable level of output for this task.

        This is typically what we can call the 3 Minute Egg Syndrome. When a egg-boiling task has been done before in so many projects in 15 minutes, this doesn't necessarily mean that a 3 minute or 10 minute boil is not acceptable. Sometimes this is exactly what your internal customer needs. So stop overprocessing and get to know your customer's requirements clearly. You might be unnecessarily boiling for too long. Not all your customers need a 15 minute boil. Sophisticated spreadsheets, detailed reports, multiple scenarios, too much planning, over-structured documents and deep dives when high-level views are needed, are all examples of tasks that have been overdone or overprocessed. Don't waste high effort for low gain.

Sometimes all it takes is to ask. Ask for feedback before you start. You might be lucky enough to have experienced this - when a customer service staff member asks you : Would you like to receive your lab results today but without the stamped final report, or you prefer to wait till after the weekend? Sometimes customers prefer faster tasks than perfectly complete ones. So just ask.

       Moreover, sometimes this 10 minute boil produces the acceptable output, but the same output can be done through so many other ways. A boil followed by a simmer can give better and more cost-effective results. So just leave the method to the task owner. Only output acceptance levels are to be well-defined, not the process to get there.

           Project managers still need to work on such fine details in their project tasks, especially those on the critical path.. The critical path in any project plan should be treated like like a relay race. Every second counts. If owners drop the baton during the task transfer, or disagree on acceptance levels at that point, the entire project gets delayed. If we overdo a task on the critical path we are not being more careful, we're actually losing time.

   The presence of smart machines will never replace the need for leaders with high emotional intelligence, maybe even require more of them to offset the negative effects of technology. And the future also holds so many fast paced projects. Hence, a growing need for more agile project managers who clearly understand their customers. I wonder how universities are preparing future employees for this.