The Skills You Need To Succeed In 2020

By: Avil Beckford

2020 isn't that far away. As a professional, have you been paying attention to the changes
happening in your workplace and how they are affecting you? How has your role evolved
over the past five years? Do you consider yourself skilled for the jobs of the future? Do
you even know what those jobs might be?
“Talent Is Equally Distributed, But Opportunity Is Not.”

The World Economic Forum reports that you need the ten skills listed below to thrive in 2020:

1. Complex problem solving.

2. Critical thinking.
3. Creativity.
4. People management.
5. Coordinating with others.
6. Emotional intelligence.
7. Judgement and decision making.
8. Service orientation.
9. Negotiation.
10. Cognitive flexibility.

The ten skills on this list make sense for the age that we are living in. But are those skills enough
for you to succeed?

In 2014, I attended a lecture at the University of Toronto, where Marty Neumeier talked about
the Rules of Genius. An important insight from his lecture was the definition of the four types of
work. These are:

Creative: Unique, imaginative, non-routine, and autonomous.

Skilled: Standardized, talent-driven, professional, and directed.

Rote: Interchangeable, routinized, outsourceable, and managed.

Robotic: Algorithmic, computerized, efficient, and purchased.

Of these, you want to focus on creative work, because that is where you are likely to remain
employable. Every professional can be creative in the work she does. When you work your craft,
you are creating art. In his speech, Neumeier said:
“It is important to keep learning. Others cannot duplicate or reproduce your original work. If you
want to be original, you have to become an inventor and build the foundation to the structure of
your invention from scratch."

You might have started to realize that you will need more than the ten skills listed earlier. Alvin
Toffler once said, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write,
but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

In some instances, relearning could be adapting what you know to a new reality. Take cell
phones as an example. When they first came out, they were used solely as communications
devices. Convergence happened, and now our smartphones are minicomputers. People had to
relearn how to use a phone.

In terms of work, you will have to adapt some of your skills to the jobs of the future, and you
will also have to learn new skills. Here are the additional skills that you will need to succeed in
2020.

Learning how to learn.

Since skills are constantly changing, you have to learn how to learn. This concept is so important
that they had a dedicated course on Coursera.

Speed reading and reading intelligently.

Don't stop reading. Since continuous learning has to be a part of your life, and I recommend that
you include reading books, you must learn how to speed read and read intelligently.

Note-taking.

Note-taking is a form of learning, and there is an art to it. It also leads directly to the next skill on
the list.

Analyzing information.

When you take good and detailed notes, you can review them to pick out the
big ideas, understand, and make sense of information.

Spotting patterns and trends.

I recommend that you combine ideas from the different books that you read. By doing this, you
may be able to spot ideas and trends. The beauty of technology is that you can copy and paste,
move blocks of text around, and group information differently, giving you a new perspective.

Communicating – written and oral.

Even with very different books, you can combine ideas that once seemed unrelated. With your
newfound ideas, you have to be able to communicate them to influencers, who can help you to
shape and implement them.

Understanding and leveraging technology.

Technology is changing at an unprecedented pace, so you need to understand and keep on top of
it. Sometimes it's better to read articles in respected technology journals, as books may become
quickly outdated.

Cultural awareness and sensitivity.

As a black woman, this is very important to me. As workplaces become globalized, we have to
learn how to get along with those who are different from us. There is a lot of fear-mongering
happening today, and different groups are marginalized. Imagine what would happen if you
explored books that focused on other people and cultures. Read books to understand other
experiences.

You may be familiar with reading challenges already, but have you ever participated in one? I
created the Strategic Reading Challenge, wherein you read books for career development to
master a list of professional skills needed in the workplace. I invite you to join a reading
challenge and invite friends to join with you, so you can discuss the books you read with them.
This will help accelerate your learning.

I know of successful people who read for three to four hours each day, but in the real world, few
people can do that. You will accomplish a lot by reading for about an hour every day.

Will you take up the challenge?

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Avil Beckford, the founder of The Invisible Mentor, is an expert interviewer, published author,
and writer. In two years, she wants to get 1,000 professionals reading a book every week. She
will help you to learn, stretch, and grow to aid you in your career development. To do this, she
created the Strategic Reading Challenge – jump into the challenge now.