The future is definitely not going to look at all like the past or present.
Herb is a 24-year-old manufacturing engineer, he has been out of school for two years and he is on his second company and third job. He has been told that he has promise but he knows that means
nothing in light of the constant shifting landscape of companies in his career niche.
Her family has told Farah that it is quite important to them that she help support the family but at the same time there is pressure on her to marry
and settle down. She must make career choices based upon both the cultural squeeze of her parents generation’s values but also satisfy her interests in pursuing her development as a competent and
skilled biologist.
Theo trained as an aviation engineer. The major airlines have collapsed and those remaining are hiring less skilled and lower paid engineers. He is retraining for a brand new career and expects
this will be one of many.
The employee of the future will have no loyalty to anyone but himself.; why put out if you are just going to be basically an independent contractor. The world business climate has become cold to
any long-term engagement and we wonder why 13% of all employees are engaged in their jobs?
In the face of these conditions what does a leader or manager do to work effectively and productively with what staff he has for whatever time they are in his team?
More than ever before, the tools and skills of being a high quality human being and knowing how to have high quality relationships is critical.
Here are my predictions for the future of skill training for staff and leaders:
You must know yourself. What I mean by that is threefold.
- Develop emotional intelligence, which includes at the very basic level self-reflection, insight, self-regulation of emotional responses and self-awareness.
- Understand your strengths- take the Myers-Briggs Personality test or read and take Now Discover your Strengths
- Ask friends, family and colleagues to give you tough, honest feedback about what you do best, what they think you could do with your skills and personality.
Your attention and focus are your most valuable treasure
It is imperative that you own your attention. There are hundreds of attention grabbers vying for your time, energy and focus. If you are not adept at managing your focus, you are in the control
of others.
Four tips for grabbing and maintaining attention
- Learn to know where your attention is and place it intentionally.
- Develop a longer attention span. Limit your “screen” time of iPod’s, iPhones, iPads, laptops, TV etc. to only what is necessary for your work and well being. The Internet is a vampire for your focus. It teachers us to skim, skip and surf all of which tune us to short term focus and an inability to place and keep our attention for long periods of time much less read anything longer than a cartoon strip.
- Be ruthless with your focus; learn to do one thing at a time. Train yourself like you might a young puppy: to have a very short leash on your attention and when the puppy-mind goes off to play, bring it back with a crisp yank.
- Relax at will. Develop the tools of deep relaxation using audio practices, music that is deeply relaxing, reading a good novel or non-fiction book or walking in nature. Learn short mini-relaxation skills that require no more than 5 minutes to accomplish. Close your eyes and concentrate on letting go of muscle tension for a few minutes coupled with long slow deep breathing.
Bonding with people in short project-based arrangements will be the look of the future leader-staff connection.
Here are several tips for developing connections quickly:
- Assume that the relationship is an equal power relationship. You must influence not compel or manipulate. Developing trust requires that you learn to be authentic-that is that you are someone that is knowable. Not that the relationship is a friendship or therapy. I mean be a real person who tells the truth and asks for the same.
- Develop strong commitments that are based upon sound use of language to craft specific, measurable, time-bound agreements. Provide the resources to get the task done. Coach, not hover or let alone completely. You have to find the balance between making sure someone can do the job after watching and coaching and then keeping up with their progress or problems and plans. There will be less room for correction and redoing tasks and projects as timeliness will be the first priority in the future of work.
- Identify your team’s strengths and less well developed qualities quickly. It is your job to observe, deal with the facts of whom you have hired and coach/train for improvement in the early stages….. Or be prepared for being disappointed.
The future can be a remarkable time to create something that we have never seen or experienced. The key to leading into a turbulent and seemingly chaotic time is to understand and practice what I
call the truly human arts of awareness, attention/focus and generating and cultivating goodwill. They are all eternal and timely in any age.
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For over 40 years, Elad Levinson has been coaching leaders, consulting small and large companies and leading teams of
organizational and learning development professionals. He was the Director of Learning and Development at Agilent Technologies as well as a senior Human Resource leader at several technology
companies. Elad has written and delivered dozens of courses that address the challenges of senior leaders and executives in time-starved, fast-paced companies and industries. Elad has been
described as “the one you turn to when you want help solving a thorny company-wide or people problem and want the solution to stick.”
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You can contact Elad directly at: elad.levinson@gmail.com
His LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elad-levinson-858586
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