CAREER PLANNING FOR THE 21st CENTURY
PRISM STEP 5
Resources & Skills
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LET'S DISCUSS SKILLS AND OTHER RESOURCES
The fifth step of the PRISM System involves preparing ourselves for getting started on any one of the next major steps which will help us move closer to achieving a goal that is part of our life vision.
We need to acquire the skills, money and other resources that our research in Step 4 identified as required for the next major step. Only then can we start that step – which is Step 6 in the PRISM System.
Probably you’re already competent in some of these skills. Maybe you’re already knowledgeable about some of the other skills – now is the time to become competent. And for the remaining skills, we suggest that you study and acquire them.
Note that each skill is associated with one or more of the mindsets discussed in Step 2. There are various training courses available for all the skills discussed below. PRISM’s role is to provide some perspective on each skill, and reference articles and videos that will provide a start to acquiring it.
WHAT TYPES OF SKILLS AND OTHER RESOURCES ARE NEEDED?
The resources that we need to acquire include skills, money and other resources (such as clothing, communication devices, equipment, etc.).
MONEY
There are many possible combinations of financing sources, including:
* Working at jobs to save the money;
* Finding a government program, company or sponsor to provide the money; or
* Borrowing the money from government, banks or credit unions, or family.
We need financing in place so that we know we can buy the required resources, and finish the major step that we are about to start.
OTHER RESOURCES
The other resources are very specific to whatever it is we want to achieve, and no general guidance would be useful. We just need to obtain them at the appropriate time.
SKILLS
As with the other resources, there are skills (professional, trade, technical, etc.) required that are specific to our goal, and it is beyond the scope of PRISM to provide guidance for them.
PRISM’s focus is to prepare us for success in the 21st century world of work – and, in particular, to make us an employee or contractor that stands out to our employer as someone they want to keep.
There are many so-called soft skills that are becoming important for us to obtain, and PRISM includes 11 of them. These are discussed in the sections below. We have to decide for ourselves in what skills we feel we need training. (Ironically, many of these skills are taught at university as part of arts degrees so maligned by those taking science and even business courses.)
In Step 2, we discussed 10 mindsets required for success in today’s world of work, many of which may have been new to you. There are always links between a mindset and one or more of the skills, and these will be pointed out in the discussion of the skill.
WHAT SKILLS ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?
Let’s look at several skills that have become an important part of thriving in the world of work in the 21st century. I’m going to introduce you to 11 of them. There are probably more, but anyone who is competent in these 11 will be an effective employee (or contractor, or entrepreneur).
(As our service is CAREER COACHING, I thought it would be fun – and make the list of skills easier to remember – if we use words that start with the letter ‘C’. So, instead of Skills, we refer to Competencies, and claim that they help us to ‘C’ how to be more effective employees.)
The 11 Competences can be grouped into 4 categories:
1. INTERNAL SKILLS
- Cognitive Flexibility
- Complex Problem Solving
- Continuous Learning
- Creativity
- Critical Thinking
2. ONE-ON-ONE SKILLS
- Communication
- Coaching and Mentoring
3. TEAM SKILLS
- Collaborating in Virtual Environments
- Conflict Management
- Cross-cultural Competency
4. OTHER SKILLS
- Career Pivoting
There’s a brief discussion of each Competency below, and why it is important. If you want help to further understand the importance of any of these skills or in assessing how to develop the skill, then consider requesting a no-charge call to see if we can help.
QUOTES ABOUT SKILLS THAT MAY MAKE YOU THINK
Here are some quotes about skills that might be helpful. (Most of these quotes and the others for specific skills below are extracted from Dr. Mardy Grothe’s website.)
* The most powerful drive in the ascent of man is his pleasure in his own skill. He loves to do what he does well and, having done it well, he loves to do it better. (Jacob Bronowski)
* Early to bed and early to rise probably indicates unskilled employment. (John Ciardi)
* It is not the ship so much as the skillful sailing that assures the prosperous voyage. (George William Curtis)
* There is only one proof of ability—action. (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach)
* Success correlates more closely with confidence than it does with competence. (Katty Kay)
* There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked for long. (Louisa May Alcott)
SKILL REFERENCES
Note that the references that you will find throughout the description of the PRISM System are not intended to be exhaustive – just enough to get you started on the subject matter. (Both articles and videos are included to acknowledge that people learn in different ways,) If you encounter a particularly noteworthy reference, please do send us a comment with the details.
1. Skills to learn for the future of work
2. AI in the UK: Ready, willing and able?
3. 5 super-skills you need for jobs of the future
4. Top 5 soft skills you should know
5. How to learn new skills online
6. These 6 skills cannot be replicated by artificial intelligence
INTERNAL SKILLS
COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY
Wikipedia defines Cognitive Flexibility as “the mental ability to switch between thinking about two different concepts, and to think about multiple concepts simultaneously.”
In a world of accelerating technological change, we constantly experience new ways of performing tasks at work. We can choose to ignore them initially (very short-sighted) or we can learn about them and then apply them, or some better combination of the old and new ways.
Once you see a different way of doing anything, you will often see a multitude of options. (That has certainly been my experience.) Then you can select the best option for your particular circumstance.
Harry Day, a World War One fighter pilot, said “Rules are made for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.” While for many of us, rules provide stability, in today’s fast moving world, it’s important to look beyond a rule to understand it’s fundamental intent, so that we can adapt the rule to a new methodology.
This ties in with all 4 of the Learning mindsets – Continuous Learning, Compounding Technological Advances, Computer Cognition, and Core Principles – discussed in Step 2.
QUOTES ABOUT COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY
* The measure of intelligence is the ability to change. (Albert Einstein)
* Intelligence is the handmaiden of flexibility and change. (
The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings. (Kakuzo Okakura)
* Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative. (H. G. Wells)
COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY REFERENCES
If you encounter a particularly noteworthy reference, please do send us a comment with the details.
COMPLEX PROBLEM SOLVING
Wikipedia defines Problem Solving as “using generic or ad hoc methods in an orderly manner to find solutions to problems.”
A complete definition of the Problem Solving process, appropriate for a complex problem, would include 7 steps:
- Be clear about what the problem is, including what is causing it and what a successful solution would be.
- If other people are involved, establish their perspectives and what they would see as a successful solution. (This may be very different from ours.)
- Define possible solution methodologies. Other perspectives may be useful in broadening our understanding of the problem, and provide ‘clues’ to different methodologies. The cognitive flexibility skill discussed above is very useful here.
- Evaluate solution options, and select the one most likely to be effective.
- Attempt to solve the problem. If you fail, analyze the failure, and cycle back to select another option. (Sometimes it is sufficient to modify the application of the failed solution methodology.)
- Document the entire process (which really should have been done throughout the process). Sometimes the problem will change later under different circmstances, and the process followed this time willl be useful in solving the new variant of the problem.
- Establish monitoring of the solution to confirm that it is persistent and scales.
This ties in with 3 mindsets – Computer Cognition, Core Principles, and Curiosity – discussed in Step 2.
QUOTES ABOUT COMPLEX PROBLEM SOLVING
* Successful problem solving requires finding the right solution to the right problem. We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem. (Russell L. Ackoff)
* When the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail. (A. H. Maslow)
* It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it. (John Steinbeck)
* We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them. (Albert Einstein)
* Problem-solving becomes a very important part of our makeup as we grow into maturity or move up the corporate ladder. (Zig Ziglar)
* Entrepreneurs are moving from a world of problem-solving to a world of problem-finding. The very best ones are able to uncover problems people didn’t realize that they had. (Daniel H. Pink)
COMPLEX PROBLEM SOLVING REFERENCES
If you encounter a particularly noteworthy reference, please do send us a comment with the details.
CONTINUOUS LEARNING
We discussed Continuous Learning as a necessary mindset in Step 2. Here we’re talking about not only having the mindset but putting it into action by developing the skill – and it is a skill!
The normal, linear way of learning is to take a course and then practise what we’ve learned (sometimes interweaving the two).
The accelerating impact of technology on jobs, and the increasingly short lifespan of specific technical skills (typically 2-3 years) and even of some basic scientific knowledge, means that we need to develop a new way of learning.
Overall, we need to integrate learning into our working life. Fortunately, employers are recognizing the need for this. For example, in July 2019, Amazon announced it was investing $700 million to upskill 100,000 employees. But, even if your employer, is not supportive, it is essential for our survival that we implement continuous learning ourselves.
There are an increasing number of options to do this.
Many on-line courses are being offered, many free, some short-term. Check out Coursera, Khan Academy, Udemy, and MIT OpenCourseWare. Some courses are starting to implement a technique called micro-learning, in which the course content is broken down into a series of linked 5-to-10 minute segments, which are designed to allow us to use short periods of downtime efficiently.
Another approach used for on-the-job training and learning is AR (Augmented Reality). Wikipedia defines AR as “an interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects that reside in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory.” So, all 5 senses (seeing, hearing, touching, feeling, and smelling) are being used.
This obviously ties in with all 4 of the Learning mindsets – Continuous Learning, Compounding Technological Advances, Computer Cognition, and Core Principles – discussed in Step 2.
QUOTES ABOUT CONTINUOUS LEARNING
* The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn. (Alvin Toffler)
* The day you stop learning is the day you begin decaying. (Isaac Asimov)
* Be open to learning new lessons even if they contradict the lessons you learned yesterday. (Ellen DeGeneres)
* The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge. (Stephen Hawking)
* As Thomas Sowell has written, “The Neanderthal in his cave had all the physical resources we have today.” The difference between the cavemen and us is the accumulation of knowledge. (George Gilder)
* Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. (Mahatma Gandhi)
CONTINUOUS LEARNING REFERENCES
If you encounter a particularly noteworthy reference, please do send us a comment with the details.
CREATIVITY
Creativity can be defined as the ability to see something, which can be an idea or an object, in new and imaginative ways by finding hidden patterns or making connections between unrelated concepts – and then using this ability to create a solution to a problem. Creativity is regarded as the product of the subconscious, but is a skill that can be learned.
Creativity is required whenever there is no clear solution to a problem. It is closely allied with the need for innovation, which requires creative ideas in order to be successful.
That creativity comes from the subconscious is evidenced by the way that creative ideas most often occur when you are not thinking about an issue – because you are doing something else like sleeping or working on a different issue.
For example, Archimedes is supposed to have discovered, or really realized, his principle of fluid dynamics while he was taking a bath!
This ties in with 3 mindsets – Continuous Learning, Core Principles, and Curiosity – discussed in Step 2.
QUOTES ABOUT CREATIVITY
* You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. (Maya Angelou)
* A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something. (Frank Capra)
* The more you reason, the less you create. (Raymond Chandler)
* Creativity always dies a quick death in rooms that house conference tables. (Bruce Herschensohn)
* Creative ideas do not spring from groups. They spring from individuals. (A. Whitney Griswold)
* Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties. (Gail Sheehy)
CREATIVITY REFERENCES
If you encounter a particularly noteworthy reference, please do send us a comment with the details.
1. I trained myself to be creative by doing these 9 things
2, Julio Torres can help you be more creative
3. 4 ways to inject more creativity into your craft (and life)
4. How to unleash creativity on the worlds biggest problems
5. Talent, you’re born with. Creativity, you can grow yourself
6. Coronavirus: The good that can come out of an upside-down world
CRITICAL THINKING
In our current world, biased opinions are presented as facts, and outright lies are left unedited. It is up to us to sift through what is presented to us, and determine for ourselves what is true, false or just opinion. Critical Thinking is the skill that allows us to do this. Sadly it is only taught in arts programs, although it is equally needed in science programs.
Wikipedia defines Critical Thinking as “the analysis of facts to form a judgment… Other definitions refer to the rational, skeptical, unbiased analysis, or evaluation of factual evidence. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking.”
This ties in with 4 mindsets – Compounding Technological Advances, Computer Cognition, Core Principles, and Curiosity – discussed in Step 2.
QUOTES ABOUT CRITICAL THINKING
* It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. (Aristotle)
* Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts. (William Bruce Cameron)
* The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. (Henri Bergson)
* Too often we… enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. (John F. Kennedy)
* The important thing is not to stop questioning. (Albert Einstein)
* Time given to thought is the greatest time saver of all. (Norman Cousins)
* Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too. (Voltaire)
CRITICAL THINKING REFERENCES
If you encounter a particularly noteworthy reference, please do send us a comment with the details.
ONE-ON-ONE SKILLS
COMMUNICATION
When we work in an organization (whether it provides a product or service, and whether it is for-profit or not-for-profit), we have interactions with various people that we need to be effective. The associated skill is communication, and that applies to all interactions, whether spoken, written, and even non-verbal (i.e. body language) – and by all forms of communication media in addition to face-to-face.
The fundamental skills in effective communication include speaking and listening and questioning, writing and reading, messaging and replying, and cultural awareness. There’s a lot of teaching and reference material on effective communication and its fundamental skills available in various types of media. A classic book that everyone would benefit from reading (I’ve read this book about 15 times) is ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ by Dale Carnegie, which was published in 1936.
The one fundamental skill that you may be surprised to see is cultural awareness. Different cultures have different acceptable styles of communication (such as formality or social distance). But culture can also refer to different age groups within one culture. For example, the different use of emojis or abbreviations (e.g. LOL) or capitalization within North American society.
This ties in with the mindsets of Client Orientation and Complex Inter-personal Communication discussed in Step 2.
QUOTES ABOUT COMMUNICATION
* The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. (Author Unidentified)
* Sometimes there is greater lack of communication in facile talking than in silence. (Faith Baldwin)
* In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently and persuasively than what we say or even anything we do. (Stephen R. Covey)
* You must possess at the same time the habit of communicating and the habit of listening. The union is rather rare, but irresistible. (Benjamin Disraeli)
* The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said. (Peter F. Drucker)
* Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
COMMUNICATION REFERENCES
If you encounter a particularly noteworthy reference, please do send us a comment with the details.
COACHING AND MENTORING
While general communication skills have been discussed in the entry above, Coaching and Mentoring are special cases of one-on-one communication that are particularly relevant to organizations and to employees (as is Cross-Cultural Competency in the team Skills below).
There is a fine line in distinguishing the definitions of these two ways of helping individuals become more effective in their jobs and more successful in their career paths. In practice, the two are used interchangeably.
Wikipedia definition of Coaching includes “an experienced person supports a learner or client in achieving a specific personal or professional goal by providing training and guidance”; while Mentoring includes “a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person.” Both provide guidance, while Coaching is more active in providing training as well.
Most successful people in any area of life will credit at least part of their success to one or more mentors and/or coaches – as did Martin Luther King and Oprah Winfrey. In the world of work in this 21st century, with its constant change and the challenges of accelerating technology, it is highly desirable, not only to find a mentor and coach, but to be one ourselves. Anyone who has shown themselves to be an effective mentor or coach is much more likely to be regarded as an essential employee.
This ties in with the mindsets of Comfort with Change, Complex Inter-personal Communication, Curiosity, and Positive Attitude discussed in Step 2.
QUOTES ABOUT COACHING AND MENTORING
* They call it coaching, but it is teaching. (Vince Lombardi)
* I absolutely believe that people, unless coached, never achieve their maximum potential. (Bob Nardelli)
* Behind every fearless player is a fearless coach who refused to let them be anything less than the best they can be. (Matt Lisle)
* Experience is what God uses to teach fools unwilling to sit at the feet of a mentor. (Mike Murdock)
* A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself. (Oprah Winfrey)
* The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own. (Benjamin Disraeli)
* We’re here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark. (Whoopi Goldberg)
* Your Best Friend is comfortable with your past, while your Mentor is comfortable with your future. Your Best Friend ignores your weakness, while your Mentor removes your weakness … Your Best Friend sees what you do right, while your mentor sees what you do wrong. (Mike Murdock)
* You get the best effort from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by lighting a fire within. (Bob Nelson)
COACHING AND MENTORING REFERENCES
If you encounter a particularly noteworthy reference, please do send us a comment with the details.
1. Coaching Skills – Ultimate Guide – Coaching Techniques
2. 12 Coaching Skills That Make You A Good Coach
3. 32+ Coaching Skills and Techniques for Life Coaches & Leaders
4. 8 Qualities of a Good Mentor
TEAM SKILLS
COLLABORATING IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS
Even before COVID-19 and self-isolation, it was clear that virtual meetings would eventually become the norm. The coronavirus just accelerated the change. Many small companies and many technology-based teams were already operating in a virtual mode with employees living and working in different countries. Now working from home has become commonplace. The need to learn to collaborate in a virtual environment is a requirement for managers and employees everywhere.
The skill of collaborating in virtual environments is not involved with technological issues, although there are new technologies to be learned and associated technical usage and security protocols to be defined and observed. It is however involved in how you use these technologies in a remote location. Defining application protocols and even, in some cases, ethics has become necessary for effective productivity.
The skill includes:
– Learning to work in a team where members work in different time zones and come from different cultures.
– Adapting to communicating face-to-face but without much of the nonverbal indicators that we are used to. (This is of course an extension of similar issues with email communication.)
– Balancing how much of your family life you expose to team members. This is a sensitive topic. It’s good for team cohesion, but may not work for some family/home circumstances.
– Learning how to integrate avatars and robotic virtual assistants into the operation of the team.
This ties in with the mindsets of Comfort with Change, Compounding Technological Advances, Complex Inter-personal Communication, and Positive Attitude discussed in Step 2.
QUOTES ABOUT COLLABORATING IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS
* To collaborative team members, completing one another is more important than competing with one another. (John C. Maxwell)
* We like to give people the freedom to work where they want, safe in the knowledge that they have the drive and expertise to perform excellently, whether they [are] at their desk or in their kitchen. Yours truly has never worked out of an office, and never will. (Richard Branson)
* One of the secret benefits of using remote workers is that the work itself becomes the yardstick to judge someone’s performance. (Jason Fried)
* Remote work is this incredible invitation to really get good at building inclusive cultures where there’s a wide variety of types of people, and to build a culture where everyone feels included and everyone is experiencing ongoing growth and development on a regular basis. That’s the challenge, and it’s not an easy one. But the business isn’t easy. (Shane Metcalf)
* You can never over-communicate enough as a leader at a company, but at a remote company, nothing could be truer. Because you don’t physically see people in-person, information doesn’t spread in the same way, so leaders need to do the heavy lifting for evangelizing the message. (Claire Lew)
* Part of the beauty of remote work is being able to work on a schedule that works best for you, but if you’re online and working at all hours, you’ll start burning out quickly. We’ll need to build clear rules around how technology can be used to help us maintain those boundaries for work-life balance. (Ryan Bonnici)
* The old rules of what makes a great team still apply, whether you’re a remote team or not. You can’t build a culture if you don’t have trust, accountability, and mutual respect. The best way to kill a culture is to stop trusting people and stop giving people the respect and the responsibilities they most likely want in their jobs. (Tracey Halvorsen)
* Work is important, but people connect when they’re not working and the discussion isn’t focused on work. On each call, if you have five minutes to ask, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ you can build a relationship with someone. This can be a game-changer in knowing your team better and creating a good culture for your company. (Gonçalo Hall)
COLLABORATING IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS REFERENCES
If you encounter a particularly noteworthy reference, please do send us a comment with the details.
CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
Working (and home) life inevitably involves conflicts, where our goals (for achievements, wants or desires) appear to be being thwarted by someone else – who, at work, could be our supervisor, team member, or colleague. How we handle conflict, whether personally or as a manager, determines our effectiveness in our working role.
Our objective needs to be to identify and handle conflicts sensibly, fairly, and efficiently. The 5 types of conflict resolution include avoiding, accommodating, collaborating, competing/defeating, and compromising – depending upon how cooperative and assertive we choose to be.
Whether manager or participant, there are some general attitudes that will help to resolve a conflict (or, if absent, will make things worse): Expressing respect for the person, and understanding of their viewpoint; Using ‘I rather than ‘You’; Avoid being emotional, such as sounding defensive; and Flexible to accept compromises.
A process to handle conflict can include:
- Talking to the people involved (both separately and together)
- Focussing on behaviour and events (not on personalities)
- Listening and observing carefully (to what is said, how it is said, and watching body language)
- Identifying and stating points of agreement and disagreement
- Trying to establish agreement on the priorities of points of disagreement
- Developing consensus on a plan to resolve the points of disagreement (or just accepting them) – and following up on the plan.
Almost always when managing or participating in a conflict situation, we encounter various forms of anger. It is essential to avoid taking this anger personally, which for many of us is easier said than done. Due to some childhood issues, I had suppressed my own natural anger for decades. As part of the process of resolving this issue, there was a time when anyone getting angry with me seemed to give me permission to get angry in response. Useless!
This ties in with the mindset of maintaining a Positive Attitude discussed in Step 2.
QUOTES ABOUT CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
* During a quarrel, to have said too little may be mended; to have said too much, not always. (Minna Thomas Antrim)
* “Bias” is what somebody has when you disagree with his or her opinion. (Hedley Donovan)
* To be agreeable while disagreeing—that’s an art. (Malcolm Forbes)
* The beginning of thought is in disagreement—not only with others but also with ourselves. (Eric Hoffer)
* What if every moment of conflict is a chance to make your relationship even stronger? (Crismarie Campbell)
* Remember, as adults, we don’t need to always get our way, but we do need to feel heard and genuinely considered. (
CONFLICT MANAGEMENT REFERENCES
- Conflict Management: Definition, Skills, List, Examples
- 5 Conflict Management Styles for Every Personality Type
- 5 Conflict Resolution Strategies We All Use
- How to Resolve Workplace Conflicts
- Conflict Resolution Skills
- 5 Keys of Dealing with Workplace Conflict
If you encounter a particularly noteworthy reference, please do send us a comment with the details.
CROSS-CULTURAL COMPETENCY
Cross-cultural competence is becoming a requirement as remote working allows organizations to hire the best-skilled worker for a particular function or for a project team – and that worker may come from and be working in almost any country in the world. Project and organizational staffing is increasingly multi-cultural.
While it is desirable for any employee to be conversant with the customs of multiple cultures, the skill is not so much about knowledge as it is about attitude. We need to recognize that different cultures have different concepts of acceptable behavior, and to respect the differences. We need to be open to learn about them, and to discuss how they can be accommodated. And we need to be sensitive to the reaction of other employees.
This ties in with the mindsets of Complex Inter-personal Communication, Comfort with Change, Curiosity, and maintaining a Positive Attitude discussed in Step 2.
QUOTES ABOUT CROSS-CULTURAL COMPETENCY
* Every human is like all other humans, some other humans, and no other human. (Clyde Kluckhon)
* The way you sustain and improve upon a culture is by fostering a sense of gratitude for what is best about it. You celebrate the good in your story while putting the bad in the correct context. (Jonah Goldberg)
* Culture both clarifies and mystifies. A set of beliefs is at once a way of seeing the world more clearly while, at the same time, foreclosing an alternative vision. (Lillian Rubin)
* The stranger sees only what he knows (African proverb)
* To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way that we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others. (Tony Robbins)
* There is very little ‘of course’ when it comes to customs. (Janet Kagan)
* Most of my important lessons about life have come from recognizing how others from a different culture view things. (Edgar H. Schein)
* We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. (Anonymous)
* People, don’t deny differences… accept them, recognize them and cherish them. (Jane Elliot)
* Peace is not in unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences” (Mikhail Gorbachev)
CROSS-CULTURAL COMPETENCY REFERENCES
If you encounter a particularly noteworthy reference, please do send us a comment with the details.
1. What is cultural competency?
OTHER SKILLS
CAREER PIVOTING
Career Pivoting just means a change in career direction. It can be as simple as a move over to another functional department within your employer, or as drastic as a complete change in employer and industry. It may be caused by a sense of frustration in career direction, or the loss of a job.
In my career I’ve made ten career pivots including my first (transferring out of the data processing department as a Manager of Systems Research in a steel manufacturer into the Comptroller’s Department as a cost analyst) and a more drastic switch twelve years later (leaving a position as a senior information systems management consultant within a national firm to start my own practice as an outplacement counsellor).
In today’s world of work, the impact of technology in many industries and on many functional areas has caused jobs to change radically and in some cases to disappear, and career paths to become redundant. Many people need to career pivot.
The skill of Career Pivoting allows us to make effective job changes that will become successful career moves (although it’s OK to try a pivot that you learn is not for you). Some aspects of the skill include:
– Defining a pivot as contributing to longer-term goals.
– Establishing an understanding of the transferable skills that we’ve developed, and using them in our resume to justify our value in the pivoted position.
– Taking time to investigate the new environment before taking the plunge.
– Accepting a drop in level and pay as part of making the pivot.
– Being open to serendipitous opportunities.
– Finding a way to test the new career (in a short-term project, or as an intern or volunteer).
This ties in with the mindset of Complementary Compensation discussed in Step 2.
QUOTES ABOUT CAREER PIVOTING
* It’s never too late to be what you might have been. (George Elliot)
* One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don’t choose your passions; your passions choose you. (Jeff Bezos)
* Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. (Confucius)
* Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. (Michael Jordan)
* A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. (Albert Einstein)
* You can get what you want, or you can just get old. (Billy Joel)
* The only thing worse than starting something and failing… is not starting something. (Seth Godin)
* When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. (Lao Tzu)
* To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness. (John Dewey)
CAREER PIVOTING REFERENCES
If you encounter a particularly noteworthy reference, please do send us a comment with the details.
1. 8 Steps to an utterly successful career change
2. How to change careers, according to 50 people who made a pivot
3. Later in your career? How to make a career pivot