In part two of the “Survival Skills for Today’s Workplace,” we delve into skills four, five, and six. Skill number four is about becoming multi-talented and resilient. Just like the one-trick pony, relying on a single skill or past success won’t suffice. Instead, you must embrace versatility and resilience. There’s more to you than your initial skill set, and being open to change and adaptability is key. Skill number five emphasizes the importance of finding new ways to add value. It’s not about what you’ve done in the past but what you can do for your organization in the future. You must think ahead and align your actions with your organization’s future needs. The rapidly changing landscape demands proactive thinking. Skill number six, arguably the toughest, is learning to say, “I don’t know.” In a world where knowing it all is unrealistic, acknowledging your limitations and seeking help is powerful. Admitting when you need assistance encourages collaboration and personal growth. Embracing your development and being open to learning from failures and challenges is essential in today’s dynamic workplace.
Transcript
Ten survival skills for today’s workplace, how to thrive in the turbulence. This is part two. These will be skills four, five, and six. If you haven’t seen the first set, make sure to go back and see them. They’re very important. Number four is to become multi-talented and more resilient as someone at work. You are someone who. Just the old story about the one-trick pony. You know, the pony that learned one trick and could do that trick better than any other pony is going to have a limited life as a performer if you only have one. I was a magician for 12 years. You’ve got to learn more than one trick. If you’re a manager or a leader or someone in an organization and you had success, you did something really well. That’ll carry you for a little while. But you got to learn to do more than that one thing that you did really well. You’ve got to become multi-talented. You’re capable of it. That’s the thing you need to understand. No matter how you started out in your career, there’s so much more to you than whatever that skill set was that you brought with you at the beginning, and you need to become more resilient, able to go with the flow, able to absorb the difficulties that come and not just be so reactive.
Skill number five, you need to find new ways to add value. It’s not what you did before, but it’s what will you do for us in the future. Similar to skill number four, but this one focuses on you have to think ahead. What is my organization going to need in the future? Short term future, long term future? And how can I do something now to help us succeed in the future? It’s more and more the future is coming faster and faster and faster. In fact, some of my colleagues say the future is now that, in fact, we are creating the future in the decisions that we make now. So how can you add value in the future? By thinking about it as you make decisions in the present. Okay. Survival skill. Number six, you’ve got to learn to say, I don’t know. Oh, this is so hard. We’ve worked with leaders and managers and people in the workplace for 30 some years. And this is the hardest thing because from the time we’re in school, you don’t get a good grade for saying, I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. You get a good grade for saying, I know, I know, I know.
And now in today’s workplace, you can’t know. If you did know everything, you wouldn’t need a team of people around you. If you do know everything, if you act like you know everything, the people around you are going to come to you and say, just exactly why are we here? What is it you want us to do? If you’re the smarty pants and know everything, you’ve got to learn to say, I don’t know, who can help me. That’s so powerful to put your people to work. And you need to be what we call in development. You need to be in development, in yourself. You need to be ready to go back to zero and say, what can I learn from this situation? Where am I not perfect yet? What is this difficult conversation? What is this failure in this meeting? What is this inability to persuade these people? What is it telling me about myself? How can I learn and develop from the things that are happening at work, especially in those areas where I don’t know where I’m not confident? That’s where the growth is. You’ve got to learn to grow and develop in today’s workplace, ironically, to stay there longer and be more effective.
