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Critical Core Skills
With automation and digitalisation driving business transformations and job content changes across a wide range of sectors, soft skills such as Creativity, Persuasion, Collaboration and Adaptability are most in demand by employers today. SkillsFuture has identified 16 most in demand soft skills, which we term the Critical Core Skills (CCS), or skills-to-build-skills. These 16 CCS are further organised into three clusters.
See below for details and refer to Skills Future Site for more details.
Practical Superskills for a Future of Success
(The essential softskills have been extracted from the book by Dr Crystal Lim-Lange and Dr Gregor Lim-Lange titled Deep Human: Practical Superskills for a Future of Success)
Focus
Self-awareness
Empathy
Communication
Adaptability and Resilience
- Focus
What data can you collect when you meet people?
Do you notice how you are feeling? Nervousness, heart beating faster. Maybe you need a deep breath.
Notice data from people. Who is bored, curious, engaged, zoning out? What's the energy level?
When you notice more, you can act on information wisely.
Focus helps with getting more done and better, stronger relationships, improved leadership and high performance.
2. Self-awareness
2. Self-awareness
Self-awareness correlates to success at work and personal life. It helps you to be interested in self-improvement, needing less managing and coaching.
Internal self-awareness: Your ability to know your values, motivations, drives and mental processes and how they affect others. It goes with increased satisfaction at work and relationships.
External self-awareness: Your ability to understand how others view you across the same dimensions, how others perceive you. Having a high external self-awareness make it easier to empathise with others as you are seeing the world through their eyes.
If both internal and external self-awareness are high, you are highly aware and see the value of seeking feedback and opinions of others and will benefit the most.
Pleasers may have excellent understanding (high external self-awareness) of how others view them and expects of them but may not be tuned into what truly matters to them (low internal self-awareness). It may reduce your engagement and success in life.
You can enhance your internal self-awareness by looking at the four fundamental aspects.
Spirituality - what really matters to you
How you would like to contribute, what problems you wish to solve and the difference you want to make.
Body - Knowing what triggers you by understanding how your body reacts to triggers.
Mind - mental flexibility to not get swept away by negative thoughts or acting on unhelpful beliefs.
Emotions - Emotional literacy (labelling your emotions with wider vocabulary than just good or great or normal).
3. Empathy
3. Empathy
Empathy helps you to solve problems through shifting perspectives (e.g. helping customers, leading to lasting relationships). Improves collaboration, and communication and leadership.
The empathy recipe:
Body Language (as simple as putting your mobile phone away!)
Empathetic listening (vs ignoring, pretend listening, selective listening, attentive listening) Empathetic listening means you are sensing beyond the words or content, and looking for the meaning behind the communication. An attitude of non-judgement and openness
Recognising emotions (emotional literacy, having a wider vocabulary for emotions will help you to tune into others better)
Verbal response (asking genuine open ended questions and focus your questions on the person not your experience)
Action response (offering an appropriate response)
People just want to know three things. Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you?
4. Communication
4. Communication
How can we improve our communication?
Know your audience
a) Are they relationship or task focused? Task focused individuals prefer to get straight to the point and have a clear plan of action, along with rational reasons and data to support. They also love milestones and project timelines.
b) What sort of energetic state or emotional state is this person in? When is a good time to speak and engage the person?
c) What does the individual value or need?
Conflict resolution
Communicating to the other party that you see them, hear them and that they matter and desire to work on the problem together. Use the skills you have acquired, attentive listening, self-awareness, empathy and feedback to deal with difficult conversations.
5. Adaptive Resilience
5. Adaptive Resilience
A mindset of growth, curiosity, non-judgmental, self-compassion, and a beginner's mind will help you bounce back from setbacks and grow and to keep you going when work or life gets hard.
It includes an openness to change direction when needed.
To have adaptive resilience, we can do the following:
Connect your passion to what you do, the meaning of your work has to you and orgers and the greater good.
Apply a growth mindet to setbacks and challenges
Notice your growth from challenges
Be open to try new things, take wise risks and be willing to change directions if it makes sense to you, your team and the organisation.
Focus and be proud of the journey and not just the outcome.
It's also important to be intentional and take ownership of our own growth!
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