There’s a growing understanding that soft skills are the 21st century skills, and we need more creativity, communication, flexibility, self-motivation, leadership, and the like, if we’re to deal effectively with rapid change, to thrive within uncertainty, and to be innovative.
We’re all coming to terms with this change in mindset, yet there’s little understanding about how to “frame” these new skills–not only in terms of identifying and assessing their progress, but also how to develop them in the first place.
At the root of this—whether as an individual or within an organisation—is setting up the best structures. With these, the soft skills development flows naturally as a result. The wrong structures have the reverse effect—and unfortunately that’s the case in most organisations at the moment.
Here are a few tips to improve the structure of your work life:
- Set up systems and processes that suit your personality as far as possible
- Take time to set these systems up—it’s a project in itself
- Be flexible—if a system doesn’t work, adapt it until it does, or test out another
- Whatever the project, chunk it up
- Set your own deadlines, even when they’re not strictly necessary—it sets our intrinsic motivation in motion
- Celebrate your achievements regularly—completing the chunk of a project, meeting a deadline, having a productive day’s work…recognise and reward progress and process, not just outcome
Do we not find great freedom along the guiding lines of discipline
Yehudi Menuhin