The three skills you need to keep working on

This is not another productivity porn article.

The skills we're talking about don't tick a box on your CV. You can't get a certificate in them. But they are crucial to thriving in the world that's coming fast, not just to be a good soldier of capitalism with a perfect résumé, but to understand and contribute thoughtfully to society.

These emerged in a fascinating chat on my podcast with Christopher Schroeder, an American venture capitalist and an Influencer on this platform I've known for many years. (You really ought to subscribe to his LinkedIn newsletter.) We talked about how much more distributed the world of tech has become, the exciting entrepreneurship that's happening in the global South, their models beyond Silicon Valley and even beyond China, and what it'll take for America to keep up. Then we turned to what professionals need to keep up. The first two are from Chris's own observations. I humbly submitted the last.

Critical thinking

"It's everything that I hope for everywhere in the world that I go to," Schroeder says. But "batting average is mixed and I will argue is actually falling back here in America." Critical thinking is the ability to debate ideas and come to conclusions without shutting down that conversation. It comes with the humility to know one might be wrong, "the ability to realize that no one has all the answers," Schroeder adds. "I need to be able to look at a problem, whether it's a scientific problem, a problem in the marketplace, or the way that I think about government, and say: I am thinking about it critically, not dogmatically, not in narrative bias."

It's arguably the one skill any kid should enter adulthood with, but too many school systems still favor rote memorization, he adds. Our social media bubbles and polarized public sphere don't help either. Critical thinking is not learned and done. It's a muscle one must continuously exercise as an adult, too.

Comfort with uncertainty

We have an expression in French for that exercise: se faire violence. "Doing oneself violence," literally, which means to force yourself into taking actions you don't want to take or facing questions you'd rather evade. Think of it as the opposite of procrastination. That's where this second skill, a corollary really, comes in. Certitudes are dangerous. They're also a luxury we don't often have in a fast-moving, multipolar world. Just look at the last year of our lives... In order to keep growing, we need to have "the ability to be uncertain, to be comfortable with that uncertainty and to embrace it," Schroeder says. That means to "not gravitate merely to the ideas that confirm us and to the people that confirm us, but to have a willingness to really go out and listen."

Schroeder does that through non-stop traveling to emerging markets. I love our conversations because his global South is one you don't often see on the news – a world of aspiration and innovation. He does not ignore conflict or poverty, but sees so much more: multi-billion dollar companies you may have never heard of and young people with six side hustles. His travels or endless Zooms across timezones constantly challenge what he thought he knew. He doesn't know much, he'll tell you (that's not entirely true) but has developed a knack for asking really good questions – and listening to the answer.

Cultural agility

That was his cue to turn the tables on me and ask what skill I found invaluable. When I was hiring editors at LinkedIn, I always looked for agility. I knew the tech would change 10 times over and the job description would be inaccurate in six months. I wanted teammates who not only didn't mind, but thrived on that. I didn't need them to know as much as I needed them to learn and adapt quickly. The pace of change hasn't slowed since and that agility remains paramount.

I've refined it lately to cultural agility – the ability to function and relate to people in different worlds and to build bridges between them. The business environment is ever more diverse and global. You need to be able to understand the perspective of and empathize with all the stakeholders you'll encounter. People who've lived abroad, especially in their formative years, are ideally placed for this. (Coincidentally, the topic of next week's podcast.) That's my tribe. But that's not an option for everyone. Different worlds exist much closer to home. People from marginalized communities who must constantly codeswitch, for instance, have an incredible skillset. If you're a writer who can speak the language of software engineers, an entrepreneur turned social worker, that's cultural agility, too. That nimbleness should be nurtured and valued. Anytime you make things work in the muddy in-betweens, you get closer to what the world increasingly looks like.

Don't just expand what you know; grow who you are

"You'll notice that I haven't talked about technical skills or anything like that," Schroeder points out. Sure, science, tech and mathematics matter, he says, and that's increasingly something you can pick up on your own. It all starts with mindset though. "So much of it has to do with experiential acceptance, who we surround ourselves with, the comfort level we have in being uncomfortable," Schroeder says. "That makes a difference between a very good person participating in community and the person who really makes the change that they hope to make."

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What other vital skill would you add to this list? How do you practice it? Share in comments.