#YouthSkillsforFuture

Today is World Youth Skills Day! I take this opportunity to share my two cents about #YouthSkillsforFuture.

Last year was the biggest proof that we live in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) times.

When we talk about skills, how can one even begin to prepare in this context, for a future, which is highly unpredictable? ?

How can you know what skills you will need in 5 years’ time, for a job that probably does not even exist today?

I bet my money on these 3 skill clusters:

1.??????Human skills

Technology is outperforming people in a number of tasks. ?Robots are faster, more objective and can handle massive loads of information to make optimal decisions.

However, machines do not have emotional intelligence and are terrible at these 3 C’s: creativity, collaboration and communication.

These soft skills (which Josh Bersin has called ‘power skills’) are more difficult to build, but worth investing in, as they may become a competitive advantage in the future.

?2.????Active learning

You may have heard this thought - the rate of learning must be greater than the rate of change (L>C). Well, we all can attest to the fact that the rate of change today is beyond anything we have seen in the past.

Hence, we need to be unlearning, learning and relearning all the time! We are not talking only about adapting to circumstances and learning what life throws at us, but about owning and pursuing learning, making learning projects, finding the best learning strategies, evaluating the effectiveness of learning – the combination of what we call ‘active learning’.

The World Economic Forum 2020 Future of Jobs report lists the top skills for 2025 and guess where active learning is?

3.????Cognitive flexibility

If there is one thing we learned last year, it is that flexibility helps. It helps in coping with challenges, finding creative solutions, performing or even just staying sane. Cognitive flexibility is the “ability to adapt our behaviour to achieve goals in a new environment” and there is a lot you can do to develop this skill.

Creating capacity around this skill, starting from early age, will help us, as society, not only become more resilient, but effective in how we address complex, global challenges such as inclusive green and digital transformation.?

We have no idea what the future will bring. We do not know what jobs will be popular and what skills you will need to thrive personally and professionally.

However, I dare to make this prediction - if you have strong ‘human skills’, invest in active learning and remain cognitively flexible, I foretell a bright future ahead of you.?

What are your predictions for the key youth skills for the future?

#YouthSkillsforFuture #skillsforthefuture #skillsforlife #youthdevelopment #youth #EUyouthcoordinator

Photo credits: ?Edu Lauton, Aarón Blanco Tejedor and Drew Beamer. All on Unsplash.com.