How to Prepare for Jobs that Don’t Yet Exist in a Multi-Stage Life

85 per cent of the jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t even been invented yet, estimates a Dell Technologies report, written by the Institute for the Future (IFTF) and a panel of 20 tech, business and academic experts from around the world.

So how do you prepare someone for a job that doesn’t exist yet? How can we prepare the young people who will be entering the workforce in the next five years? How can we prepare ourselves?

Wave Goodbye to Your Three-Stage Life

Before we talk about preparation, here’s a contributing factor to consider: The three-stage life we’ve been accustomed to is coming to an end. What are the three stages of life? The first stage is education, which can last up to 25 years. The second stage revolves around work and lasts 40 years until we retire. And retirement is the third stage in life, which lasts between 15 and 20 years on average.

Yet life expectancy is increasing and health care is advancing. Over the last 200 years, life expectancy has increased consistently more than two years every decade. This trend indicates that a child born today has more than a 50% chance of living to 105! And they won’t simply stay alive—but can actually live a healthy life in those years.

A lifespan of 100+ years doesn’t fit well into the three straightforward stages of life we are used to. For example, an education gained in your 20s won’t sustain you for 60 years of working. Saving up for a retirement that lasts from age 65 to 105 (40 years!) is unlikely if retirement age remains the same.

Meet the Multi-Stage Life

Instead, people will adopt multi-stage lives. What will that look like? Based on trends we are seeing now, it would include education on a reoccurring cycle to accommodate career shifts based on technology advancements or personal choice. Remaining relevant for 40 years is hard enough—how about 60? And perhaps the stages will vary in focus—one stage for building financial resources, another for focusing on work/life balance, another for flexibility in order to build a family or care for aging loved ones, etc.

The implications of multi-staged lives are vast. Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott put it wonderfully: “These multi-stage lives require a proficiency in managing transitions and reflexivity – imagining possible selves, thinking about the future, reskilling and building new and diverse networks. At its best, it offers people an opportunity to explore who they are and arrive at a way of living that is nearer to their personal values.”

I agree. A multi-stage life requires flexibility, a drive for continuous learning, and the emotional intelligence to transition into ever-changing and diverse work relationships. And I propose that these are the very skills needed to prepare our employees, our youth, and us for jobs that don’t exist yet.

Preparing For the Unknown Future of Work: Four Essential Skills

Let’s take a closer look.

1.     EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE (EQ)

A person with a high EQ is curious about people they don’t know, aware of their strengths and weaknesses, skilled in active listening, and aware of their own emotional states, enabling them to respond rather than react. This is a skill that can provide balance, insight, and flexibility when facing responsibility shifts, career changes, and life stages. It doesn’t matter what job you’re in—if you have emotional intelligence, you can navigate interpersonal relationships successfully, leading to productivity, collaboration, and an increased ability to face change.

In order for leaders to prepare for an ever-evolving working world, they must be skilled in constantly creating, organizing and dismantling teams. That requires a high EQ because it’s so relational. Also, they can help prepare workers for the future by implementing EQ training and displaying emotional intelligence themselves.

2.     COMMITMENT TO LIFELONG LEARNING

We’ve all witnessed how quickly technology has changed the fabric of our world. The increasing global pace of growth only adds to that rapid-fire change. In order to keep pace, people must be constantly learning. Whether this happens in the form of MOOCs or peer-to-peer information exchange is irrelevant. What matters is a commitment to learning—how else can someone transition smoothly into a role they’ve never even heard of yet? We must seek this learning out ourselves—yet it’s also imperative leaders make it a priority to offer personal development opportunities for employees. We can all work together to ignite and maintain the cycle of learning.

3.     ABILITY TO THRIVE IN DIVERSITY

In the future, what we consider minorities will be the majority of consumers, clients, employees, and leaders. This requires that the leaders of the future understand their diverse employees and consumers, and make sure their employees do too. Whatever the job, the teams will be more diverse than ever. And if you’re unable to learn from and embrace the benefits of a diverse team, you’re not going to succeed in any role.

4.     A NIMBLE APPROACH

We’ve established that change is happening at a rapid pace. If you’re unable to respond quickly, you may lose your place at the table, and severely limit other opportunities. Yet if you can leverage constant change, you will thrive. As Chris Heiler said, “Survival of the fittest? Today–and tomorrow–it’s survival of the nimblest.”

What does being nimble look like? Is it a skill you can develop? Yes, you can practice being nimble, just like you can practice EQ. Here’s what to do: Focus on building self-reliance, facing fear, being decisive yet flexible, and regularly seek out new skills. Also, work on managing your own bias, so that you can walk into new situations with the ability to see possibility rather than blockades.

With our new workforce functioning as more of an ecosystem than a pyramid, leaders of the future need to be nimble as well. Their ability to pivot, pull teams together quickly, and exhibit out-of-the-box thinking will influence their success in a decentralized structure that is constantly evolving.

The Cherry on Top: Purpose

The last thing Gratton and Scott said rings true as well: A multi-stage life will enable people to live closer to their personal values. This is perhaps the most exciting outcome of a longer lifespan, and aligns with one of the goals of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into the workforce. AI has the potential to enable workers to focus on work that is more aligned with their values rather than monotonous tasks.

Don’t Forget Our Youth

This movement towards purpose with multi-stage lives and the assistance of AI also applies to our youth. Social Impact Entrepreneur Peter E. Raymond explains, “As automation will continue to reduce the need for human jobs there is an opportunity to prepare our kids for the challenges that will keep them empowered and give them purpose. These challenges will create new markets and economies we have not yet imagined.” And new education platforms preparing youth for this impending reality are already in the works.

In closing I’d like to point out that while fear of change is expected (and neurological!), there is a lot of positives in line for the future. Instead of seeing yourself in a position of impending irrelevance, see yourself as empowered to build key skills that will prepare you to succeed not matter where, or how many times, your career pivots. Start practicing your emotional intelligence today, work on being nimble, dive into the benefits of diverse teams, and regularly ignite your brain with new skills and knowledge. Before you know it, you’ll be in the middle of a drastically different workscape—and you’ll be thriving.

What did we miss? What is another essential skill to prepare for jobs that don’t yet exist? Let’s crowd source the answer:

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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Leaders: Learn the Neuroscience Behind Change Resistance to Master It

In the rapidly advancing world of technology, all business leaders must be agile in order to avoid fading into the background. They must be able to pivot, adjust their vision when presented with innovative strategies, and adapt to the major workforce trends headed their way. All of this requires one basic component: change.

Yet change is not so easy for humans and can breed anxiety and fear. But that’s not just because we are creatures of habit. Neurosciences and cognitive sciences show that change is difficult for humans for three core reasons.

Three Core Reasons for Resistance to Change

1. Habits are powerful and efficient

Your brain creates a mind map that sorts reality into a perceptual order and creates effective, quickly established habits. This means your brain limits what it sees and reality conforms to past perceptions.

Why is this a problem? Because it means all of your lessons in life and business keep you from seeing things in fresh ways. Counter-intuitive isn’t it? The more experience you have, the more limited you can become. We’ve all seen leaders “stuck in their ways,” and know how frustrating, and potentially damaging to the business, this can be.

2. Your brain hates change

When you’re learning something new, your prefrontal cortex has to work very hard. And your brain uses 25% of your total energy! It’s no wonder why we feel worn out and our head hurts from learning.

3. You have to “see and feel” new ways of doing things

To really make a change, you can’t just read about something; experiential learning is critical. Why? Because as you learn, your brain actually changes, reflecting new decisions, mind maps, and reality sorting. So when change presents itself and you haven’t experienced what that change will be like, your brain will hijack the new thought patterns and try to put your mindset back into the old way of thinking.

These three factors paint a surprising picture: the limitations to growth are really self-imposed by the mind maps of former successes. All of our past perceptions hold back what we are able to perceive in the present.

Besides this unconscious self-limiting behavior, the fear that change elicits is also limiting. This is called “fear conditioning.”

What is Fear Conditioning?

The brain stores all the details from a particular fear stimulus, such as time of day, images, sounds, smells, and weather, in your long-term memory. That makes the memory “very durable,” but also fragmented, triggering the full gamut of physical and emotional responses every single time a similar fear stimulus shows up.

As research from the University of Minnesota explains it, “Once the fear pathways are ramped up, the brain short-circuits more rational processing paths and reacts immediately to signals from the amygdala.  When in this overactive state, the brain perceives events as negative and remembers them that way.”

So remember that initiative that totally bombed? Your brain may be using that experience to prevent you from other, more successful initiatives.

What Neuroscience Tells Us about Fear

Neuroscience has more to say on the topic of fear. The main thing to note is that when the fear system of the brain is active, exploratory activity and risk-taking are turned off. So when our brains anticipate loss, we tend to hold onto what we have. In simple terms, fear prompts retreat, which is the opposite of progress. And what do leaders need? Progress.

So how can leaders take all of these facts about change and fear in stride and make progress anyway? What do you do if your brain is constantly fighting change, yet you need to make changes in order to push your business to the next level? Here are three pre-emptive steps to take in order to initiate and become accustomed to change.

What Can You Do to Initiate Change?

1. Get out of the office

Stop going to your industry trade shows; see what other industries are doing instead. Don’t focus on current market segments – look at new ones.

2. Go exploring

Transform into an amateur anthropologist and spend a day in the life of your customer or non-customer. This helps you listen to real pain points and quickly come up with new solutions to persistent problems.

3. Build an innovative culture

It’s a big leap from thinking you are innovative to being innovative. Being innovative requires you to build a culture of innovation. How do you do that? By creating a methodology that encourages people to share ideas.

4. Experience the changes yourself that you’re asking your organization to understand

In “Neurosciences and Leadership,” David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz tell us: “When people solve a problem themselves, the brain releases a rush of neurotransmitters like adrenaline.” This rush will inspire you to embrace and champion the change you are requesting of your teams.

Do you have any tips for instigating change in an organization? I’d love for my community to hear them.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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Nine Unconventional Ways Freelancers Landed Gigs

According to a recent study by Upwork and the Freelancers Union, the most common places for freelancers to pick up work are friends and family (36%), professional contacts (35%), and online job platforms (29%) like Upwork, Freelancer.com, Guru, and even Craigslist.

This breakdown spells trouble for some. American workers looking for projects on online marketplaces, for instance, are often competing with workers who live in countries where the dollar is strong. That means many foreign workers can accept far lower rates. If you can hire someone to transcribe an interview for $3 an hour, you aren’t giving that contract to a freelancer charging $15.

So where else can freelancers find work? Just ask these ten people, who picked up gigs in some unexpected places.

1. TAP YOUR DATING LIFE

Joy Yap found freelance work by unintentionally mixing business with pleasure. She went on a Tinder date with an entrepreneur who was just about to launch a company.

They didn’t hit it off romantically, Yap recalls. But, remembering her line of work, the entrepreneur reached out a couple months later with an offer to do some freelance marketing for his startup. “I agreed!” she says. “I’ve been doing freelance work for him off and on for about a year now, and saw the company grow from inception into a million dollar company today.”

Anyone who’s used an app like Tinder knows that modern dating often involves a little harmless cyber-stalking to gather extra intel on the person you’ve just met or are planning to meet. “One funny way I got a client on Fiverr,” says Alex Genadinik, referring to the gig marketplace, “was from a girl I was dating about a year ago. Early on during our dating, she and her friends decided to Google my name, which is very unique, and my Fiverr profile was one of the things that came up in their search.”

The woman and her friends shared Genadinik’s Fiverr profile with someone they knew who was looking for his line of freelance work, and the two ended up striking a deal. “All along I thought he was just a regular client that randomly found me on the internet,” says Genadinik. It was only months later that the woman let him know she’d played professional matchmaker. “[It] was pretty embarrassing for me because everyone was clued in except me,” Genadinik says, but hey—he got the work.

2. ADVERTISE IN REAL TIME

If you’re a freelancer, chances are you’ve sat at coffee shops with your nose in your laptop. So why not let passersby know exactly what you’re doing and that you’re available for hire?

Shayla Price says she landed a gig by creating and placing a makeshift placard saying “freelance writer” in front of her computer while working at Starbucks and other public places. Price says she’s received a few inquiries every time she whips out the placard.

3. EMAIL THE CEO DIRECTLY

“I’ve been obsessed with a large, multinational hair care brand for many years now,” says Termeh Mazhari, “so when I became a freelancer, I decided to just email the CEO directly.”

Going straight to the source may sound like a waste of time—execs usually aren’t the ones hiring contractors. But in Mazhari’s case, it paid off. “I told her about myself and the value I could bring to the company, and to my great surprise her assistant wrote me back and arranged a meeting with the CEO at their posh Manhattan office!”

What’s more, Mazhari landed more than just a tiny one-off project this way. “I ended up getting a year-long consulting gig with the brand, even though they already had a large internal PR team as well as multiple external agencies working with them.”

4. HUSTLE FOR FACEBOOK SHOUT-OUTS

After Stephanie Moore got laid off, she decided freelance full time and turned to Facebook to market her services.

“It started with one client . . . that I met through Facebook. She was very popular with a national brand,” Moore recalls, so she decided to attend one of the client’s networking events. There, Moore told her she wanted to “shift my focus from marketing and design to PR,” and the client “agreed to be my guinea pig.”

Their bargain went like this: “After each big accomplishment,” Moore says, “she would shout me out on Facebook as her publicist. Every time she tagged me, there was a guaranteed client on the way. All of her friends and potential clients began to reach out and ask for press releases, designs, etc. The more work I did, the more tagging I would get.” By tapping into one happy client with the influence to amplify Moore’s work, offers began piling up. “People would post my designs tagging me in the post, almost bragging that Stephanie Moore did it.”

Like another “solopreneur” who recently shared her method with Fast Company, Moore never thought Facebook could drive so much of her business—95% of which she now estimates comes from the social network.

5. OWN YOUR OUT-OF-THE-BOX THINKING

If you want to freelance, you have to be willing to share your ideas, even if you’re not sure they will be well received. Don’t wait for the perfect, full-proof pitch to go out and get your gig.

Just look at Chris Post. He held steadfast to his out-of-the-box thinking when he was building his freelance business. He says,

“At the time, just about every local property management company was trying to hold onto and gain tenants by offering them one or more months of free rent.

I had previously worked as a commercial real estate agent, and made a pitch to a property management company I was friendly with from that time: Instead of offering free rent to tenants, offer marketing assistance in the form of a free website in exchange for signing a year lease. They would spend less paying me to build a website than they would lose by deducting a month’s worth of rent.”

Post’s freelance career has now become a full-blown web development and marketing company called Post Modern Marketing.

6. NETWORK ON INSTAGRAM

Mallory Musante is one of the co-founders of Bold & Pop, a collective of social media, branding and web design freelancers. While they mainly find new clients from referrals, they occasionally use freelancing sites to find work. In this case, they sent a proposal to a client, researched the company a little further, and decided to follow all of their social media accounts. Musante never heard back so assumed the company had gone with another freelancer.

But wait—Instagram to the rescue. She says, “we were surprised when we received an email through our website requesting more information on our social media marketing services. While they didn’t remember us submitting a proposal on the freelancing site, we were able to catch their eye on Instagram by occasionally networking with them.”

7. PARTICIPATE IN YOUR COMMUNITY

Abandoning the traditional workplace can feel isolating, participating in your local community can be a remedy, as well as a fantastic place to drum up freelance work. Photographer Tammy Lamoureux shares a great example of community involvement leading to jobs.

“Wanting to get more product photography gigs, we started hitting up our local craft fairs and farmer’s markets.  We get a room full of small businesses who will most likely need professional photos of their merchandise at some point or another.  So, go around from booth to booth and chat with the vendors. Take some photos of their products and make sure to get their contact info so you can send them the shots later.  They will appreciate the free photos, and you’ll be top of mind the next time they are in need of some product photos. We did this at one craft fair, and ended up with five new clients for about 2 hours worth of work.”

8. GO WITH YOUR GUT

Kelly Boyer Sagert’s usually picks freelance work based on the right amount of income attached to it. But sometimes, she decides to go with a gut feeling to see what happens. She explains how one of those gut-driven exceptions landed her unexpectedly great work:

“A few years ago, a nonprofit agency asked me to take their research about the first woman to solo hike the Appalachian Trail and turn it into an ebook. I did — and then they asked for it to also be written as a first person storytelling performance, so I did. Concurrently, the agency was having some of their video footage turned into a mini-documentary and discovered that they couldn’t get the grant funding they wanted/needed unless a play was written on the subject. So, I wrote a play script and we talked to a theater that had produced some of my work in the past, and they put on the play. So, the funding was secured, the documentary was created and, since my play was used as the foundation, I got writing credits — and the documentary was picked up by PBS: Trail Magic: the Grandma Gatewood Story.”

9. TELL PROSPECTS WHAT THEIR COMPETITORS ARE UP TO

If one company is looking for services, then their competitors are probably looking, too—or will want to as soon as they learn of it.

“I had one company contact me for a strategic marketing plan for the upcoming year,” recalls freelancer Stephen Twomey. He saw that as not just one potential opportunity but several. “I knew they were looking at other consultants as well.”

“So, since I knew company A was looking for something, I contacted companies B, C, [and] D and mentioned that one of their main competitors was looking for strategic marketing consulting”—without mentioning which one. Twomey says “Company A ended up going with a different [contractor], but company C actually bought a consulting package.”

The services you offer may not belong in a creative field, but it still often takes ingenuity to land those gigs in the first place. For just about every freelancer, thinking outside the box can really pay off.

Have you landed freelance gigs in an unusual way? Share your story in the comments below, on Twitter, or send me an email.

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Tips to Adapt to the Multi-Generational Workforce

The workforce is more diverse than ever with different generations working side by side. Each generation is distinctly different from the other, which can be an organizational challenge. However, it is also an opportunity to leverage generational strengths for improved organizational performance.

Want a quick summary on this topic? Watch our short webinar synopsis before reading on.

According to Statista, Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) are 22.6% of the US population, Generation X (born 1965-1980) are 20.2% of the US population, Millennials (born 1981-1996) are 22.1% of the US population and Generation Z (born 1997 and later) are 26.5% of the US population.

What does this mean for your workforce?

Baby Boomers: The Aging Workforce

By 2029 20% of the total U.S population will be over the age of 65. In addition, the Baby Boomers will soon retire. As Baby Boomers leave the workplace, it’s important to capture their knowledge so that the transition can take place for future generations.

How do you do this? Have the younger generations use technology to conduct experience interviews with Baby Boomers; this allows each generation to learn more about the other. It also gives the organization videos or podcasts of these interviews which can be archived to preserve institutional knowledge or help with onboarding.

Gen X: The Next Leaders

The Millennial crazed media has totally forgotten who our next leaders truly are. Gen Xers founded Google, Twitter and Amazon.  They have the capacity to bridge the generational gap between Baby Boomers and Millennials. Almost two-thirds of Xers (62%) say they “want to be mentors”, and 40% see themselves as teachers. That’s more than any other generation.

So how can you help your Gen X leaders? Provide formal emotional intelligence and communication classes. In addition, ensure they understand the organizational vision and purpose.

Millennials: The New Majority

Millennials are the majority of the US workforce. As per Dr. Mary Donohue’s research, strong Millennial relationships in the workplace can decrease employee turnover by 50% and increase productivity by 11%. Yet 58% of Millennials expect to leave their jobs in three years or less; 52% think that corporate norms are totally outdated, and professionals are successful if they carve their own path.

The Millennials believe that ideas matter more than experience, and work output is valued more than the time put in. Coaching in the workplace is an important aspect for them so ensure that your managers provide coaching, along with frequent feedback for better employee engagement. To increase creativity and productivity, offer opportunities to work remotely.

Generation Z: The Most Diverse

Generation Z is the most diverse generation; according to Frank N. Magid’s estimates, Gen Z is 55% Caucasian, 24% Hispanic, 14% African American, 4% Asian and 4% mixed race or other.

The majority of Gen Z resides in underdeveloped or developing countries. Relatively low in mature European markets, Generation Z is largest in India, China and Nigeria.

Gen Z considers honesty as the most important leadership quality. They are less influenced by money and more motivated by opportunities for advancement. They have the capability to handle multiple plans and projects. To fully leverage this generation’s strengths for organizational effectiveness, a strong company culture is required.

Want to learn more? Watch our short webinar synopsis.

Managers, we want to hear from you! Tell us about your experience with managing Baby Boomers vs. Millennials. What has worked and not worked for you in managing a diverse workforce?

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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Three Ways Learning Agility Can Help Your Career Growth

We have a guest blog this week about a fascinating topic: Learning agility. Thanks for David Hoff, co-author of Learning Ability-The Key to Leader Potential.

Learning agility is finding yourself in a new situation and not knowing what to do – but then figuring it out.

Why would that be important? In an organizational context, if you are promoted from one function to another or from an individual contributor to a manager role, how do I know you will be successful? The answer is that I don’t, because you’ve never done the job before. The research says if leaders make that decision without the help of an assessment process, the odds of the person being successful is 50-50 – essentially the flip of a coin.

What is the cost if the coin lands on the side of being unsuccessful? It depends; the range is anywhere from one to three times that person’s fully-loaded pay, including compensation and benefits. That’s an expensive coin toss!

Most organizations use a performance management system to give employees feedback on their performance and to equitably distribute merit increases. The output of this process is supposed to be a development plan, which describes the key objectives a person should achieve in the coming year and the areas he or she should begin to improve.

Some companies put additional time, effort and money into critical jobs and/or high-potential employees. There are different definitions of high-potential employees; a common one is a person with the ability to be promoted two levels above his or her current level. An example would be a manager with the ability to be promoted to a vice president. You can’t spend significant additional dollars on everyone, so who gets this extra time and attention? That is the $64,000 question.

One answer is to spend time on the most learning-agile person. But how do you determine learning agility? That question has stumped people in the talent management field for some time. My favorite response is, “Those who can learn on the fly.”

How do you operationalize that definition? What would I see a learning-agile person do? How would I teach someone to? Be more learning-agile? These questions are where learning agility becomes more complicated.

Researcher Scott DeRue, from The University of Michigan, established a model that identifies speed and flexibility as the two most important factors determining learning agility. Learning agility is about being able to digest a large amount of information quickly and figure out what is most important (speed). DeRue defines flexibility as the ability to change frameworks to help you understand how different things are related or connected.

DeRue also made a distinction between learning agility and learning ability. “Ability” means the cognitive ability or “smarts.” Ability is important to a point, but then, smarter is not necessarily better. Earlier, I noted that learning agility is being in an unfamiliar situation, not knowing what to do and figuring it out. The ability takes you to a certain point. Then, agility becomes more important.

DeRue says there are both cognitive and behavioral components to learning agility. The cognitive ones – the “hard wiring,” if you will – are difficult, if not impossible, to change. The behavioral ones are more learnable, because if you do the things described by the behavior, then you are demonstrating that part of learning agility.

Another researcher, Dr. Warner Burke from Columbia University, confirmed what DeRue described and found seven additional dimensions of learning agility. He embraced speed and flexibility; his research also identified experimenting, performance risk-taking, interpersonal risk-taking, collaborating, information-gathering, feedback-seeking and reflecting. Burke also developed a test to measure learning agility; his work led to a valid and reliable tool with years of research to support its results. This is a huge step beyond the 50/50 coin flip to determine who we develop and promote.

Here are three tips for using learning agility in your work:

1. In the future, people are more likely to be hired less for what they “know” and more for their ability to figure out what they “don’t know”. So get curious about what you don’t know as a way to make a difference in your career.
2. To increase your flexibility (one of the learning agility dimensions), take the opposing point of view (from your own position) during a discussion. Support that contrary position as strongly as you would your original position.
3. When seeking feedback (a dimension of learning agility), seek to understand what the other person is saying by truly listening. Defensiveness gets in the way of learning agility.

Want to learn more about learning agility? Reach out here.

Why Leadership Training Fails

It happens all the time. Senior leaders seek leadership training to strengthen the leadership team. Yet they don’t know exactly what will make their individual leaders better in their roles.
Some will base their leadership training on the flavor of the month, such as emotional intelligence. They have heard in leadership circles how powerful emotional intelligence is for leaders, so think training in that capacity will improve their individual leader’s abilities. And while that might be true, it might also be true that a particular leader is actually not lacking in emotional intelligence, and there are other skills that would maximize the results of their training. This is how leadership training fails.
For effective leadership training, we must know what the leader needs. This need should also be aligned with the organizational vision and mission, which requires foundational work. And in order to do that work, competencies must first be established.

The Foundational Work Needed for Leadership Training to Succeed

Sometimes referred to as ‘KSA’, competencies are the things people need to know (knowledge), do (skills) and have (abilities) to be successful in a specific role. Competencies can be grouped into technical, foundational and leadership areas. They are defined by specific behaviors that describe what that competency would look like if someone were using it effectively. These behaviors are often laid out across a proficiency scale so the employee can clearly assess her current behaviors and understand what behaviors are needed for the next level.
Some examples of competencies are problem-solving, conflict management, technical skills and speaking up. While some competencies will be applied to every employee, others are role dependent. The CEO of a large organization likely won’t need to have specific technical competencies, and a coder on the tech team likely wouldn’t need to be competent in sales communication.
Once competencies are defined, the next thing to do is identify five clearly defined proficiency levels. For example, for problem-solving skills, level one might be, ‘asks questions and looks for information to identify and differentiate the symptoms and causes of every day, defined problems’. Level five might be, ‘anticipates problem areas and associated risk levels with objectivity; uses formal methodologies to forecast trends and define innovative strategies in response to the implications of options; and gains approval from senior leadership to solutions of multi-faceted problems".

After competencies and proficiency levels are clearly defined, the next steps are:

1. Determine the expected proficiencies by job position.
2. Assess the employee’s competencies using a standardized process, on a regular basis. Competing an assessment will help the leader know which competencies to focus on for future leadership training.
3. Facilitate career conversations with employees to match organizational needs, career aspirations, and current employee proficiency to a leadership development program.
4. Track progress using accountability measures in the leadership development training.

Read in depth about each step here.

Using this process will prevent your leadership training from failing. You seek training because you are invested in your employee development. If you’re willing to make that investment, it’s worth doing all the foundational work necessary to get effective training that elevates your leaders.

How to Intern At A Top Management Consulting Firm in Alexandria

Being selected for a management consulting internship is the most effective manner to break into the management consulting area at the top-tier firms. Top management consulting firms in Alexandria like CHCI, McKinsey, Bain, and AT Kearney has the common exercise of hiring maximum in their interns as full-time experts. 

Internships are an extraordinary way for you and the company to make sure the fit is right. As an intern, you'll be working with specialists on consultants and will understand if the organization culture, workload and various commitments are right for you - all while not having to make a long-term profession commitment.

Best management consulting companies in Alexandria hires interns at the end of their junior year or at the midway point in their graduate application. The top companies, which include CHCI, BCG, and Booz actively, recruit on the top universities and colleges via running carefully with the institutions' career services workplace. Pay cautious attention to the strategic management consulting firms recruiting timetable and recognize once they plan to be for your campus; they rarely hire for internships at other times of the year.