Top 10 Skills Necessary for Jobs of the Future

November 2, 2020

Good morning! Leading the news, our newest grandson was born a few hours ago; welcome Benjamin Michael! The blustery winds featured numerous zephyrs zipping about at 50 MPH or more throughout the day and night. Like jet engine contrails, the wind arranged the fallen leaves into enormous, random patterns as if each leaf had been a snowflake in the middle of a blizzard. Now, to disassemble them while preparing one final time for winter. What if each leaf had to be separated according to its DNA and returned to its rightful yard? Like the free range branded cattle roundup days of the Old West.

Election Day

• You might be too young to remember when voting day had a feeling of holiness.
  • Somber, sobering, secretive, intimate, something special was going on, the saloons were closed, a sacred civics lesson was in session.
  • I don’t remember anyone saying for whom they had voted; it would have been considered rude, I think, or presumptuous at least.
  • The age of majority was still twenty-one and so the first quadrennial election in which I voted was  McGovern vs. Nixon in 1972.
  • Seems like yesterday; McGovern got whupped, lost 49 of the 50 states, as I recall.
  • Less than two years later Nixon was gone — as was Agnew — and we got Gerald Ford — and Rockefeller.
  • By the time 1976 rolled around we were ready for Jimmy Carter — or at least more than half were.
• A recent little-noticed landmark decision from the United States Supreme Court made the following still-operative clause more or less a rubber stamp, as historically and practically it has been, but it is still the supreme law of the land and sits there as a ticking time bomb.
  • From Article II of The United States Constitution:
    • “Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number (there’s that pesky math again!) of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States shall be appointed an elector… the President of the Senate (i.e., sitting Vice President of the United States) shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted…”

The City Where I Live

• The city where I live (St. Cloud, MN – US) is about 40 square miles, approximately 5 miles east-to-west; 8 miles north-to-south, somewhat an irregular trapezoid.
  • Among my hobbies is the goal of hiking every single road, street, avenue, boulevard, and alley in the city.
  • By my estimate there are about 650 miles of various roadways within the city, sidewalks bordering roadways counting as road surfaces.
  • I enjoy meeting people as they work in their yards, shovel their walks, gather on their front porches, hammer away at home improvements, or hike their hundts – sometimes their cats.
  • A few days ago I encountered three people experiencing homelessness ambulating themselves parade-like in a variety of wheeled conveyances whilst collecting various treasures from the curb, including a really nice wicker chair… they beat me to it.
  • People are almost always friendly, occasionally not.
  • Industrial neighborhoods, abandoned buildings, junkyards, viaducts, and areas adjacent to the railroad tracks provide a contrasting ambience to cozy homes and parks.
  • I figure I’m at least >80% completed with my goal; it’s always fun and fascinating to explore a ne’er-before area of the city on foot, if even just an alley one block long.
  • A few geographic areas of our town are isolated islands; e.g., industrial parks, and I would almost need to drive to those areas and then hike once there… or hike a marathon getting there and back.

Business Transformation

• “Transformation is one of the most overused terms in business.  But there are companies out there truly undergoing transformations that are creating a sense of urgency, resiliency, and momentum to deliver real and sustainable results.” (Robinson)
  • “A quick, out-of-the-gate approach not only allows a company to notch early wins — more efficient use of working capital and faster ways of unlocking employee ideas, for instance — but it enables an organization to have the stamina to take on the tougher aspects of true transformation.” (Robinson)
  • “You need to develop a transformation story that creates lasting connection to the change you want to see.” (Arnoldi)
  • “You can’t pull off an effective transformation if people have hidden agendas and go off and do their own thing.  There needs to be one vision and a clarity of fundamentals or it’s going to be a mess.” (Oliver)

Top 10 Skills Necessary for the Future

• According to The World Economic Forum, the Top Ten Skills necessary for the future are:

1. Analytical thinking and innovation
2. Active learning and learning strategies
3. Complex problem solving
4. Critical thinking and analysis
5. Creativity, originality, and initiative
6. Leadership and social influence
7. Technology use, monitoring, and control
8. Technology design and programming
9. Resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility
10. Reasoning, problem solving, and ideation

• IMAO, the list above has redundancies, but it’s not my list, I’m just reporting.
  • When was the last time you audited what people are learning in your neighborhood?