One of the most common mistakes in training in general is to look at the needs of today, without taking into account that we have to prepare for the future. When personal or employee training is geared to respond only to what is needed today, all learning becomes obsolete almost immediately.
In order to adapt to the continuous changes in the environment and compete efficiently, organizations must have professionals who have the capacity to adapt and permanently change, as well as the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn constantly.
According to the trends and challenges that arise in the current economic, social and business context, as well as the latest reports of the World Economic Forum (Future of Jobs Report), the following competencies are emerging as necessary to respond to these challenges:
Currently, in the context of many constant changes that generate uncertainty at the economic, social and political levels, it is necessary to have greater self-knowledge and emotional self-control to manage the high levels of stress that exist, both in companies and in family and personal environments.
To handle permanent change through acquisitions, mergers, new cultures and new bosses, cognitive flexibility, the ability to multitask or to switch from one task to another, as well as the ability to negotiate and persuade, are of paramount importance.
Businesses and industries in most economies today are demanding the most service and customer-oriented competencies. Those two competencies are critical to success today, and they are critical not only for your sales people, but for your back office people as well. Having a customer-focused collections, technology and logistics team is important because increasingly the back office is connecting directly with customers, without going specifically through a sales person. Therefore, it must be clear that this investment is at all levels of the organization.
The existence of multiple generations in organizations, some of them with very different habits and motivational factors, requires that organizational leaders make it a priority to develop, motivate and understand the needs of the talent in their organization. People are the most important competitive advantage an organization can have and the challenge is to retain, motivate, develop and understand them.
Today, the authority that a management position can provide is not enough. Neither is emotional intelligence alone, but we need to develop something else, called "social intelligence", which is defined as emotional intelligence plus the ability to get others to follow us, believe in us, and want to execute our strategies.
As competition has become globalized for any business, no matter how small, it is necessary to develop the ability to manage complexity, to understand an interconnected world, to know how to interpret how phenomena occurring in other countries or continents can affect our local operations. Likewise, the structure of organizations is no longer hierarchical or linear, but matrix or networked. Again, understanding and managing complexity is a key to success and a competence that we all have to develop at a certain Grade
Excerpt from the ExED Online "Competencies of the future: Training and managing human talent in your organization", given by Dr. Camelia Ilie, Dean of Executive Education at INCAE Business School and Co-Academic Director of the Organizational Change Management program.
