The Critical Path to a Great Career: Step 3, Master Your Skills - Part 2

I introduced the third step in the Critical Path to a Great Career!, “Mastering Your Skills”, in my last article. As I mentioned, these skills actually fall into 3 different categories; Career Management Skills (what the Critical Path is all about), Job Search Skills (taking control of your job search not not relying exclusively on recruiters) and the 4 Critical, Non-Technical skills essential for every business person regardless of function.  

Today I’d like to talk about the 4 Critical, Non-Technical skills. What are these 4 skills and why are the non-technical? I’ll answer the second part of this question first.

Every profession, every function within an organisation, has technical skills that are required to do the job. Accountants need accounting skills, Doctors need medical skills, Executive Assistants need secretarial skills, Chefs need cooking skills.

But over and above these technical skills, it is essential for everyone to master 4 additional skills what I call the Critical, Non-Techical skills. And in my 16 years as a recruiter and now an Executive Coach and Trainer, I’ve seen many more people become derailed by not sufficiently mastering these non-technical skills than by not keeping up with the very skills required to do their job. Sounds counter-intuitive, I know. But 16 years of experience does not lie.

What are these Critical, Non-Technical skills? They are, in no particular order (with the exception of the last one that I will talk about down the page): Technology, Managerial Skills, Communication and Innovation / Strategic Thinking / Problem Solving.

Technology

Technology is the first skill on this list. Not because it’s the most important, but because it’s the most obvious. Whatever our function, new applications are automating what we do and helping us become more efficient and (hopefully) more effective.

For some professions this is very obvious. Accountants, for example have been able to automate most of the routine tasks, making life easier for both them and their clients (internal or external). The advantage of learning technology is less obvious for other functions. Why would a Chef, for instance, need to learn the computer? There are actually plenty of things that are now automated in the kitchen, from menu planning to staff scheduling, to ordering. Not to mention the fact that Chefs typically deal with a lot of outside people, necessitating the use of email.

There are very few professions that technology does not touch. In order to stay on top of your field you will need to stay on top of the latest technological developments. And for those especially technologically savvy individuals out there, I’ll go one step further and advise you to become a super user in your particular software . It’s one of the best ways to make yourself indispensable to your employer. No one wants to let the ‘go to’ person for their system go.

And, by the way, Social Media / Web 2.0 applications such as Linkedin, Twitter and even Facebook now apply to this category. How are you using social media?

Managerial Skills

Whether or not you manage staff, managerial skills are extremely important. Whether it’s managing projects, resources, finances or simply your own time, you can’t live without solid managerial skills.

Communication

Until the latest economic downturn I used to say the most important of these non-technical skills was communication. But it’s more than simple communication: I like to call it information delivery. More accurately, it’s information analysis and delivery. It’s the ability to communicate your area of expertise into laymen’s terms - in both oral and written form. Information sharing is a key aspect of any role today. Most professionals must be capable of not only delivering their KPI’s, but also interpreting them for external audiences to see the business implications of them. The complexity of today’s business environment underscores the need for good communication and other soft skills such as diplomacy and persuasion .

Mark T. Bradshaw, associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School says that the most successful individuals in this new environment will be those who possess the applicable technical skills and interpersonal skills in nearly equal measure. He goes on to say, “The ability to communicate concepts is key. And the bottom line is the way people communicate will determine how high they can rise in their organizations.”

Innovation / Strategic Thinking / Problem Solving.

Like I said, until a few years ago I used to say that Communication was the most important of these skills. However, I believe it has been surpassed by the ability to solve problems. Sometimes the ability to solve problems is masked as innovation or strategic thinking, but the purpose is the same. The conversation goes something like this, “We haven’t seen a problem like this before. We have no idea what needs to be done, but we need you to figure it out and to do something about it.” I think we can all agree that we are facing more problems, both business and otherwise, than we have before in our lifetimes. And, especially since the downturn, everyone is being asked to do more with less resources. Everyone is being asked to solve increasingly complex problems at increasingly lower levels of the organisation.

Mastering These Skills

Most of the time it is quite easy to develop and keep on top of your technical skills: those essential skills you need to do your job. More often than not though, these non-technical skills are more of a do it yourself project. You may or may not be given the opportunity to learn these skills from your employer.

How do you go about developing them, then? Actually, it’s easy enough, but it takes life long education. Taking courses through your local universities or functional trade organisations is a great start. But there are also more non-traditional routes such as Toastmasters, Dale Carnegie and Tony Robbins courses. Specifically in the area of problem solving I quite like the work of “The School of Thinking” developed by Australian, Dr. Michael Hewitt-Gleeson after working with Edward deBono in New York. There are many tutorials on the website on critical thinking.

Practicing These Skills

But education is not enough. If you want to get fit it’s not enough to go to the gym and simply study the gym equipment. You must actually use it. Flex that muscle and apply what you know. Volunteer for project leadership roles or interim operational roles. Volunteer for additional responsibility in the absence of a co-worker. Volunteer for cross-training opportunities. You can also volunteer outside of work as well: at your kid’s school or at your church. Take every opportunity you can to learn and practice these critical skills.

But what happens if you don’t develop these skills? One of the saddest experiences I’ve had in the 15 years I recruited was getting a call from the Country Manager of one of my clients. I’d never spoken with this guy in my life, but he knew I’d done considerable work for his company. He wanted to let me know that he was going to make his CFO redundant. This conversation I might add , happened a full two months before the CFO knew himself. He wanted me to know so that I could look out for other opportunities for the CFO. Why was my friend, for indeed the CFO had become a friend as well as a client, retrenched? What did his successor have that he did not? I quote the country manager, “commercial sensitivity”. The ability to drive the business forward, not simply to account for it.

My friend the CFO was a great technician and a tremendous manager, his staff loved him. What he was not was a strategic thinker. He had not developed those skills (or found someone to work under him whom he could leverage off of) and it cost him his job, and ultimately stalled his career.

In the 15 years I was a recruiter, I’ve seen a number of situations like this one. I used to get calls every day from candidates whose skill sets had become too narrow to take the next step up. Candidates who had become comfortable in their roles and didn’t up skill themselves, who were then faced with either having to look for another role due to redundancy or wanting to look for another role due to boredom.

The dirty little secret that recruiters don’t usually share is that they can usually only help 1 out of every 8 to 10 candidates who walk through their door. Believe me, that 1 candidate has done exactly what I’m going to suggest you do… waste no time in mastering these skills. Look for training courses to help you develop them and volunteer opportunities to help you practice them. Not only will keep your career on track this way, you will also become infinitely more valuable to your employer and infinitely more marketable to subsequent prospects.