Just off the coast of Panama, there is a small group of islands. Islands surrounded by coral reefs, reefs with a number of wrecked boats.
A curiosity as to why these reefs seemed to have so many wrecked boats led to the discovery that they were last charted by Captain Cook in 1770. The answer is immediately obvious. These modern day sailors had been trying to navigate a new world using an old set of charts.
It’s a good recipe for wrecking a business too, not moving with the times! Not updating and refreshing the charts and the mental models by which we navigate the fast moving, and uncertain, world we live in today. Here’s the challenge for leaders and the teams they work in, figuring out the teamwork skills needed to thrive in this new world.
I did a workshop for Wellers at their staff day on this, and there was an abundance of enthusiasm and energy stemming from the discussions and tasks. This post shares the key areas we worked on that can help equip your business with the tools and skills necessary for a fast evolving, and uncertain world.
These are the teamwork skills for the future:
| A new world of disruption | Skill 2 - be more resilient |
| The skills re-think | Skill 3 - unleash your 'Super Powers' |
| Team training | Time to act |
| Skill 1 - deep listening |
It truly is a new world. There is disruption on every front!
Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Robotics, Flying Cars, Exponential Technologies, Crypto, Longevity Science, Genetics and many, many more. McKinsey Global predict that by 2030, between 400 million and 800 million jobs could be automated globally!
Professor David Sinclair at Harvard University predicts within a decade our average lifespan by conservative estimates could jump to 120 years. Lean into any field and you will find traditional thinking being challenged. Incumbents being upended by nimble start-ups. Depending on where you sit, it’s either exciting or terrifying!
I can’t think of a single sector that isn’t facing disruption and that requires us to develop a different set of mental models, of frameworks, for how we look at the world and how we approach developing the skills needed at work. Put simply, we need a new set of charts.
Professor Kamal Munir at Cambridge University talks of the need to imagine a world 5 years from now and to see the players, the ecosystem, the trends and patterns that have changed and to then work out what part we want to play in that world.
My mentor used to say to me that if you plan to be in the business that you are in today in five years’ time, then you won’t be in business. Different words but same result – how can you think differently for the future?
I’m sure you have exciting goals for the future, things you want to achieve together as a team, and a core driving force behind what you do. Here’s the question: do you and your team have the skills you need to achieve your goals?
Last month, I and one of my team had the pleasure of running a half day development session, The Big Bold Goals Leadership Experience with the fabulous people from Wellers. Wellers' culture is grounded in relationships and equally focused on the skills development needed for the future.
I’ve known Wellers now for many years and I’m sure that you, like me, will attest to how important relationships are to their raison d’etre (reason for being).
Relationships that matter!
Relationships that stand the test of time!
In our session, we focused on 3 core skills for each team member to develop. Core skills that are all about creating the fresh charts to navigate the future by. I’d like to share these 3 core skills and give you some ideas of things that you can takeaway and do with your team.
When was the last time you listened deeply to:
All too often, we’re caught in a constant cycle of an overflowing and never ending to-do list. Then the time to listen and be 100% present to what’s going on around you doesn’t happen. I had to learn this skill at home to keep my home life from going off the tracks. Once I honed those skills at home, I then applied them to our team at work.
I could then use the same skills to listen, and really understand what was going on in the world and our sector, and start to map a different route. It was almost like rediscovering the lost art of listening.
Beginning at home has the great advantage of helping to create stability! How to really, deeply listen though, what is the lost art?
Here’s what worked for me, ask an open question:
Something like 'what’s truly important to you in life' - a great question for life outside work
Or 'what would make you feel proud if we could achieve it together at work' - a great question for at work.
With pen and paper in hand, then sit and listen. Listen with 100% focus on the other person. Write down everything they say. Don’t think about yourself, or what you want to say next: 100% on them. Wait until they have stopped, then ask if there is anything else.
Write down what they say. When there is nothing else, then say I’d like to play this back to make sure I’ve understood everything you said. Then play back what you heard. At the end, ask if you heard them correctly.
If there are corrections, listen, make notes and then play back again until they acknowledge that you have heard them correctly. I know how incredibly simple this sounds. Equally I know how incredibly rare, but powerful, this is!
To be seen, heard and understood is one of the most basic human emotional needs we have. Taking this core idea and building on it transformed my home life. Taking this core idea and building on it transformed our team at work. Taking this core idea and building on it transformed how we built and developed our business.
We only hear what we understand. Take the time to truly understand. Absent of this, you won’t hear the real messages!
To adapt to an uncertain and changing world means that we need to better deal with setbacks, and failed experiments. There are few certainties when it comes to navigating the future, and that requires lots of curiosity, learning, and experiments to be able to iterate forwards.
The skill to help with this is resilience. Think of resilience as being like a muscle. The more we develop it, the stronger it becomes. Here’s the good thing about resilience, you and your team already have these skills.
Guaranteed you’ve all faced challenges, both individually and together. Have a conversation as a team where you share times when you have struggled and the strategies you used to pull through it. This is conversation that can have several impacts:
We all struggle at times. The more our teams at work, and at home, can work together to deal with hard times, the better and faster we can adapt. It’s a deceptively simple yet powerful conversation.
You have an incredible set of unique abilities, everyone does, and that includes the people in your team. At home and at work, all too often, we and others don’t truly appreciate what our strengths, our super powers are.
Ask people who know you well what you are exceptional at. Other people can see us better than we see ourselves. As humans we have this tendency to think, 'well I’m good at this, but so is everyone else', we undervalue where we are brilliant.
When others point towards our brilliance, when we allow ourselves to see that pattern, we become more able to embrace it. Find that golden thread for yourself. Encourage your team to do the same. Have a conversation to understand what incredible strengths you have together.
Focus on building those strengths. When we unleash the full power of all our talent, we allow the space for remarkable things to happen.
All 3 of these skills are the most human conversations we can have, to listen to each other, to share how we deal with hard times, and to tell people what they are brilliant at.
These are 3 of the skills we need to face the future together. How well developed are these skills in your teams? At home, and at work?
The future is uncertain. The future is exciting. The future belongs to those who develop the skills to unleash their human talent. These are the charts for the future!
Caspar Craven is a leading authority on achieving Big Bold Goals and a sought after leadership speaker. To get his full set of 20 principles for achieving big bold goals by Being More Human, you can get these by messaging Caspar’s team at www.CasparCraven.com.
The content of this post was created on 11/07/2023 and updated on 19/07/2023.
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