Yesterday we did a workshop on the 7 skills of modern knowledge workers at the Innovatieproeftuin. After an introduction by Ruud about the challenges faced by modern knowledge workers, the audience (of about 80 people) was put to work: first they had to select what they considered the top issues modern knowledge workers are faced with. Based on the results, they then had to describe the key skills modern knowledge workers have to posses to deal with this. While many of these 80 people probably expected a session where they would sit back and hear about the 7 essential skills, it was great to see them actually working together in small groups.

Key outcomes of the session

After the groups discussed key challenges modern knowledge workers are faced with, they concluded that modern knowledge workers require the following key skills:

1. Being able to consider things from someone else’s perspective
2. Being able to stand up for yourself
3. Being able to reflect on your own working practices
4. Having self discipline
5. Being able to prioritize: making deliberate choices regarding what you do and how you do that
6. Allowing yourself time to reflect and to do things properly: investing time to gain time (later on)
7. Being outward oriented; relations are key. Leverage your personal and professional network
8. Being flexible and able to switch between different contexts

So, we came up with 8 instead of the 7 skills we promised in the title Note however that we are convinced that there is no such thing as seven universal skills of the modern knowledge worker: knowledge workers come in different flavours. Yet, we feel that these eight skills are indeed key ingredients.

The good news is that, by definition, skills can be trained. The question is how you train these skills as an individual and how, as an organisation, you can stimulate your people to master these skills.

By the way, the introduction presentation is also posted on SlideShare (in Dutch):

Tags: in control, in flow, in sync, in touch, workshop

Dit item is geplaatst door external author op 4 December 2008 om 11:57 in EN, team blog. Je kunt een reactie achterlaten, of een trackback op je eigen website opnemen.