Even before the pandemic, job skills were evolving. Gartner Data found that the number of skills required for a single job was increasing by 10% per year. But what skills are most needed now, as many of us transition back from fully remote mode to what is likely to be some hybrid workplace?
 
Writing in Fast Company, Gwen Moran, creator of the website Bloom Anywhere, specifies essential skills that experts say employees will need:
 

• Self-direction: Amidst of so much change, employees are going to have to “captain their own careers.”
• Digital Capabilities: Employees will need to be comfortable using digital technologies, ranging from collaboration software to videoconferencing.
• Empathy: Sensitivity to what colleagues may be experiencing through this time of accelerated change is mandatory.
• Communication Management: Given the variety of platforms available, it's more critical than ever to get thoughts and concepts across with brevity and levity.
• Motivational Skills: Being able to both self-motivate, and inspire others to see your vision, could be the antidote to inertia in the face of uncertainty.
• Adaptability: Being able to carry on, even when you’re a little uncomfortable, is important in a time when so many things may be in flux.

 
Have you honed any of your skills over the past year, and which ones do you still need to work on? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. 

Values are core beliefs that affect our behavior and worldview. We tend to  choose friends with similar values, but at work it can be more complicated. Writing in Fast Company, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzik, PhD and Becky Frankiewicz, both leaders at Manpower Group, say, ”If you want to live in an inclusive world that harnesses the power of psychological diversity, then you have to learn to accept, tolerate, and perhaps even embrace those who don’t share your values.” 
 
Wondering how? The authors offer these tips:

• Choose to Learn: Think about the conversation as an opportunity to learn versus the need to defend—a dialogue, not a debate.
• Know that Seeking to Understand Doesn’t Mean Agreement: It’s okay to want to listen and learn and still hold onto your own beliefs and values.
• Embrace Curiosity and Patience: Curiosity seeks out understanding and acknowledges and often embraces difference. Emotion is unlikely to disappear from values conversations, yet acknowledging it and choosing to lead with curiosity keeps communication lines open.
• Stay Active in the Conversation: By staying in the dialogue, you demonstrate respect, even if there is absolutely no agreement. Wanting to be heard is a value we all desire, yet it requires reciprocal listening and staying engaged. 

 
Do you have co-workers who have values divergent from yours? How do you dialogue? To join the conversation, click "comments"​ above.

There is no shortage of management experts telling us that leaders need to show
their vulnerability, being open and honest about who they are and how they feel.

But there is a limit to this advice, writes Jessica Stillman, in Fast Company. “Even just a little time in the business world is enough to reveal that over-sharing personal struggles can get you labeled unprofessional, and being too open with your worries just breeds useless fear.”

So how do you walk the line between being forthcoming and genuine, but not
burdening others with your problems or fears? Researcher, author, therapist and
TED speaker Brené Brown offered a succinct answer while speaking with Adam
Grant on the Worklife podcast: "Vulnerability minus boundaries is not
vulnerability."

​It’s constructive to share your own struggles to make others feel safer sharing theirs. It’s unhealthy if you want to unburden yourself and dump your worries and concerns on others. She suggests that before you decide to open up at work, you ask yourself if you are sharing your emotions and experiences to move your work, connections, or relationships forward? Or are you over-sharing by working your private stuff out with an audience? If the latter, stop talking.

Make sure professional sharing is always aimed at constructive goals and you'll walk the line between authenticity and self-absorption. Have you ever encountered an over-sharer at work, and how did you handle the situation? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. 

An influential study on management and leadership was conducted by Amy Edmondson, who researched hospital charge nurses. Edmondson found that high performance teams and well-respected nurse leaders reported more errors because the team felt psychologically safe to do so. On the teams led by less respected leaders, nurses hid their error rates out of fear. David Burkus, associate professor of leadership and innovation at Oral Roberts University and author of Under New Management, offers these strategies for ensuring that team members experience psychological safety.

• Celebrate Failure: Take time after a failure to reflect and discover its lessons. People are less likely to admit mistakes if failures are treated as losses. People are emboldened to explore new solutions if they know it’s okay to fail.
  
  
• Encourage Dissent: When someone on your team disagrees with you, it doesn’t make you less of a leader. On the contrary, it demonstrates your commitment to the open exchange of ideas. It also gives you an opportunity to see another perspective, or an opening to explain yours and instruct your team.
  
  
• Build Civility: Incivility permeates a team when the leader isn’t modelling civility. Incivility destroys psychological safety, yet many leaders don’t recognize the impact of their own actions. Consider asking a trusted teammate to watch your behavior during meetings and share any insights about how you might encourage greater psychological safety. 

 
Do you believe the people on your team feel safe? What have you done to help to contribute to psychological safety on your team?  To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

There is no such thing as overcommunication, argue Adam Bryant, managing director of Merryck & Co. and Kevin Sharer, former president, CEO, and chairman of Amgen. They describe overcommunication as a “key leadership lesson” in their new book, The CEO Test, an excerpt of which appears in Fast Company.
 
Across hundreds of interviews with CEOs, one of the most consistent themes the authors heard is a “growing recognition that they must make an extra effort to close the gap between how much they think they need to communicate and what their employees want and need from them.” The more people you are addressing the simpler and shorter your message needs to be.
 
Although saying the same thing over and over can seem tedious to the one saying it, don't stop! It’s important to feed people’s desire to know…not just their need. If leaders aren’t sharing much, then employees will supply their own narrative.
“Leaders must be prepared to be teased for endlessly repeating the strategy,” the authors advise. “If your employees roll their eyes and say what you’re going to say before you open your mouth, consider that a victory because they have internalized the message.”

Is there a message that you repeatedly share with employees? Are there messages you could be sharing more often? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.