Novel Thinking

Why do we need to be Novel Thinkers? Novel Thinking as defined by the Institute for the Future is ‘coming up with solutions and responses beyond that which are rote or rule-based’. Novel applies not only to what is new, but what is strange or unprecedented (a novel approach to the problem).
Ultimately, Novel Thinking is thinking outside the box.

Novel Thinking will be in greater demand as many mechanical, convergent thinking type tasks are automated, with the consequence of shrinking job descriptions for millions of employees globally.
Simultaneously, many organizations will adopt the blueprints of Apple, Google, and other organizations known for innovation, where novel or creative thinking isn’t confined to just product development, but democratized across the workforce.

Yes, we will all have to refine our inner inventor.

Adaptive Thinking

Job opportunities are declining in middle-skill white-collar and blue-collar jobs, largely due to a combination of the automation of routine work, and global offshoring. Conversely, job opportunities are increasingly concentrated in both high-skill, high-wage professional and technical occupations, and low-skill, low-wage occupations, such as protective services and personal care. Jobs at the high-skill end involve abstract tasks, and at the low-skill end, manual tasks.

What both of these categories of tasks have in common is that they require “situational adaptability”— the ability to respond to unique, unexpected circumstances of the moment. For example, whether it’s crowd control, or guarding a celebrity – there is no way Protective Services personnel can predict events. Similarly, personal care workers are dealing with a very complex animal – humans!

These skills will be at a premium in the next decade, particularly as automation continues.

Future Work Skills Academy

The Art of Humanness series of Masterclasses focuses on the 4 uniquely human skills identified by the Institute for the Future as essential for engagement in the workplace of Industry 4.0. The owner and beauty of these skills is that they are our birthright. We don’t need to learn them so much as unleash them.

The unique challenge of these skills is that they take conscious effort to use them, being mindful and present to maintain them. In the fast (and getting faster) paced work of work it is easy to forget to slow down, engage our inner human and focus on that which differentiates us from machines.