Top Skill for 2020

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Year 2020 will be remembered for a long time for the string of unexpected and unpredictable events that have happened and continue to happen, impacting lives of people across the globe. This has caused us to adapt to a lot of changes very very rapidly in a very short span of time. Staying indoors, maintaining personal hygiene, social distancing, work from home, wearing mask, valuing human lives etc. It has surprised everyone how a tiny virus can bring the entire world on its knees. And people are now bracing themselves for biological warfare as experts say that this is definitely not the last pandemic...

In the Pre-covid era, there was a lot of discussion around 'CHANGE’ and being a change agent - how the world is changing very fast and that we all need to embrace change with examples of giants like Kodak and Nokia who failed to change with time and so on. 

However, in the last few months everyone has embraced change either voluntarily, forcibly or reluctantly. People have accepted that this is the ‘new normal’. The discussion is now shifting to surviving and thriving in the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world. And the top skill that people need now is the ability to deal with ambiguity

Gone are the days when people used to ask about 3 year and 5 year plans. In the current situation people do not have visibility about the next three months. This is truly a live example of paradigm shift. It is like shifting from a waterfall model to an agile approach to life. 

With the events in 2020 unfolding at a rapid pace - starting with Covid19 and then closely followed by multiple earthquakes, locusts attacks, war threats, Floods and asteroids passing close to earth, forest fires... it seems as if the world is playing the game of Jumanji where every roll of dice is triggering some new set of events, threats or challenges. 

Initially these events took everyone by surprise and many doomsday theories started getting popular on social media. However, soon people regained their mental balance and now people are exploring how to excel in the changed atmosphere - and here is the mantra -

  • Learn to deal with ambiguity - it is ok to feel a little uncomfortable
  • Be ready to take the next step even if the whole path is not visible 
  • Have faith. Believe that in the end everything will turn out to be good. This too shall pass
  • Approach the situation with an open mind & positive attitude
  • Calibrate your risk appetite - plan for all contingencies.
  • Last but not the least -  Take action. Small steps taken consistently over a period of time yield great results

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