Monday, November 19, 2012

Seven Survival Skills

One of the most important debates of society today is over who has the primary responsibility for teaching marketable job skills: schools or employers.  This is a classic “chicken-or-the-egg” question with no definitive answer.  Employers tend to decry the lack of useful skills of their job applicants, and schools, by and large, have not fully acceded to the idea that they are responsible to teach, first and foremost, critical thinking skills.

One of the key elements of the issue (simplified here) is the argument that the schools should teach students critical thinking skills and the employer is then responsible to teach the critical job skills needed in a specific industry.  Tony Wagner has contributed to the debate with his recent work, “Seven Survival Skills.”

Wagner, who describes his “Skills” as being “defined by business leaders in their own words,” submits these skills as those business leaders should look for in their job applicants:

1.      Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
2.      Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence
3.      Agility and Adaptability
4.      Initiative and Entrepreneurship
5.      Effective Oral and Written Communication
6.      Accessing and Analyzing Information
7.      Curiosity and Imagination

Wagner is the leader of “Innovative Education” in the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard University.  Employers interested in this idea might start their online search with Wagner, and continue their education on the subject with CEC Associates’ Fall 2012 New Worker feature article, “Hiring and Maintaining Employees for the Rapidly Changing Workplace.”

From your experience, who do you think is responsible for teaching marketable job skills, such as those outlined by Wagner?  Other than schools or employers, what about a third option for the job: the future employee’s parents? 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

what about values and ethics? employers, teachers and parents can be held accountable for preparing new workers...but only the individual can decide between right and wrong... decisions of right and wrong(i.e. should I go to work today?)are individual responsibilities that maybe beyound instruction.

Jessie said...

It is true that individuals must be responsible for their own decisions. But, they also must be modeled right from wrong at home, taught how to make good decisions in school, and held accountable through their work ethics with proper reprimands from the employer (loss of time off, day without pay, etc.). It is the individual's responsibility, but it is society at large that should have a stake in how people grow into a responsible, ethical and morally sound person!

Anonymous said...

But even the most "responsible" individuals are not good employees because they for whatever reason have little appreciation of what it takes to truly represent an employer at the highest level and may never know until they empathize with the employer who is truly trying to meet customer needs, And there are some employers who do not care about customers...only profit, and in that case the ethical employee should probably seek work elsewhere

Barb said...

Mitt Romney and Bernie Madoff....now, let's talk about ethical work

Joan said...

I think that the expectations of some employers when it comes to meeting customer demands while maintaining workflow are completely unrealistic. Perhaps it is the employer who should try empathizing with the employee who is trying to make both happy & not succeeding on either level! A compliment that has a "but" in it is actually the employer's way of saying "you could do better." How about this employer, tell me HOW or WHAT I can do to do better instead of having the expectation that I SHOULD do better with little to no direction on how to get there!