Mindset first: Everyone has “Future Work Skills”

Google as an inspiration

It's Sunday, May 6, 2012, and I've strapped on an electric guitar and am playing the first chords of the Oasis classic "Wonderwall". A friend of mine grabs a microphone, switches it on and joins in with the song at exactly the right moment. Her wonderful voice is just starting to sing the chorus when the door to the room opens and a friend of ours shouts "Let's go. I want to show you the other highlights of the Google Office."

I wasn't in a recording studio at the time, but at Google's European headquarters in Dublin. Together with a few others, we visited a friend there who worked at the search engine company and proudly showed us the empty offices on a Sunday. After the band rehearsal room, we played table tennis, emptied our chocolate bar supplies and tried out the swings.

Inspired by this visit, I asked myself numerous questions back then:

How will we work in the future? Do we need these colorful and crazy offices to be more productive? What skills will each individual need to be successful in the future, both professionally and privately? What does the future of learning look like?

he search for answers took many years and will probably never be complete. It took me through various jobs, from start-ups to large corporations. From online grocery shopping to brokering construction loans. In the end, it led to self-employment as a speaker, author and trainer.

Today, I help other people to achieve professional and personal success. I want to help them set ambitious goals for the future and achieve them. The skills of the future play a decisive role in this.

Everything is changing exponentially

Everyone is always talking about how digitalization is changing our world and our working lives. Personally, however, I find technologization much more exciting. Without the right technology, digitalization will only progress very slowly. In the future, the availability and speed of the internet will play a decisive role.

When I was on vacation in Sri Lanka last year, I bought a local SIM card and still had 4G even in the last corner of the mountains. Here in Munich, I go jogging along the Isar river and I'm lucky if I have phone reception. We don't even want to talk about nationwide 3G reception here.

But if you look at the progress in data speed in recent years, you can see exponential growth. The same applies to almost all areas. Another example is storage capacity. Can you still remember floppy disks? An average of 2.8 MB fitted on the small disks. Today, every cell phone in our pocket has more than 100 gigabytes.

How does this influence our daily work?

This rapid and exponential change in all areas naturally also affects our daily working lives. In the past, we used to have plateaus and rest periods to get used to new technology or changing conditions. That no longer exists today.

We also used to have clear hierarchies and task allocations in most companies. Today, thanks to holacracy and self-organized teams, this is also increasingly disappearing. And in the past, many employees worked at a company for 30 years or more. Which young professionals can still imagine that today?

So it's not just companies that need to become learning organizations; lifelong learning is also an essential part of our professional lives. For this reason, we need new skills and abilities. I call them "future work skills". These are things that anyone can learn, and with the right approach and the right tools, it's a lot of fun.

The entire toolbox is of course available in my “Future Work Skills” course at Content Collection. But here I would like to give you two specific tips along the way.

Two specific tips on future work skills

1) Self-management in digital times

Many of my clients have one distraction after another during the day. Calls, emails, WhatsApp, social media and other push notifications mean that they pick up their smartphone every 15 minutes on average. This understandably gives them the feeling that they are only ever reacting and never taking action. At the same time, they lack focus on the really important things.

Let's do a quick exercise: Place your cell phone face up on the table in front of you. Sit up straight, take three deep breaths in and out and try to focus only on your cell phone for 30 seconds. Look at it calmly without touching it. Do you manage to focus your full attention on it or do thousands of thoughts immediately come back to you?

If you do this exercise regularly, you will notice how you calm down and train your focus. You will eventually manage to concentrate on one thing for longer and longer periods of time without getting distracted.

2) Live and work like an entrepreneur

More and more people are working from home or in remote teams, and not just since coronavirus. Working hours and locations are becoming increasingly flexible. This brings many advantages, but also harbors some risks. Of course, I could show you lots of practical tools, tips and tricks for working from home here. But I'd rather start with the core of the problem: the mindset.

Many employees still don't think like an entrepreneur. However, this mindset is essential for long-term professional success and self-motivation. We need to take our lives into our own hands and not wait for our superiors or our company to tell us what to do.

You can learn this proactive mindset. Let's start with a little exercise. Observe the people around you for a day. How often do they say: "I can't. I'm not allowed to. I have to. I should."? It is precisely these passive phrases that constantly make us feel like we are living for others and not for ourselves. Why don't we use the terms: "I want. I can. I may. I want to."?

We must start with the mindset

Almost 8 years later, in January 2020, I was back at Google. This time in Munich. The offices here look almost identical to the headquarters in Dublin. However, when talking to some of the employees, I realized that they also have problems focusing on the really important things. They also ask themselves: "What is my why?" or "How do I build a strong network online?".

That's when I realized that pretty rooms are a good prerequisite for New Work. But above all, it depends on the mindset of the employees. And that's exactly where I want to start. I want to shape the future of digital learning and make everyone fit for a successful future. Whether they are employees, self-employed or private individuals. That is my mission!

About the author:

Dennis Fischer is an expert on Future Success Skills, successful speaker, trainer and author of the book”52 ways to succeed — The best ideas from 500 business guides“. Together with Content Collection at Haufe Akademie, he produced the “Future Work Skills” course. More information about Dennis Fischer at 52ways.de.