The 21st century workplace

The 21st century workplace is here.  It's technology driven.  It's global and multicultural.  It challenges old success and leadership paradigms that advocate for one winner and many losers. It requires excelling in three specific areas:  Innovation, Cultural Competency and Collaboration.

Being innovative can be as easy as finding the fastest way to complete a routine task to solving an intricate problem that has pestered employees for years.  The key element for anything to be considered innovative is the perception that it is different from what has been used or tried in the past.  In other words, the newness combined with the effectiveness of the idea is what makes it innovative.  Think the iPhone.

Being culturally competent can take several meanings.  The most popular description is the ability to interact and work effectively across cultures.  Then the question becomes: what is a culture?  Simply put, culture refers to the set of norms, values, beliefs and traditions followed by a group of people.  In this context, culture generally describes different ethnic communities (e.g. Latinos, Asians).  However, culture can also refer to other types of groupings:  small businesses, large corporations, start ups, government agencies, etc.  These organizations have a distinct set of values and ways of conducting business and making decisions that differentiate them from each other.

Being collaborative is a phrase that is thrown around a lot.  Collaboration is not easy.  It requires trust among team members and the willingness to support one another.  The traditional way of working and leading has been the total opposite.  So, this is the one trait that requires significant individual effort to start and group follow through for it to happen.

Some questions to ponder:

• Does my current professional experience show signs of these traits? How? What concrete examples can I offer a prospective employer?
• Which of the three is my dominant trait? Which would I like it to be?
• Whom do I know (personally or through the media) that embodies these traits?

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Career lessons from the Occupy protests

Whether you are in favor or against the Occupy Wall Street protests, and its subsequent spin offs, one thing is clear to me as a career coach:  Those involved in organizing protests have two types of skills that have allowed the movement to endure and grow.   One is communication skills.  The other is teamwork.

Communication skills allow parties to interact, to send and to receive messages effectively. Occupiers--as they are referred to--have maximized the power of technology to disseminate their message, recruit volunteers and keep the media informed.  This skill also comes in handy when discussing issues with opponents or those eager to learn. Being able to describe their concerns in a clear, concise and engaging manner has helped them gain status as an emerging influencing voice for the American people.

Team work skills are mainly about working effectively with others towards a common goal. Occupiers provide a vivid example of some of the most common tasks handled by teams: Delegating duties, negotiating outcomes, and organizing resources.  The media reports that occupiers have been dutiful at operationalizing the different support systems they need to focus on their protests.  For instance, they have a current list of supplies on hand and have rotation schedules for cooking, cleaning and inventory management.

How do these apply to you and your career?

I am not asking you to join the occupiers.  That is a very personal decision.  What I would like to suggest is for you to reflect on your level of comfort and dexterity. In other words, how are your communications and team work skills?  You might say that you did enough of that already in college.  And I would say back that practice makes perfect.  Do you think that any major sports super star says "I am great already.  I am the best golfer, soccer player, swimmer, etc.  I don't need to practice?" Never!  The key from getting from good to excellent is to keep at it.

One last thing about excelling as a communicator and team player:  It applies to everyone and to every type of career.  These two skills are just as important to the college student studying biology, to the young graduate looking for work in psychology, or to the seasoned professional making deals in international finance.

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