According to the World Economic Forum: 65% of today’s skills will be obsolete by 2027. In reading the report I, like many others probably, reflected on speed and our ability to catch up. Job descriptions change, tools evolve…We were told that skills would make us valuable. That mastery of a trade, an expertise, a technique would secure our future, and suddenly, what once made us indispensable is just another relic of the past.
But there is more to that, why keeping such scores and evaluating such data in such a fast paced world where “skills” can be outgrown so fast by technology? If we are not our skills, then who are we?
We have worshipped the doing, built altars to productivity, hustled, optimised, got praised and rewarded for how much we accomplish, how efficiently we execute, how well we perform. It all made perfect sense in the industrial revolution.
But strip all that away, and what remains?
We were never meant to be a collection of functions, a checklist of competencies, a résumé of achievements. We are not machines.
When skills fade, what remains? The answer is not in what we do, but in who we are. Our creativity. Our depth. Our ability to connect, to imagine, to inspire.
Integrity never becomes obsolete.
Curiosity never gets outsourced.
Compassion never automated.
The future does not belong to the most skilled. It belongs to the most humane.
To exist for meaning rather than output is an act of defiance. To embrace our essence, our messy contradictions, our untamed creativity is the r-evolution.
What makes us valuable is not what we can do. It’s who you choose to be. After all, the quality of what we do depends on the quality of who we are!
Skills can, and will, be automated, outsourced, or replaced, but our essence, the natural desire to connect, create meaning, and experience can’t be replicated.
What if the challenge wasn’t learning new skills but deepening our humanity. Can we learn to cultivate and care for it now that the technologies we have built can focus on efficiency and productivity on our behalf?
The depth, clarity, and integrity of our being shape what we do, how we do it, and even why we do it. If we focus only on skills or external achievements, we might miss the essence of who we are becoming in the process.
We must start valuing the journey of a human, the human personal struggle for achieving something great. It’s that human journey and struggle which will become important in the future more than ever. I wrote this in 2017 before AI was a thing...
One of my personal belief is that walking the path to ReNEWBusiness requires us to first accept our humanity then to innovate humanity!
I invite you to embody a leadership presence that focuses not only on skills and people functioning but on people flourishing.
If you are looking for developing a leadership capable of fostering organisational and individual flourishment have a look at our program Artful Leadership and all other Artful Programs.
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