Fostering human capabilities might be more important than reskilling in the future of work

In this article Skills change but capabilities endure by John Hagel, John Seely Brown and Maggie Wooll of Deloitte's Center for the Edge, they look at why capabilities may be more important than skills in the 21st century workplace.

In their introduction they say this:

At a time when skill needs are changing ever more quickly, and headlines feature looming skills gaps and obsolescence, a focus on cultivating underlying essential human capabilities can give business leaders a sustainable way of finding the talent they need.

Interestingly, they differentiate between innate capabilities - ones that can be amplified, and developed capabilities - ones that can be developed through experience and practice.

Their list of capabilities include imagination, empathy, curiosity, resilience, creativity, emotional intelligence, teaming, social intelligence, sense making, critical thinking and adaptive thinking.

If you had to pick three of them as the most important what would they be? Mine there would be: curiosity, critical thinking and sense making. Not surprisingly, I would also include oracy though maybe oracy is more a broad foundational skill like literacy than it is a capability.

The article is well worth a read.