Last updated on 2019-08-24
Yankton Area Progressive Growth honcho Nancy Wenande says employers want more than welding certificates:
Nancy Wenande, C.E.O. of Yankton Area Progressive growth says a survey shows the top three skills employers are looking for are: motivation, interpersonal abilities and time management [“Employers Looking for More than Technical Skills,” WNAX, 2019.08.20].
I don’t know what survey Wenanda is reading, but I can Google up this summary of a 2016 World Economic Forum survey of 371 companies employing 13.6 million people across nine industry sectors in fifteen countries that reports the most desired job skills are complex problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity.
How did any of us learn those things? How do we teach those things to the next generation of workers?
I’m not sure how to teach motivation. I can model my own motivation. I can speak about and act on the things that stir my passions. I can blog all decade about how people need to give a darn, but I can’t actually give anyone the darn they need to give. They each need to define their own darns.
Time management is probably teachable; it just doesn’t sound very fun to teach. Time management isn’t a great -ology of its own, promising profound discussion, debate, and understanding. Time management doesn’t deserve a major, a minor, or a half-credit high school credit. We teach time management by filling students’ time with lots of interesting subjects to study and meaningful tasks to complete… on deadline.
We learn interpersonal abilities by interacting with persons, but not exclusively with the persons around us. Who among us is surrounded by all the people we need to know, or all the kinds of people we may encounter, or all the people whom our decisions will affect? The most robust interpersonal abilities come from practicing interactions with a variety of people, so we can make the sale to/win the cooperation of/be of service to/grok anyone. We get that practice from reading books—great biographies, great novels, great poems.
Example and practice are as important in learning the skills Wenande cited as they are in learning the three top skills identified by the employers surveyed by the World Economic Forum. We can learn complex problem-solving by studying complex problems of the past, the solutions proposed and tried, and the results achieved. We can learn critical thinking by reading and listening to and speaking with serious thinkers, seeing how they analyzed and answered great questions, and then daring to construct our own answers. We can learn creativity—or at least learn to recognize and appreciate it—by studying the works of artists, writers, architects, chefs, and other creators and trying our own hands at making something meaningful, useful, or (and!) beautiful from nothing.
None of these top skills appear to depend on any specific tool or product or industry. We don’t need the Chamber of Commerce or education consultants or legislators or governors to identify unique market trends that dictate great curricular shifts. To meet the needs of industry, we need to teach timeless things: literature, history, philosophy, and art. We need to motivate students by teaching them things that will matter after the next economic cycle, after they retire, after they die.
Employers want and need workers who are fully human. We teach fuller humans by filling them with the humanities.
Perfect. Well said Cory.
Motivation, interpersonal abilities and time management are the three skills taught in Army boot camp. Do you want a state full of grunts?
I have occasion to regularly refer to a 2013 business communication textbook.
The authors opine that employers want “soft skills” which include “the ability to communicate, work well with others, solve problems, make ethical decisions and appreciate diversity. Sometimes also called employability skills or key competencies, these soft skills are desirable in all business sectors and job positions.” That definition squares with Wenande’s claim.
To answer Porter’s question, I would guess that a host of folk in Pierre want a state full of people who follow orders which may also be a skill taught at boot camp. I spent a lot of time around debaters and debate coaches, so I have grown to prefer folks with a large amount of smart a$$ery and a healthy dose of curmudgeonery
Kal … Well, that’s what SD is, at it’s core. A state majority of people who (at best) show up on time and keep their mouths shut until it’s been filled with whiskey. Then they lose their shyness and blame Obama and Mexicans for their poor decision making skills.
Q ~ What do you end up with when the best and brightest have moved away for five generations?
A ~ A depleted, gene pool of ignorance. – … said MoonBase, the smart ass, curmudgeon.
Giving kids “participation” trophies, having safe spaces, micro-aggression training and on and on definitely won’t help in these areas as we are seeing.
My favorite safe spaces are listed on the website for MAGA hat wearers. A list of places they can wear their red, noggin covers without being discriminated against, ridiculed, and stared at.
In “The Road to Serfdom”, Hayek warns of a society populated by citizens with a military mindset, where people blindly follow orders without questioning anything. When done correctly, college should train students to question everything, to compare, contrast, analyze, and synthesize, and make decisions and choices that are in their own long term self-interest. Is there any wonder why the powers that be in South Dakota fear education?
Job skill training is one thing. It trains people to perform specific tasks, but it doesn’t train people to think creatively, to think strategically, to communicate effectively, or to function in teams.
Curmudgeonry: how do we teach that skill? Or is that absolutely a product of old age? What is the 20-something version of curmudgeonry?
Interpersonal skills… at boot camp? Please elaborate.
(Steve, can you ever talk about the topic at hand instead of injecting your own Fox News karaoke? I didn’t say one thing about the buzz/bogeywords you throw out. I don’t advocate any of those things, whatever they are. Why not just talk to us in your own voice about real things instead of parroting the junk the TV tells you to say to the fantasy enemies the corporate propagandists fabricate for you?)
We don’t the Chamber of Commerce or education consultants
Verb missing?
Yes! “Need”! Sorry about that—thanks for the proofread, Bob!