The skills factor

Skills ensure individuals work effectively. The more efficiently individuals foster and retain the skills they need, the more successful and competitive they will be.

Every organisation wants and needs people with skills in order to become and remain competitive and innovative. Hence, they will pay a great deal of money to acquire and develop these skills.

Therefore, the more skilled you become, the more valuable you will be to your current or future employer, and to yourself.

How skilled you become depends on how much commitment you make and how effectively you acquire skills.

Acquiring, applying, transmitting skills

People rarely understand how skills are acquired, applied and transmitted.

The acquisition of a skill is a process, and a process takes place over time. The process of skill acquisition requires, first, that you obtain information or knowledge; second, through its application you will acquire a skill; and third, by refining this skill, you will become more valuable to yourself and others.

The acquisition of skills may be over a period of weeks, months or even years, depending on:

the difficulty of the task;

the commitment and ability of the individual;

the environment in which he learns;

whether the learning activities match the learning style of the individual.

The process of skill acquisition can be broken up into stages. At stage A, there is some motivation to acquire knowledge. The quality of motivation will determine the manner in which the skills are acquired and the way in which the skill is subsequently applied.

At stage B you will ascertain the source of that information. The source of that information can be formal – a course, lecture, book or an article.

Often, it is informal.

In fact, in most cases, it is random. You come across something which you use now or remember to file away for the future use. This is dangerous, because unless it is a disciplined acquisition, random knowledge does not have a great value.

At stage C you acquire the knowledge. Stage D is where the knowledge is applied. Stage E is the point beyond which most people do not go. They have acquired some knowledge. It seems to have solved the immediate problem and they do not proceed to see if it could solve other more difficult, but less pressing, problems.

Stage F is where you encounter challenges or demands for which the current amount of information is inadequate, so the knowledge you have acquired at that point, formally or informally, randomly or otherwise, is of limited use and, therefore, you must dig further.

Beyond stage F is where you acquire skill as opposed to using learned information which solves an immediate problem. If you move forward from stage F you will begin to commit yourself to continuous learning, even in an informal way, since you recognise such actions are moving you towards attaining your goals.

Stage G and beyond is where you have an enormously high value for the organisation because you are motivated enough to solve problems of a higher order and the organisation perceives you have leadership and higher performance skills which they need and will reward.

A skill is not only something acquired and applied, it is also something transmitted to people coming up behind you in the organisation.

When you link the acquisition of skills to the transmission of skills to others, you will see how crucial it is to you, and to the organisation, to understand and master the way in which the skills are acquired and applied before you can successfully transmit them.

In the process of transmission you are teaching others not only how to acquire and apply skills themselves, but also how they can transmit them in turn to the next generation so that the knowledge and experience within the organisation is reinforced and its use maximised. If you can learn how to transmit skills your value to the organisation is even greater than just possessing the skill yourself.

There are many factors that will determine how quickly and how effectively skills are acquired:

the time available;

the motivation of the person concerned;

the environment in which the skill is experienced;

the level of education of the person;

the source of knowledge;

how complete the knowledge is;

how the knowledge is transmitted;

in what way is the knowledge acquired and with what support and encouragement;

the way in which the knowledge is applied;

how the application of knowledge has been monitored and what feedback has been sought or given;

how difficult are the problems that are solved.

There are numerous learning opportunities all around you. The question is whether you are seeking out or experiencing those best suited to your learning style.

The keys to acquiring skills are:

to become exposed to the activities, or to seek out those opportunities, which best match your preferred learning style(s);

to record and evaluate the acquisition of your skills in order to ensure that you are gaining experience which is moving you towards your goals and satisfying the needs of your employer or customer.

Key questions

1. What skills are important to your future?

2. To what degree do you feel you are deficient in certain skills?

3. How does the process of acquiring skills in the future relate to the way you have acquired your current skills?

4. What sources can you turn to to increase your skills?

5. How can you be sure what your skills are worth to your organisation?

6. How do your skills compare across a range of categories to your colleagues?

7. What skills do your superiors expect you to acquire in the next two to three years? 8. What challenges have you come up against which you felt were beyond the skills you possessed?

9. How do you cope with the situation where you are required to do tasks in which you are not skilled?

10. How does your organisation support people who are seeking to acquire skills?