Stretch

It seemed to be an underlying theme that we just have to keep growing and stretching as a way to do that.

Rachel Salaman: What proportion of the workforce needs to actively embrace this idea? Is it all levels, in all sectors, or are some people more vulnerable to future changes than others?

Barbara Mistick: That's a good question, Rachel. I think the advances in technology today and just this rapid pace of change suggest that many people are vulnerable in many different industries. So some industries are laying off, there is unemployment, under-employment, so there is a need to refresh your skills no matter which industry you're in. But even saying that, the longer that you're in the workplace, perhaps the more vulnerable you become, just because of this rapid change.

So it's the question of obsolescence and a constantly evolving job market means that, for different people at different times, stretching is more important.

Rachel Salaman: And this book is based on some research that you carried out with your co-author. So could you tell us a little bit about that research?

Barbara Mistick: Yes. So we were very excited last year to do a pretty big survey with Success Factors, which is an SAP company, and Oxford Economics, and we did a twin study of executives and employees across 27 different countries, to really take a look at the future workplace trends.

It was about 2,800 employees that we surveyed and about 2,700 executives, so it was a pretty big survey. Most of the professionals that answered, the 2,800 professionals, were in white-collar positions and the executives were in senior and management positions, usually reporting directly to the CEO or perhaps being the CEO or the company president themselves.

Rachel Salaman: What kind of questions did you ask?

Barbara Mistick: We asked a wide range of questions. We were really trying to get a sense, in the case of executives, how much change they saw their companies going through, what their needs were for talent in the future. And then we asked people what their concerns were about the workplace and we found some pretty interesting results, which did become the basis for the book. And that was that, with the shifting of the workplace at a global level, both executives and employees strongly agreed that the workplace was just changing dramatically.

Employees said that their number one concern for the future was about additional professional development, so, around the world, it didn't matter what country. And we had a pretty vibrant response from about 27 different countries, but we saw a universal trend that employees around the world were concerned that they didn't have adequate skills to be relevant in the workplace in the future. They were worried that their skills were going to be obsolete and that was going to affect their career advancement.

Rachel Salaman: Your book is very clearly structured, which makes it a really useful tool for people. You identify three "stretch imperatives," you call them, and those lead to five practices each with their own set of strategies, so it's very practical. How did you come up with your three stretch imperatives, which are: it's all on you, you need options, and you have dreams?

Barbara Mistick: Really, Rachel, they came from people that we talked to. We had write-in sections on the survey that we did, and then, actually, after we got the survey results, we started doing some webinars and really playing with this topic, and trying to figure out how much it resonated with people. And what we heard back from people over and over again is that they were not getting the kind of professional development in the workplace that you used to get, where a manager would guide you and look out for you over time or companies spent a lot of time in professional development. And we just got this sense overall that it's on us, or it's on you to develop your own skills for the future. So if you don't have a mindset that you need to take care of yourself first, then that's going to leave you behind, we feel. And we heard that from everybody, that we have to look out for ourselves today.

And the same thing followed true with the other two stretch imperatives. So, if it's all on you then it really means that you need options in order to be successful. So there's not always one right answer or one silver bullet, and the idea that one size fits all doesn't work today. So we realized that people needed different options in different industries, different parts of the world, that whatever we came up with had to be adaptable.

Then the third part we realized in talking to people is that everybody has got a dream for where they want their career to go and, honestly, it's so important to hold on to that part. What we see today is so many surveys, Gallup does a lot of these, that show the percentage of people who are not engaged in their job. They don't get up every morning anxious to go to work. And so we realized that everybody has got dreams and, if you can tap into your passion for work, then your level of engagement changes and your ability to be successful changes.

So we felt that those were really the three overall imperatives, and they gave us a way to organize our book and the kind of practical advice that we wanted to share.

Rachel Salaman: Let's talk about the five practices now, starting with "learning on the fly." What are some of your strategies for this?

Barbara Mistick: What we realized is that you really learn a living and so, in order to learn that living, you have to keep learning over time. It's not just what you learned in university or what you learned in your first job, but it's really learning on the job and that's why we call it learning on the fly.

Our strategies there were some things that are very specific but some that are more general, things like adopting a growth mindset or being very mindful when you're at work to observe the trends and things that are going on on a daily basis. A third one, which is extraordinarily important – cultivating a sense of curiosity, wanting to know why things work the way they work, or how to help them work better seemed to be so critically important. And setting aside some time to reflect on what works for you, what is important, how to take those things that you learn and make them your own, and then really knowing when to unlearn certain things over time.

Of all of those strategies, the one that we have first and that I think we feel is most important is just your basic mindset about learning. And we really did base our work a lot on the work of Carol Dweck, who writes about this in a book called, "Mindset," and it's just about making sure that you stay open to different opportunities in the workplace.

Rachel Salaman: In the book you include a really striking photo of a pile of journals, which belong to a person called Bob, and you use this to illustrate the idea of reflection. So could you tell us what lessons we can take from Bob's experience?

Barbara Mistick: Bob is an enthusiast for journals, I'd have to say. He has recorded almost 700 different learning events in his journal and what he finds, and what we find and other researchers have too, is that we create a better memory trail in our brain when we physically write words down. So you might hear things on the radio, or on an interview like this, and think, "That's really cool," but later, at the end of the day or the very next day, you've forgotten what you heard. And so, if you write it down, and that's what Bob has found, that if he writes these things down he is better able to hold onto them. He doesn't hold onto every single item. He has pages in his journals that say, "Stop and reflect." In fact, he writes them in at various points and then he goes back and just picks out the few key things that have really resonated for him, and he uses those to have them become learning events. Then he turns around and uses those to help coach others. So he's taken that opportunity to write things down in a way to not just learn them himself, but then to share them with others.

So it's a very cool way to reinforce what you're hearing and learning in a very busy time.

Rachel Salaman: In this section you also include some learning traps. So these are things to avoid, and two of these are confusing competence with confidence and unintentionally deskilling. Can you tell us about those?

Barbara Mistick: In relationship to confidence and competence, what we find is that sometimes people will say, "I am absolutely confident that I can do this," but they haven't perhaps had any experience. So less capable people tend to confidently overestimate their abilities, but more capable people tend to underestimate the difficulty of what they do, and I think we see this often in the workplace with people just out of university. I don't like to say that being a university president, but we do instill a lot of confidence in young people today and so they are convinced that they can do everything. But we sometimes have to guide them that a little bit of competence will really help their confidence.

And then in terms of deskilling I think what we find today, and I see this in conversations with people all the time, is that we've outsourced certain things, maybe to technology, and we see this with our smart phones. So I used to have all of the phone numbers of my kids and my parents memorized, and now I've got a daughter who still has an area code that she had 10 years ago when she lived someplace else, and I can't even recall the area code that that used to be. So it's in my device but what I worry about is, if there is ever an emergency, how am I going to find them all?

So we can easily deskill. And this has been happening with airplane pilots lately, where they do so much autopilot that, when you need to go back and be at the controls, it's harder to remember all of those things. And so, in certain industries, what people are really suggesting is that you find ways to think about the skills that you're deskilling, and make sure that you are okay to let go of those skills, and figure out which ones you want to hold on to.

Rachel Salaman: For each of the five stretch practices, you include a section that focuses on what managers can do to help their teams stretch. So what are your tips for managers when it comes to helping people learn on the fly?

Barbara Mistick: I think one of the things that's most important here is to really define the expected capabilities for people on the job. Often we will bring people in, particularly into managerial positions, and they've perhaps never really had the opportunity to manage people before and so we find that it is really important to define clearly what you're looking for as a manager, to define that somebody is really doing a great job.

So, rather than just assuming that people are going to figure out how to be good managers, really taking the right amount of time to create onboarding opportunities for anybody in a transition, any time you move somebody to a new role. Just take some time with new hires to help them both understand the organization and understand the job that you're looking for them to do.

And then taking learning opportunities to give feedback. If something goes really well, to give some feedback about what the person did to make that really successful. Maybe they took care of a client in a very unique way and you want to call out what a great job they did. Or taking a look at an opportunity that happened when something didn't go the way you expected by making sure that you have that difficult conversation about what didn't go well because it's really a learning opportunity. It's looking for those points that can create learning options for employees.

Rachel Salaman: The second practice that you discuss in your book is "be open." So which are the most useful strategies for that one?

Barbara Mistick: I think, in the "be open" category, it's really about stretching. This is perhaps the place where you're stretching the most and I think here it's about testing your assumptions, making sure that you're not automatically assuming what goes on in a particular industry or what your capabilities are, seeking feedback, looking for opportunities everywhere, disrupting yourself in the work that you do, and then having an ability to perhaps go up and down and look at things.

We call it "develop your drone abilities," so that you can look at things from a big picture, that 30,000 foot level, but then also come down and take a look at it at a micro level. And you might see very different results when you look at things from those two different perspectives.

Rachel Salaman: And you say that managers need to get the coaching-managing ratio right when they're helping their team members. What do you mean by that and how can a manager get it right?

Barbara Mistick: There is a difference between managing, sometimes you just have to very clearly set goals and expectations as a manager, but coaching really means that you're bringing somebody else along in the conversation. So you are really changing their base of knowledge and you need to do both of those, and good managers sort out when to really set a standard.

And so, I think that one of the most important things managers can do is to create a culture that allows for development so that people don't feel that they can't make a mistake. Sometimes people want to put their best foot forward in front of their manager, but mistakes happen in the workplace and if people can make those mistakes safely then real great learning can occur from those.

And so that's an opportunity for managers to sort out, at that point, whether it's a coaching opportunity or a managing opportunity. Because you do have a responsibility to your organization and to your clients, and so it's about balancing those two items. And feedback is a great way to make those things successful, and, sometimes, whether you're the employee or the manager, or the way that you approach feedback, can either make it easy to take it in or can mean that you just shut down, and that changes your ability to grow, too.

And particularly for Millennials, one of the things we did see in our survey is that Millennials really do want more feedback. So if you are a manager and you are managing Millennials, giving them feedback a little more often will really help them and help you to create a relationship.

Rachel Salaman: The third practice is "build a diverse network." And this part of the book is full of useful tips on how to build a network and it includes a strong argument for why that network should be diverse. So what are your main points here?

Barbara Mistick: I think often people think that people in your network, those that are closest to you like your family and friends, we call them close ties, those folks that you can call at two o'clock in the morning when you have an emergency, we think that those are the people that can really help us when we go to look for a new job. But what we find usually is those people who are closest to you are the people who are also protecting you the most. They're looking out for you. They'll say, "Gee, why do you want to change jobs now when you've got this great pension plan to look forward to if you only hang in there for the next 20 years?"

So the people outside of your close network, those that are less directly attached to you, that might be just colleagues or associates, those are the folks that can really see potential for you. That they don't have that same basis of knowing you and so we find that, if you can diversify your network and have it reflect both those folks that are close, those that are less directly aligned with you, but also maybe geographically diverse, maybe socio-economically diverse, maybe you always know the people in your organization that can get things done, those go-to people, but you need to know people at the top level of your organization.

So it's just diversity at every single level that is important and sometimes that seems overwhelming. So what we suggest is strive for five to thrive. If you just take a look at what you can do on a daily basis, you can take a look perhaps at the five people that can really make a difference for you. One of my favorite quotes that's in the book is a quote from Warren Buffet, who is certainly a brilliant investor, and he says that you want to hang out with people better than you and you cannot help but improve. And I think that you might want to include somebody in your striving for five who does inspire you, somebody who has your best interests at heart and can really see you going to a much higher level.

So if you look at your network and look at adjusting it, think about that concept of striving for five people that can really help you thrive, help you get perhaps beyond where you are now.

Rachel Salaman: Your fourth practice is "be greedy about experiences." So how broad do you think experiences should be in order to be useful in career development, bearing in mind that very broad experience can make a person look a bit scattered and unfocused?

Barbara Mistick: Right, and we intentionally selected the word "greedy" for this. Honestly, greedy often has a negative connotation, but what we found is that the broader your experiences are, the more adaptable you are to change in the workplace and the number one thing we've seen from so many employers is really looking for that level of adaptability.

So when you think about people becoming scattered from too many experiences, that's perhaps when we look at people who were only in a position for a year and they're just jumping, one job to the next job to the next. That can perhaps give an employer a sense that somebody is not going to be loyal and not stay in their position.

What we're suggesting from this exuberance for experiences is really that they stretch your capabilities. So we're looking that you volunteer for assignments in perhaps your same job function or you find ways to work with your manager to get experiences and to cross train, maybe jump in and do a job that someone else is doing, but come back to your position. So it's very practical things like finding a need and solving a problem. Employers are not going to see that as being scattered, they're going to see that as being a team player, as somebody that has really invested and engaged in their work.

So if you stretch your limits and experiences, you can really look sideways, you can look for opportunities to stay educated. So many fields today have additional credentialing requirements and if you take a look at what those are and are always on the top of the curve, people are going to know that you're invested in your field and that's going to send a very positive message.

Rachel Salaman: You include an interesting section on good bosses and bad bosses. What do you mean by good and bad in this context, and what are your tips for team members who want to stretch?

Barbara Mistick: What we found overall is that managers really matter. If you have a good manager or a good boss then it's really going to change your perspective on your work, your engagement at work on a daily basis. So for managers, they really should remember that the relationship makes a difference and for employees, you have to remember that that relationship makes a difference.

What we've found is that people who have a good boss can become very loyal to that good boss. And why not? They are looking out for you and so you want to look out for them. But in a workplace that is constantly changing, it's important to come back to that first stretch imperative where it's all on you. You really need to look at where your industry is going and where work is going so that you make sure that you're getting the right kinds of options that are going to secure your place in the workplace. That is a way to be loyal to your good boss, is to be constantly looking out to improve your skills as well.

We've seen so many stories about bad bosses, they are legendary! People write lots of books about them and, if you look at those little write-in columns in the newspaper where we write about what our challenges are at work, they are often about bad bosses. And what we find is that you can't always immediately leave a bad boss, so it's really about how to make lemonade out of some of those opportunities that just seem like you have lemons given to you left and right. So you can justify working for a bad boss if you find what you can learn from that bad boss. Just see what that person does really well and pick out that set of characteristics and focus in on learning from those.

But we also advocate that you need to look out for yourself. It's back to that "it's all on you" and if it's a really negative bad boss situation, that you should find ways to exit the situation.

Rachel Salaman: Moving on now to your last practice, which is "bounce forward," and that highlights the importance of grit, motivation and resilience in recovering from setbacks and moving on to something better. So how can someone improve their capacity to bounce forward?

Barbara Mistick: I think the number one thing is to adopt an attitude where you're going to accept that you have to stretch your capabilities in order to bounce forward. So we all have missed opportunities or we all have challenges at work, or a layoff that we didn't expect, or a company that moves a function offshore. There are going to be setbacks at work. We just need to acknowledge that and we have to get to a mindset that it's not particularly about you, it's really that there are factors that you can't control. And so, in order to bounce forward, you do need that combination of resilience and grit and motivation to take away what you've learned from a situation and then use it to your best advantage in the future.

So lots of people will just get stuck in whatever challenge is in front of them and then not be able to see the future. And what you really need to do is to be able to look beyond the current situation. One of the best stories that we've heard, we've done webinars on these topics, are when people reflect on a learning opportunity later. And so, if you can realize that, later, you will say that, "I learned something great from this," it will really help you to be more resilient. It is all in your attitude.

Rachel Salaman: At the end of the book you include some predictions for the future, and you outline a set of capabilities that you believe will be most in demand in future workplaces. What are the most important points you make here?

Barbara Mistick: Rachel, I think some of the predictions for the future that we feel are very important is that it's the end of the career track as you know it. Organizations today are going to need employees to be flexible in their career tracks, to really look at perhaps taking a sideway move or maybe even moving down and then moving back up. We've seen many people do that successfully, where they've learned new skills and then been able to take those back into their position.

Team performance is going to be as important as individual performance. That's one of the reasons why we suggest that one of the capabilities that's going to be very important for the future is emotional intelligence – being able to bring some empathy to the workplace, understand that things are not always going to go easy, and that we'll find ways to be flexible and adaptable over time, and to constantly stretch our capabilities. That's going to be a number one imperative for all of us going forward.

And I do think that long-term it really is about constantly learning, and we say this in several of our predictions for the future. Just going to the university and graduating is not the end of your learning experience. Both my co-author and I found we actually met together in a doctoral program, and it's really funny when you think about a doctoral degree. They call it the terminal degree, and what we realized in that program is that you're never finished learning, and we certainly found that in writing this book. And we really feel that for everybody else today, that is why you need options and why it's important to hold onto your dreams, and to find ways to constantly be learning over time, and to tap into your adaptability and resilience.

Rachel Salaman: We've covered a lot of ground in this discussion. What are your two or three top takeaways for people who are keen to future-proof themselves, starting today?

Barbara Mistick: I think that the number one item I would take away is that it is all on you, and that's not meant to be a negative. It's really a positive. You can control your own future growth, and so, if you take a very thoughtful approach, you can find ways to really continue to stay relevant. The skillset that you have is important, but layering on and continually developing that skillset is absolutely key.

And then the other item that I would say is really being able to constantly test your assumptions about your workplace, so that you do keep a handle on not just your own job but take a look at that 30,000 foot level, at a more strategic level about where your industry is going. I think that more than anything else can help you really be forward looking and be energized about learning new things.

Then finally, the last thing I'd say is I know we have lots of suggestions in our books and practical tips, don't try to do them all at once. Just pick out one or two items and try and make a difference there. Life is busy, but work is so much a part of your life, so just picking out one thing that will help you feel better about the work that you do each day, I think, can make a big difference. And you might start with that five to thrive, because having a good network around you really does help you get through the tough challenges, but it also helps you celebrate the good things that happen.

Rachel Salaman: Barbara Mistick, thanks very much for joining me today.

Barbara Mistick: Thank you, Rachel, it was great to be with you.

Rachel Salaman: The name of Barbara's book again is "Stretch: How to Future-Proof Yourself for Tomorrow's Workplace," and it's co-written with Karie Willyerd.

I'll be back in a few weeks with another Expert Interview. Until then, goodbye.