The Metaskills You Need to Thrive in the 21st Century

Hint: they don’t teach them in business school

Hint: they don’t teach them in business school.

Learning to learn and to unlearn — Pic by Markus Spiske

How can we develop transformational leadership? What are the skills our team needs to learn?

I’ve been asked these questions a lot recently.

The 21st century is both challenging and uncertain — business leaders know they need to upgrade their teams’ abilities. But where to focus?

Functional expertise is shifting rapidly — constant learning is necessary to stay on top of the game. However, to thrive in change requires to move beyond subject-matter.

Organizations need to develop their people’s meta-skills — a master skill that magnifies and activates other skills. A meta-skill is a high order skill that allows you to engage with functional expertise more effectively. It’s a catalyst for learning and building new skills faster.

Skills are temporary; meta-skills are permanent.

Learning a second language or how to code constitutes a skill. A meta-skill, on the other hand, is your ability to lear…