For a the last century, people in the West with high levels of technical skill have enjoyed the most success and respect from society in general. But you don’t need a great academic education, a doctor, lawyers, judge or teacher to be taken seriously anymore.
When Kylie Jenner, the reality TV star used her platform to become a billionaire by the age of 21, you know things are never going to be quite the same again. Kylie ‘gets’ it.
She knows that the Instagram generation buy differently. They have different role models. They realise it’s about visibility, ease of access and personality. Many professions have been built on the exact opposite – a level of “professional distance” where first names don’t exist, formal titles rule, hierarchy matters and letters after your name proved your value. But supercomputers like IBM Watson are now able to process millions of court cases and sift through thousands of pages of evidence and predict trial outcomes, robots are becoming better than doctors at detecting cancer on x-rays and teachers and pupils have access to almost all world education content on an iPad. Relevance is becoming a serious issue.
So where does that leave professionals who have previously relied on specialist knowledge and years of academic education ? I meet many people on my travels as a speaker who are genuinely worried – yet they still spend a big chunk of their time doing technical updates! It’s been programmed into us that to stay relevant we need to have strong technical knowledge. Sure, we need to have a handle of what’s going on in our own industry, but it’s no longer the main thing that keeps us relevant as individuals.
Your most valuable currency is who you are in the context for your industry, who you are connected to, the quality of your personal reputation and your social reach. Your emotional connection to other people is something that can’t be automated. Robots can’t empathise with clients or colleagues, they can’t share the vision of what the future might be, and they can’t look you in the eye and inspire you to do great things.
The education you need to stay ahead today is personal development. You need to keep getting to know yourself better, uncover your leadership blind-spots, and develop the skills and discipline to eliminate distractions. Self awareness and ruthless self-accountability is the new power.
Sophie’s latest book Find Your Flame – Why Motivation Matters More Than Talent is available on Amazon now. You can find out more about booking Sophie to speak at a conference, event or at your company & view her show-reel HERE
