A recent article in the Washington Post has provided an interesting perspective on 21st Century skills. For the last decade or more, the emphasis from government and education departments was on STEM subjects – Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. It is generally believed that these four core skills (along with the ability to code) are essential for future employment prospects. It appears that there is more to the story than just STEM. Perhaps counterintuitively, this information comes from Google.
In 2013, Google tested its hiring methodology under a research platform titled “Project Oxygen.” The aim was to identify why certain employees succeeded while others did not. This project provided some startling information. Of the eight most important skills of Google’s most valuable employees, STEM skills were eighth. Ahead of STEM were the so-called ‘soft skills’: being a good coach; communication; empathy; understanding others; critical thinking and problem solving; and being able to connect complex ideas.
Google went further in 2016 with Project Aristotle, analysing data on teams. Google has spent most of its existence cultivating exceptionally strong and productive teams, capable of delivering innovative and transformational products. Google’s analysis revealed that teams that embody these soft skills have generated the company’s most valuable ideas. These skills were loosely grouped around two key elements.
Firstly, the teams that shared the communication responsibilities, essentially all speaking roughly the same amount, did better than those teams where some individuals spoke more than others. Second, teams that demonstrated strong understanding of nonverbal cues from others outperformed those teams that showed poor understanding. (If you are interested in how you would do on this measure, take the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test). The intersection of these two elements, when they worked well, turned out to provide a “psychologically safe” environment for team members. Teams felt able to share and contribute without being subject to ridicule or dismissive behaviour. It was this element that unlocked the best teams’ performances.
So, while the current focus on STEM skills is going to provide 21st Century skills for students, what they do with those skills will require a much broader education.
TW
