02-07-2025
Workplace Agility Is Vital During Disruption—So What Is It, Exactly?
Elaine Pulakos, Ph.D., is CEO of PDRI by Pearson, and an internationally recognized contributor to the field of I/O psychology.
The workplace has undergone an extraordinary transformation in just the last four years. Pandemic-driven economic shocks threw entire industries into chaos, and remote work shifted from a rare exception to an expectation. Then generative AI took the world by storm, reshaping workflows and powering new, previously unthinkable capabilities. Now, political and economic changes at the global scale have led to sudden shifts that are disrupting individuals and organizations.
But even before the pandemic touched off this current period of upheaval, businesses' technical skill requirements were already rapidly evolving. A 2021 Gartner study revealed that one-third of the technical skills listed in job postings for sales, finance and IT roles in 2017 had become obsolete by 2021. This trend has likely accelerated, creating a fundamental challenge: How can professionals remain valuable when technical competencies have increasingly shorter shelf lives?
In this environment, employees need more than traditional skills to succeed. They need agility. In particular, they need a constellation of six specific power skills that enable them to thrive and perform effectively amid disruption, volatility and dramatic change.
What Are Power Skills?
Commonly referred to as soft skills, power skills are employees' durable, often innate capabilities that form the foundation for performing effectively across different roles and situations. They include skills like empathy, initiative, attention to detail and critical thinking. I prefer the term "power skills" because it emphasizes how important they are to employees' success.
As disruptive change has increasingly characterized work settings, many of the power skills that matter have evolved. Consider interpersonal effectiveness. While the ability to collaborate and get along with colleagues remains important, today's workplace demands more sophisticated interpersonal intelligence. Modern professionals must quickly identify others' needs, accurately read situational cues and rapidly adjust their communication approaches and actions to achieve important outcomes.
6 Essential Characteristics Of Workplace Agility
Multiple studies have noted the characteristics that collectively enable workplace agility. To perform successfully today, focusing on these key six will be vital.
1. Resilience: Employees need the ability to maintain composure under pressure and direct their energy toward constructive solutions, rather than becoming paralyzed by uncertainty. Resiliency allows them to absorb setbacks without becoming demoralized and maintain perspective during difficult circumstances.
2. Creative Problem-Solving: As the pace of change accelerates, established solutions often become obsolete quickly. Professionals with strong creative problem-solving capabilities can generate novel ideas and think beyond conventional parameters to develop innovative approaches.
3. Adaptability: Highly adaptable employees effectively adjust plans, goals and priorities in response to dynamic situations. They recognize when circumstances warrant course corrections and implement these adjustments, rather than sticking to an approach that's no longer working.
4. Continuous Learning: One of the most critical power skills today is the ability and willingness to engage in perpetual learning. This encompasses more than taking the time to learn additional skills. Today, employees must create their own insurance policy against obsolescence by proactively identifying emerging skills and taking steps to acquire them.
5. Interpersonal Savvy: Modern professional environments require interpersonal intelligence that goes beyond basic collegiality. Team members should be able to demonstrate keen insight into others' motivations and tailor their approach to effectively influence diverse stakeholders. In matrix organizations where formal authority is limited, interpersonal savvy often determines who can mobilize resources that will enable initiatives' success.
6. Cultural Versatility: As organizations become increasingly global, cultural versatility has emerged as a critical capability. But it's more than the ability to work with people from different backgrounds. Culturally versatile and intelligent employees take conscious, deliberate action to understand other cultures' needs, customs and values. They also recognize how their own cultural conditioning influences their assumptions and actively work to expand their cultural intelligence.
In a world where the only certainty is change, agility isn't just an advantage. It's essential for survival and success. By prioritizing the identification and development of workplace agility, forward-thinking companies will be able to evolve with the pace of change. In fact, the organizations that thrive will be able to actively shape any change to their advantage.
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