A very interesting roundtable discussion at Skillsoft's Perspectives 2019 user conference. The discussion was hosted by Ron Hovsepian, Executive Chairman, Skillsoft. Participants included Xi Xi Jia, Global Head of Learning and Development CoE, RELX Group, Heber Sambucetti, V.P. Learning and Development, Accenture, and Jennifer Rinck, V.P. Learning, Hilton.

They discussed how learning is a critical part of each organization given the need to attract, keep, and reskill employees. RELX, the parent of Reed Elsevier, Lexis Nexis and more, has 30,000 globally distributed employees in 40 countries. Accenture has gone from 40,000 to 275,000 employees in the past five years and has 40,000 employees participating in their Skillpoint learning portal every month. Hilton has 17 brands and 400,000 employees and uses curated, global content to train employees worldwide. All three are delivering learning to team members on a continuous basis with compliance and inclusion being a big issue.

Employees need to feel emotionally and physically safe and they need to know they are complying with the laws and regulations of the countries in which they are working.

All three agreed that "soft skills" are the new "power skills." They can find people with technical skills; however, four power skills are mandatory for an employee to be a successful contributor to an organization today.

The four power skills are:

1. Deep empathy - with colleagues and customers

2. Complex problem-solving skills

3. Design thinking

4. The ability to look at things from different perspectives

All four of these are necessary to innovate, to find different and better ways of doing things. How well do you listen and understand others? How good are you at considering other points of view? How well do you work with other people in functions other than your own?

Today, every business is a technology business and this provides great opportunities for developers, engineers, and architects. However, to successfully manage others you must be able to empathize with them, understand their point of view, and be willing to accept others' ideas. 

When asked what they saw as the biggest need over the next three years, the group agreed that it's the ability to implement agile as a principle throughout the business. To focus on the highest, and most lucrative priorities first.