Skills vs Mindset in the AI Era

At 60, I still delight in approaching each new challenge with a beginners mind set.

It’s what researchers term "deprivation sensitivity" – the psychological hunger for an understanding: The alluring draw of the why?

My career trajectory resembles a rather haphazard game of pinball, not just from design to advertising, but from B2C to B2B, and steps from: Creative Director to Strategist to Agency founder to Investor to Client, etc.

Each ricochet taught me something. Curiosity consistently trumps credentials.

Recent studies reveal 81% of employees acknowledge AI fundamentally alters required workplace competencies. The World Economic Forum identifies curiosity, creative thinking, and flexibility as core, central skills for future work place success.

Intriguing, how we've arrived at valuing really ancient human traits in our most technologically advanced AI era.

Contemporary workplace innovation increasingly stems from curiosity-driven exploration rather than process adherence. Multiple studies demonstrate that deprivation sensitivity correlates more strongly with adaptive performance than technical proficiency alone.

My zigzag career wasn't planned, but it cultivated something invaluable: comfort with discomfort. Each pivot demanded simultaneous hunger for learning and disciplined competency development.

The difference now is the urgent requirement of concurrent curiosity and capability in perpetual refreshed mode.

The limiting factor isn't technical constraints – it's our own ambition and intellectual appetite.

Competency without curiosity will create professional dead ends.

Now its about cultivating a beginner's mindset as a core competency. Develop systematic comfort with uncertainty.

Crucial point: Practice intellectual humility alongside technical skill acquisition.

You are NOT an AI expert, be honest, we barely grasp the AI workplace implications of the next 6 months, let alone the rest of the decade. >> Look up Rana Adhikari at the California Institute of Technology, who recently found some AI models designing experiments that defy human expectations, sometimes bypassing controls. (Article in Wired, et al.)

So its clear, the most valuable professional asset isn't knowing everything.

It's maintaining the discipline to approach everything as if you know nothing.

The challenge now is how to institutionalise intellectual curiosity within traditional competency frameworks

Skills vs Mindset in the AI Era

At 60, I still delight in approaching each new challenge with a beginner’s mindset. It’s what researchers term "deprivation sensitivity" – the psychological hunger for an understanding: The alluring draw of the why?

My career trajectory resembles a rather haphazard game of pinball, not just from design to advertising, but from B2C to B2B, and steps from: Creative Director to Strategist to Agency founder to Investor to Client, etc.

Each ricochet taught me something. Curiosity consistently trumps credentials.

Recent studies reveal 81% of employees acknowledge AI fundamentally alters required workplace competencies. The World Economic Forum identifies curiosity, creative thinking, and flexibility as core, central skills for future workplace success.

Intriguing, how we've arrived at valuing really ancient human traits in our most technologically advanced AI era.

Contemporary workplace innovation increasingly stems from curiosity-driven exploration rather than process adherence. Multiple studies demonstrate that deprivation sensitivity correlates more strongly with adaptive performance than technical proficiency alone.

My zigzag career wasn't planned, but it cultivated something invaluable: comfort with discomfort. Each pivot demanded simultaneous hunger for learning and disciplined competency development.

The difference now is the urgent requirement of concurrent curiosity and capability in a perpetual refreshed mode.

The limiting factor isn't technical constraints – it's our own ambition and intellectual appetite.

Competency without curiosity will create professional dead ends.

Now its about cultivating a beginner's mindset as a core competency. Develop systematic comfort with uncertainty.

Crucial point:

Practice intellectual humility alongside technical skill acquisition.

You are NOT an AI expert, be honest, we barely grasp the AI workplace implications of the next 6 months, let alone the rest of the decade. >> Look up Rana Adhikari at the California Institute of Technology, who recently found some AI models designing experiments that defy human expectations, sometimes bypassing controls. (Article in Wired, et al.)

So its clear, the most valuable professional asset isn't knowing everything.

It's maintaining the discipline to approach everything as if you know nothing.

The challenge now is how to institutionalise intellectual curiosity within traditional competency frameworks

Reshaping the working week

It is clear to many that the shape of a typical working week has changed. Considering the vast amount of recent insight into the effects of WFH v Onsite, much produced with once in a generation scale sample sizes. We now know in-office, Monday to Friday, uniformed timed regimes, with associated commutes, are not only unproductive but damaging to individuals' mental health but also detrimental to the recruitment of the brightest minds. Summarising some of the great ideas currently in circulation, Inc HT to @stevenbartlett. I have been looking at the new shape of the working week, especially looking at the creative industries. 

Monday. In-person, catching up and planning work ahead

Tuesday. Hybrid, focused on pursuing, developing, and delivering.

Wednesday. Remote, A day of admin for both home and office. Solitary moments that allow critical creative thinking time 

Thursday. Hybrid, another day of focused work

Friday. In-person a day to review, showcase and celebrate

Saturday/Sunday. Unstructured time to recharge and reconnect with self, friends and family

I feel the new working week is a balance between onsite in-person collaborations and remote singular endeavours. A recent scientific study using MRI scans has shown online ideation sessions hamper our full cognitive abilities. One of the authors Melanie Brucks of Columbia Business School said

‘...videoconferencing hampers idea generation because it focuses communicators on a screen, which prompts a narrower cognitive focus. Our results suggest that virtual interaction comes with a cognitive cost for creative idea generation….’

Which is balanced by a recent ONS report showing that of those now working either fully or partially remote the key benefits were positive mental health and work-life balance.

So balancing in person with remote is important. Equally so is the ring fencing of thinking time. Its vital for our brains to have moments to gather all the inputs and just ponder what if?

For years educationalists have spoken of the power of wait time in building higher cognitive learning. The renowned psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talked about the social dimension of the solitary moment and its importance in the creative process.

Cristina Garcia co-author of California’s new four-day working week bill, summed up the mood for change; “...We’ve seen over 47 million people voluntarily leave their jobs for better opportunities. We’re seeing a labor shortage across the board from small to big businesses……And so it’s very clear that employees don’t want to go back to normal or the old way, but to rethink and go back to [something] better.” 

It might seem obvious, it was after all written by a management consultancy, but McKinsey wrote in their future report

‘...People who live their purpose at work are more productive than people who don’t. They are also healthier, more resilient, and more likely to stay at the company.…’