April 10th, 2019

Stay Relevevant
By Fernando Esteve

Given the dizzying speed of change in today’s world, we must constantly expand our knowledge
and develop the skills that organizations need. As human longevity increases, this preparation is
becoming increasingly important. More and more people undertake multiple training periods
over the course of their lives. A lifelong-learning mindset is the key to staying relevant.

The Bible contains a story known as “The Parable of the Talents.” (There are several versions of
this story, including Matthew 25:14–30.) In the parable, a man hands out units of currency
called talents to his three servants and instructs them to use the talents as best they can. Two
of the servants use the talents to earn a profit, which they hand over to their master upon his
return. But the third servant, fearful of his master’s reaction, buries his talents in the ground and
returns the same amount he was given. This last servant is punished for his carelessness and
lack of commitment.

Religious significance aside, this story shows what happens when we fail to exercise
our talents as professionals: waste and missed opportunities.

As human longevity has increased, so has the length of our working lives. Nowadays, the labor
market demands immediacy and knowledge becomes obsolete in record time. Over the
estimated 50 years of a professional career, it is not unusual for a person to study three different
subjects, with development periods of about 10 years between courses of study. In other words,
every decade or so, we should look for complementary areas in which to expand and update our
knowledge.

In today’s knowledge-hungry society, companies and government bodies

require digital knowledge and skills—and academic institutions must
respond to this need.
10 skills

According to a report from the World Economic Forum, the following are the top 10 skills that
every professional must have in order to remain relevant in the job market of 2020:

1. Complex problem-solving
2. Critical thinking
3. Creativity
4. People management
5. Coordinating with others
6. Emotional intelligence
7. Judgment and decision-making
8. Service orientation
9. Negotiation
10. Cognitive flexibility

Don’t panic—if you want to acquire these skills, a huge amount of information is available to
expand your knowledge. Never before has so much information been available to everyone, and
yet we do not make full use of this possibility. Some have argued that human beings have limited
capacity, but we are constantly expanding the limits of this capacity and demonstrating
empirically that the plasticity of the brain can take us even further.

Every decade or so, we should look for complementary areas in which to

expand and update our knowledge.
The cure for ‘infoxication’

What’s the problem? What’s holding us back? Nowadays, we are “overnewsed but
underinformed.”

With so much information available, we lose sight of the differential value of information. When
everything seems equally important, it becomes impossible to prioritize. Distinguishing the
relevant from the incidental is essential in a world characterized by infoxication. Information
overload prevents us from distinguishing between reliable sources and irrelevant comments.

Technology has facilitated this situation, but it can also help us to achieve new goals. Knowledge
is no longer the redoubt of the few. In today’s knowledge-hungry society, companies and
government bodies require digital knowledge and skills—and academic institutions must
respond to this need.

Besides providing this knowledge, academic institutions must try to anticipate the demands of
companies and institutions by increasing their capacity to provide training in the
new technologies that facilitate and support this knowledge revolution. They must separate the
wheat from the chaff and focus on obtaining results in order to provide a cure for infoxication.
 The industrial revolutions—including the fourth and current one—have
shown that technology is capable of propelling human beings beyond our
previous limits.

Benefits

The ultimate goal is not the technology itself, but rather to increase efficiency and develop new
forms of income—either financial or emotional, in the form of free time.

Technology has demonstrated its enormous capacity to accompany change. The industrial
revolutions—including the fourth and current one—have shown that technology is capable of
propelling human beings beyond our previous limits.

Technologies such as artificial intelligence, process robotization, and big data are demonstrating
their vast potential for transformation and will become more important than ever in the coming
years. The sky is the limit: technology will begin to advance exponentially, leaping ahead in ways
that our linear brains cannot fully anticipate.

Technology will predict your tastes, robots will clean your home and deliver your mail, you’ll be
able to talk to your microwave, your refrigerator will be able to talk to your pantry—all this and
much, much more. Our lives will be filled with new experiences.

To be sure, some people will fear these changes. But they will happen whether we fear them
not, so let’s make the most of this opportunity.

About the Author:

Fernando Esteve

Associate Professor of Information Systems and Associate Director of the International MBA at
IE Business School

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