You might be wondering: there’s something missing here: the author not mention technology skills at all. Are tech skills not important?
Tech skills are extremely important, but do not form a part of the 6 Power skills.
To understand what I mean, we need to look at skills on three levels:
1. Power Skills
2. Tech “enablement” skills
3. Career “technical” skills
I envision these skills as shown in the diagram below:
1 – Power Skills
The outer ring represents the Power skills, which are what this book is all about.
2 – Tech “enablement” skills The middle ring represents the tech “enablement” skills.
Everyone needs tech “enablement” skills. Everyone. If you want to succeed in your career, you will need a competitive advantage, which these skills will provide you with.
What are tech “enablement” skills? Basically, these tech skills that are not a core part of your job, but help to enable your job, to give you conveniences that make life easier. This will include skills like hoe to use word processors, spread sheets, accounting packages, virtual meeting software, project management software, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, learning management systems etc. – the list is huge.
These skills are used to assist people in various careers to do their jobs well, people like accountants, teachers, engineers, project managers, authors, doctors, plumbers, carpenters – you get the picture.
While tech is not a core part of their careers, (many of these careers predated technology) they need technology to streamline their work and to give them a competitive advantage.
For example, a plumber will typically use social media to market his business, a CRM system to track customers, an online accounting package to do his books, and a project management tool to streamline large projects. Take these software tools away, and his work can still continue, although with a fair amount of difficulty.
3 – Career “technical” skills
The circle in the centre represents the Career “technical” skills.
Career “technical” skills are skills that are a core part of your career, an integral part of what you do. Basically, the skills that form a core part of your job, skills that are your profession.
For example, a software developer’s “technical” skills relate to writing code and building software systems. A web designer’s skills relate to building effective websites.
Similarly, a doctor’s “technical” skills relate to diagnosing and helping to cure illnesses; an accountant’s “technical” skills relate to doing the books of organizations.
This applies to people in pretty much every field: plumbing, carpentry, design, cooking, baking, agriculture, sales, marketing – the list goes on and on.
In short, without those skills, you will not have a career. Most people think that these skills are sufficient for career success, but they could not be more wrong. What is needed, are the next category: the “Power skills”.
That is where these 6 power skills fit in. I see them as providing a strong foundation on which to build your career. Or fertile soil on which the seed of your career will take root.
Or a fitting on which the light of your career will glow. You saw a good example of this in Book 1, where I mentioned the story of the unemployed photographer and the wealthy amateur coder. The difference between them was that the photographer relied entirely on his technical skills, while the coder, who had only the most basic skills, made a success of his career by leveraging the Power Skills.
To succeed, you need all 3 rings!