Page 26 - The Interconnected Individual: Seizing Opportunity in the Era of AI, Platforms, Apps, and Global Exchanges

HOw TO NAVIgATE YOUR CAREER 69

value. The vertical bar on the T represents the depth of related skills and
expertise in a given field; the horizontal bar is the ability to collaborate
across disciplines with experts in other areas and to apply knowledge in
areas of expertise other than one’s own. 9
Use LinkedIn Learning to see what you can learn in high-demand
skills customized to your experience, and where to find thousands of
recommended courses offered online.
What do you know how to do? Do you know how to create an app? Do
you know how to run a meeting? Do you know how to take good meet-
ing notes? Can you apply data to problem solving and decision making?
These are specific skill sets that will help build your perceived value.
Do you understand other disciplines so that you can work on
multidisciplinary teams and contribute to geographically dispersed work
teams? If you know how to use platforms and you know how to work
with geographically dispersed workers, you will be in demand, because
that is how future work is going to happen.
How good are you in understanding other disciplines, so you can
communicate with them? You do not have to do their job, but you have to
be able to understand enough of what they do to be able to be a valuable
player.
How well can you work with AI and cloud-based platform tools such
as salesforce.com Salesforce Customer Relationship Management (CRM),
Amazon Web Services, Google Analytics, Microsoft Azure, and IBM Blue-
mix? Those interconnected platforms are going to be valuable for your future.

Learn to Compete to Collaborate
so You Are a Valued Team Member

In school, you are graded on your own writing and test scores; it is your
own work. These values are flipped in the work world. You do not get
a lot of credit for what you do alone. You are valued in terms of how
many people really want to work with you. Many major companies are
evolving, organized around project teams. If you work in enough project

9 “T-shaped Skills,” Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/T-shaped_skills