NUANCES OF TOMORROW

Preface: In the course of my work, while I interview or observing any presentations
or pitch for ideas, I see that people struggle to articulate it and make it a compelling
story, thereby even a great idea loses its opportunity. Also in the interactions with
school and college students, one of the things that I observe that very few take the
courage to raise their hands and volunteer while most of them are very passive or
wanting to work behind the scenes. They are shy and does not want to take the
lead because of fear of failure. This article on nuances of tomorrow stresses upon
on how important are the soft skills for a better tomorrow and calls for action from
the youth.
The world around us is fast changing, advancement in technology is very rapid
and some of these changes are disruptive, yet we need to keep pace else we will
be nobody! Industry studies state that the number of technological changes that
would happen in the next 10 years would be far faster and disruptive than the
entire industrial revolution that happened between 1900 to 2000! Also, it is the
time of the millennials who are very dynamic and have their very own way of
seeing and doing things with amazing absorption and retention skills. It is going
to be a world of the highest educated generation – a lot have access to education.
Automation will replace repetitive work. With technology like Artificial Intelligence
(AI) and Machine Learning (ML), more and more software applications will be run
as automated tasks (BOTS) thus reducing interactions and manpower. These
are used in decision making, behavioural analytics, paving the way to a lot of
predictive inferences thereby advancing the value chain of work. So the new era of
jobs will play a pivotal role in eliminating some that exists today.
Young generation compounded with fast-changing technology, tomorrow’s
workforce will be hired for potential and not experience! This is a paradigm shift in
workforce hiring and employability and only a few that stand out will make it. It is
a choice whether we see this as a threat or an opportunity. We just have to evolve
faster to adapt to changing needs.
Stop calling them Soft skills
I believe that we should be focusing on building certain skills, as core skills that have
been traditionally seen as supplementary skills. Communication, interpersonal
skills, negotiation and influencing, working and winning in the virtual environment,
team building, leadership skills, agility, humility are no longer SOFT skills, but
they are essential skills to thrive in this new era! Any technology’s lifetime is short
and so learning them will be helpful, but it will not be lifelong. One should be more
agile to stay ahead of these changes to sustain.

The world is shrinking, physical boundaries are blurring and so only if anybody
is able to articulate his/her ideas, concepts, solutions and influence the potential
investors, executives, they can stand out or create an impact. How unique and
differentiating are their solutions, how do they present, how do they interact, will
they complement in a group, would they stand against the odds will be evaluated.
These skills will be the gateway to measure one’s potential and thereby to hire or
not.
Building skills for tomorrow
So, invest in building these skills right away. Presentation skills should be taught
and practised. People should get out of the fear zone and focus on making impactful
presentations, leverage every opportunity to raise their hands and sign up to try
something new. They should also be able to work as a team, leveraging each other’s
strengths and turn differences to unique propositions and win as a team. Impactful
communication will be the key to success. So, why wait? Start today and practice.
With practice, one can acquire new skills. It hurts a lot when we are not able to
express our points of view and have to lose or somebody else gets the limelight. So,
find ways to get over that inhibition to express or speak up. Most successful people
have done it and YOU CAN!

About the Author:

Bhaduri works as a Director, Product development at PayPal India. She has close
to 20 years of experience in the IT, starting as a fresh graduate in Electrical and Electronics
Engineering with Computer Sciences Corporation Ltd., formerly Covansys. She has a
Masters degree in business administration. She has varied work experience having worked
in different domains including Insurance, Financial products & healthcare & consulting to
complete product development till deployments, and has travelled to many places across the
globe on business assignments. She has worked in the US, the UK for extended periods in
her career.
She has lead eWIT [eBay women in technology] and many more women forums in eBay and
PayPal. A strong proponent of women in technology, she is a core member of Inclusion and
Diversity initiatives in PayPal. She mentors and coaches many women within her organization
and volunteers outside. She also worked on Back to work [Recharge] program for Pay-Pal. She
has partnered with “JobsForHer” to help women with career break come back to mainstreams
of work. She has worked with various colleges as part of campus recruitments to bridge
the gap between academia and their fitment to work. She has great passion in serving the
community as well and has been a core member of Opportunity Hackathon initiative – one
that connects the techies with the Non- profits in a 36-hour hackathon to develop technology
solutions for them.
Bhaduri is married to Saravanakumar, a senior director in the field of Information Technology
and has a lovely daughter Ananya. She is learning painting and Sanskrit language. An avid
book reader and loves gardening too. She is now pursuing masters in Psychology. She has a
great network of friends and enjoys each day taking care of her career, hobbies and family.
She serves as a Trustee in LCCT