Future Skills Finder

Ambiguity competence

Definition: Ambiguity competence as a Future Skill refers to an individual’s ability to recognise, understand, and finally productively handle ambiguity, heterogeneity, and uncertainty, as well as to act in different roles. (mean value: 4.3 of 5, standard deviation: 0.92)

Reference Competences: dealing with uncertainty, dealing with heterogeneity, ability to act in different roles.

Design-thinking competence

Definition: The Future Skill Profile design-thinking competence comprises the ability to use concrete methods to carry out creative development processes open-endedly with regard to given problems and topics and to involve all stakeholders in a joint problem and solution design process.

Reference Competences: flexibility and openness, versatility, ability to shift perspectives, interdisciplinarity

Digital literacy

Definition: Digital literacy is the ability and disposition to use digital media, to develop them in a productive and creative way, the capacity to critically reflect on its usage and the impact media have on society and work, both for private and professional contexts, as well as the understanding of the potentials and limits of digital media and their effects. (mean value: 4.5 of 5, standard deviation: 0.80)

Reference Competences: media literacy, information literacy

Decision competence

Definition: Decision competence as a Future Skill is the ability to seize decisions and to evaluate different alternatives against each other, as well as making a final decision and taking over the responsibility for it. (mean value: 4.5 of 5, standard deviation: 0.71)

Reference Competences: Responsibility-taking

Ethical competence

Definition: Ethical competence as a Future Skill Profile comprises the ability to perceive a situation or situation as ethically relevant, including its conceptual, empirical and contextual consideration (perceive), the ability to formulate relevant prescriptive premises together with the evaluation of their relevance, their weight, their justification, their binding nature and their conditions of application (evaluate) and the ability to form judgements and check their logical consistency, their conditions of use and their alternatives (judge).

Initiative and performance competence

Definition: The Future Skill initiative and performance competence refers to an individual’s ability to motivate him-/herself as well as to his/her wish of ontributing to achievement. Persistence and goal-orientation form the motivational basis for performance. A positive self-concept also plays an important role as it serves to attribute success and failure in such a way that the performance motivation does not decrease. (mean value: 4.1 of 5, standard deviation: 0.91)

Reference Competences: (intrinsic) motivation, self-motivation, motivation capability, initiative-taking, need/motivation for achievement, engagement, persistence, goal-orientation

Innovation competence

Definition: Innovation competence as a Future Skill profile includes the willingness to promote innovation as an integral part of any organizational object, topic and process and the ability to contribute to the organization as an innovation ecosystem. (mean: 4.3 of 5, standard deviation: 0.75)

Reference Competences: creativity, innovative thinking, willingness to experiment

Communication competence

Definition: Communication competence as a Future Skill entails not only language skills, but also discourse, dialogue, and strategic communication aspects, which - taken together - serve the individual to communicate successfully and in accordance with the respective situation and context, in view and empathy of her/his own and others needs.(mean value: 4.6 of 5, standard deviation: 0.68)

Reference Competences: language proficiency, presentation competence, capacity for dialogue, communication readiness, consensus orientation, openness towards criticism

Cooperation competence

Definition: Cooperation competence as Future Skills relates to the is the ability and disposition to cooperate and collaborate in (intercultural) teams either in faceto-face or digitally-supported interactions within or between organisations with the purpose of transforming differences into commonalities. Social intelligence, team-working competences and consultation competence play a key role for this competence.(mean value: 4.6 of 5, standard deviation: z.67)

Reference Competences: social intelligence, team-working ability, leader as a coach, intercultural competence (organisational culture), consulting expertise

Learning literacy

Definition: Learning literacy is the ability and willingness to learn in a self-directed and self-initiated fashion. It entails metacognitive skills as well. (mean value: 4.5 of 5, standard deviation: 0.68)

Reference Competences: self-directed learning, metacognitive skills

Reflective competence

Definition: Reflective competence as a Future Skill includes the willingness and ability to reflect, i.e. the ability to question oneself and others for the purpose of constructive further development, as well as to recognise underlying systems of behaviour, thought and values and to assess their consequences for actions and decisions holistically. (mean value: 4.5 of 5, standard deviation: 0.65)

Reference Competences: critical thinking, self-reflection competence

Self-determination

Definition: Self-determination as a Future Skill describes an individual’s ability to act productively within the field of tension between external structure and self-organisation, and to create room for self-development and autonomy, so that they can meet their own needs in freedom and self-organisation. (mean value: 4.5 of 5, standard deviation: 0.61)

Reference Competences: Autonomy

Self-competence

Definition: Self-competence as a Future Skill is the ability to develop one’s own personal and professional capabilities largely independently of external influences (see also KMK 2015). This includes other skills such as independent self-motivation and planning. But also the ability to set goals, time management, organization, learning aptitude and success control through feedback. In addition, cognitive load management and a high degree of personal responsibility. (mean value: 4.5 of 5, standard deviation: 0.82)

Reference Competences: self-management, self-organisation competence, self-regulation, Cognitive Load Management, self-responsibility

Self-efficacy

Definition: Self-efficacy as a Future Skill Profile refers to the belief and one’s (self-) confidence to be able to master the tasks at hand relying on one’s own abilities and taking over responsibility for one’s decisions. (mean value: 4.4 of 5, standard deviation: 0.69)

Reference Competences: Self-confidence

Sensemaking

Definition: The Future Skill Profile Sensemaking comprises the willingness and ability to construct meaning and understanding from the rapidly changing structures of meaning within future work and life contexts, to further develop existing structures of meaning or to promote the creation of new ones where they have been lost. (mean value: 4.0 of 5, standard deviation: 0.90)

Reference Competences: meaning creation, value orientation

Systems competence

Definition: Systems competence as a Future Skill is the ability to recognise and understand complex personal-psychological, social and technical (organisational) systems as well as their mutual influences and to be able to design and/or accompany coordinated planning and implementation processes for new initiatives in the system. (mean value: 4.3 of 5, standard deviation: 0.73)

Reference Competences: systems-thinking, knowledge about knowledge structures, navigation competence within knowledge structures, networked thinking, analytical competence, synergy creation, application competence, problem-solving, adaptability

Future and design competence

Definition: Future and design competence is the ability to master the current situation with courage for the new, willingness to change and forward thinking. To develop situations into other, new and previously unknown visions of the future and to approach these creatively. (mean value: 4.3 of 5, standard deviation: 0.81)

Reference Competences: willingness to change, ability to continuously improve, future mindset, courage for the unknown, readiness for development, ability to challenge oneself