I came across the ICT Manifesto 2010-2014, the national Dutch agenda for ICT. It’s interesting to read what the formulated challenges were in (before) 2010. I do think all of the mentioned challenges are still present and it is an ongoing journey. In relation to Damarque, some of the challenges are impacted by soft skills,collaboration and what more. Let’s explore.The seven challenges for the ICT industry (Dutch) as formulated by ICT~Office are:
1. Adequate, well-educated workforce
2. Security & Trust
3. Architecture, Interoperability and Open Standards
4. Science and Innovation
5. Being a good client and contractor
6. Investments in the next generation of ICT infrastructure
7. New relationships, work environments and the use of social media
The three that instantly, and by reading the elaborations in the PDF, come to mind in relation to Emotional Intelligence and soft skills and competencies are:
- Adequate, well-educated workforce
- Being a good client and contractor
- New relationships, work environments and the use of social media
Ad. Adequate, well-educated workforce
Right now in the Netherlands the ICT industry is under pressure, risking a double shortage of adequate and well-educated ICT professionals when there will be an economic uprise. It is in the ICT education that already should be focussing in acquiring and excelling in soft skills, to make sure ICT professionals are able to effectively communicate and understand for instance business issues, a client with skills such as cross-functional communication, value selling and conflictmanagement.
Ad. Being a good client and contractorThis is a rough translation from the document, it means that ICT processes are getting more complex and it needs both the client and the contractor to make the change a successful change. Both parties are needed, this might sound logical and a cliché but the document mentions that in quite some organizations there is distrust towards the ICT industry throughout implementations. Focus is beyond ‘hard’ IT skills, but also sourcing, developing business cases, security and trust.
Ad. New relationships, work environments and the use of social media
The knowledge worker becomes key. Supported by technology it can work anywhere and at any time having access to any kind of data. Technology is supportive and the document states very cleary that attention should also be given to the organization, its culture and management in the way how they manage all these technologies and developments. Technology, people and processes: if you only tackle the first, instead of improved productivity and employee satisfaction you risk to achieve the less productivity and satisfaction. This has everything to do with communication, co-creation, cultural change that needs to be guided effectively.
Richard Branson said: “A company is people…employees want to know…am I being listened to or am I a cog in the wheel? People really need to feel wanted.”ICT is key but people are not part of that cog in the wheel, they direct and guide it. How can people be inspired and managed?
According to –one of many- survey soft skills are just as crucial to organizational performance as any other skills that might be brought under discussion.
85 percent of top – performing organizations and three – quarters of the survey respondents have named a set of skills – such as listening, persuasion and teamwork - as skills that lead to a successful performance and most companies simply can’t do without them anymore.Soft skills are critical for ICT survival, are you investing in them?
Dit artikel is afkomstig van de blog van Damarque en is geschreven door Gianluigi Cuccureddu