Faith had always felt adequately skilled at her job, until the company brought in a new system. Everyone but Faith took the new training. She had been on vacation when the company installed the new system and had the trainers on the premises. Everyone took a little time to adjust. Some had more difficulty than others. But they all made the adjustment before long, all except Faith. To Faith, the whole system seemed counterintuitive. Everything she did was wrong, indeed the opposite of what she should have done. Everyone knew Faith was struggling, and everyone wanted to help. But she just couldn’t seem to get the knack of it. She soon got so flustered that she lost all confidence and started to look for excuses not to come to work.
Dimensions
Job success has components or dimensions. Skill is the second of three critical dimensions for success at work, including (1) knowledge, (2) skills, and (3) ethics. Job knowledge helps you understand and grasp the goals and methods of work. Job skills help you get the work done correctly and efficiently. Job ethics give you the reasons for doing the work. All three dimensions of work are important. Failure along any one of the three dimensions can get you fired. You may be brilliant and skilled, but if you’re unethical, you won’t be long on the job. You may alternatively be skilled and ethical, but if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll not have a job for long. And same thing if you’re knowledgeable and ethical but you so badly lack skill that you can’t get the job done. All three dimensions are important. Yet of the three dimensions, skill may be the most significant. In the workplace, you can’t hide a lack of skill. You can’t hide it if you can’t get the job done.
Skill
Skill involves the capacity to complete a task to standards, consistently and efficiently. Think of it: skill means getting things accomplished quickly and predictably in a way that benefits the larger operation integrating the particular task. Few things in life are more satisfying than exhibiting skill. Exhibiting skill first of all means that you have developed the capacity to complete in a proper way a structured activity of some procedural complexity. We don’t call someone skilled when they can eat, drink, or tie their shoes. Ordinary self-care isn’t skill; it’s instead an expectation, a given for basic maturity. Skill, though, means something more. Skill is an accomplishment, perhaps not especially distinguishing because we nearly all have skill of one sort or another, but an accomplishment nonetheless. To say that someone has skill marks them as able to get on in the world with at least the one thing in which they have skill, whether that thing is translating a foreign language, driving a forklift, or organizing a social-work case file. Value skill. It means a lot.
Integration
Skill doesn’t necessarily mean mastery of a whole job or field. But a skilled welder, designer, coder, or editor at least has something to offer an employer, if the employer can supply the other components necessary to the offered goods or services. To have skill at job tasks means even more than having skill at navigating on one’s own in the world. Skill at job tasks implies accomplishing something that fits well with other things that others are accomplishing in an operation providing goods or services. Employers value skills that fit with their operations. Indeed, employers structure jobs around the functions they need to fulfill. Job descriptions are generally best when they describe both the tasks the worker must accomplish and the skills they must exercise in doing so. A bookkeeper, for instance, doesn’t just keep financial records. A bookkeeper keeps accurate records and prepares regular reports so that the employer can manage finances responsibly. Job skill, in other words, depends not on just doing a task well, such as making bookkeeping entries. Job skill instead involves doing the task well to accomplish the employer’s purpose. You may be marvelously skilled at something that doesn’t quite fit or does not at all fit your employer’s needs. Direct your skill to the job at hand, not that at which you are good but that does not fit. Your struggle might be fit, not skill.
Ambition
To have the ambition of acquiring skill at anything useful is an admirable trait. The insolent, the lazy, meaning those who just don’t care about making any effort to do something worthwhile and well, miss something extraordinarily special. They miss the opportunity to make something of their life. They miss pouring themselves into the welfare of others and of their community and workplace. They miss making meaning out of their life and having a purpose that restores, orders, and elevates creation. That is what skill does: it makes order out of creation’s chaos and, in so doing, brings beauty, good, flourishing, and life. Skill heals, redeems, and restores. Skill repairs and replenishes, and brings peace and joy. Skill inspires, commands, and instructs. Make it your ambition to acquire, develop, and refine job skills. Job skills are a primary way you have to share your gifts, talents, and life.
Training
Skill doesn’t generally come from education but instead from training. Education may build a knowledge base essential to exercise skill. But skill involves steady and competent application or use of the knowledge base. It’s not enough to know. You must also be able to do something with what you know. And that application of your knowledge base, or skill, comes with clinical training. You need actual practice under the close supervision of accomplished training supervisors who know how to guide you in the development of your skill. Programs of education may include clinical training, such as an internship or residency, especially after students acquire their essential knowledge base. But other than in those limited clinical programs, education doesn’t generally have the structure to provide substantial practice opportunities to students, of the kind that would build substantial and valuable skills. You don’t generally leave school skilled, only knowledgeable. Skill instead comes with practice. If you’re just entering the workforce after a program of education, expect some form of training to build your skill. Welcome every training opportunity your employer offers. If you find yourself lacking essential skills due to inexperience, get your supervisor’s help choosing or constructing a training program. A little training can go a long way. Don’t beat yourself up over not having the skill to do a new job. Get help with training.
Practice
Even if you’ve already had the education and training to do your job, you likely need practice at your job’s functions in order to develop, exhibit, and claim actual skill. The standards on the job may be significantly higher than training standards. Training should prepare you for the job. But in training, you can generally make a few mistakes. On the job, you may not have much if any room for error. Training also tends to strictly control the conditions so that the trainees can focus on the skill. On the job, the conditions may be significantly more varied and challenging. Instead of practicing your skill in a perfectly temperature-controlled, well-lit, and clean laboratory, you’re practicing your skill in the wind, rain, dark, or dirt, or on a screaming and writhing patient rather than a dummy. You get the picture. If you’re new on the job and have the basic skill but no practice with it, take every opportunity to practice. Arrive early, stay late, and take the extra assignments, especially if your supervisor is offering you practice opportunities. If experienced workers don’t like doing a certain job that would provide you with additional practice, offer to do it for them. Take the inconvenient, unpleasant, and hard assignments, until you have gained enough practice to exhibit skill under the full range of work conditions.
Simulations
Employers know the value of practice so well that some arrange to provide simulated practice. Simulations are most common around skills that carry high danger for the worker or for the worker’s customer, client, or patient. Surgeons, emergency technicians, pilots, astronauts, and auto racers may spend hours in simulations. But simulations are also popular and helpful in fields like trial law, law enforcement, firefighting, cybersecurity, and manufacturing. Lawyers at all levels of experience, even those who regularly appear before the Supreme Court, practice arguments and cross-examinations in moot court. Police officers not only practice continually on the shooting range but also practice their instant responses to dangerous situations in dark rooms before video screens. Firefighters set whole buildings ablaze to practice fire control and rescue. Cybersecurity personnel practice responses to cyberattacks. Even manufacturers offer simulations for workers to practice intense skills and emergency responses. Where formal simulators are not available, gaming can provide substitute practice. Investigate simulated practice opportunities around your job skills. You might be surprised by what is available to you.
Experience
Nothing is quite as effective as on-the-job experience for building raw skills. You usually get better at something the longer you do it. As already suggested above, seek experience. Take on the extra assignment. Do the extra work until you’ve gained enough experience to hone your skills. But recognize, too, that experience is only a sound teacher when the experience itself meets the standards of skill. Experience in a workplace where everyone takes shortcuts and the standards are low may only teach you how not to do a job, not how to do your job right. To improve your job skills, be sure that you’re working with others who exhibit strong skills. If you’re in a unit where the work standards are low, try to associate with the workers with the strongest skills or move to a stronger unit. Learn higher standards and stronger skills from your supervisor or a master or mentor in your unit. A bad experience can still teach you something. But consistently practicing a skill wrong only teaches you bad habits. Get good experience, not bad practice.
Feedback
One of the quickest ways to improve your job skills is to get feedback on those skills. We spend a lot of the time on the job without substantial feedback. Employers generally have some relatively wide process controls. Get too far out of line, and you’ll hear about it. But those controls assume that workers have basic skills in which they need no particular improvement. Employers may not give workers any feedback unless their skills fall so far below the ordinary that they’re no longer doing their job. Then, you’ll hear about it, potentially with job termination. You, though, don’t want just basic skills. You instead want strong and even masterful skills. To improve your skills, seek feedback, and not just once but regularly. Let your supervisor know that you’re not just working to get by but to improve your skill. Encourage your supervisor to share not just your big skills issues but also the small things, how you can improve even if your work is already acceptable. Do the same with your co-workers. You might be surprised how willing some senior workers are to share their insights on skills, with other workers who show an interest. And don’t fight the feedback. No matter how right, wrong, or stinging your feedback may be, listen to it, thank the one who gives it, and learn what you can from it. A grain of truth can exist in even the harshest criticism.
Goals
Setting goals for improving your skills can help. As you go through your workdays, make a record of things on which you see that you could improve. Those things may include how quickly you do something, how thoroughly you do something, how often you do something without an error, or the higher quality you could reach in doing something. Your goals could also include acquiring the skill to take on new or higher-value assignments. Make your goals measurable, meaning that you can tell whether you’re gaining or losing ground in moving toward the goal. And make your goals achievable, even if only barely achievable. Don’t shoot for the moon if moonshots are impossible in your line of work. Set an incremental goal that you can achieve within a reasonable amount of time, with reasonable effort. Then set a further goal leading you forward. If you’re unsure of what goals you might adopt, then look around at your most-skilled co-workers, and ask around, especially your supervisor. Your supervisor may have clear ideas for your job-skill improvements.
Processes
Process studies can be another way to improve your job skills. A process study closely examines a discrete job task to articulate the steps the worker must take to complete the task. When you break down one of your job tasks into its separate little steps, you can begin to see possibilities for improving the little steps in small ways or for rearranging or eliminating steps. Sometimes, it’s hard to see how to improve until you take the job task apart and look at each part. You may find that you’re wasting actions or not focusing enough attention or resources on a critical action. A process study may also teach you that someone else, like an assistant or unskilled laborer, should be doing one step so that you can focus your skill and attention on another step. You may also discover that a new tool, program, or arrangement of your workstation would improve your job skill. Share your process study with your supervisor or co-workers to see what you can learn from them, too.
Recordings
Another way to improve your job skills may be to record and analyze what you are doing. Depending on the nature of your job task, a video recording, audio recording, or screen or keystroke recording may be appropriate. If you’ve never seen or heard yourself work, in some form of recording, you may be surprised at how you look and sound. You may learn that you can and should improve your dress, hygiene, posture, or demeanor. You may alternatively learn that you can and should improve your tone, word choice, diction, volume, form of address, or eye contact. You may need to stop with the ums and likes, stop gesticulating wildly or nervously with your hands, and slow down or speed up your speech. You may also be able to tell from a recording that you are not doing what you thought you were doing or not doing it long, loud, or well enough. If you have a hard time watching or listening to yourself doing a job task, such as a client intake, patient assessment, or assembly task, then discern what’s bothering you about your own performance, and work to improve it. You can even set measurable goals for achieving such vague but important things as presence and poise. You may have abundant ways to improve your job skills. Go for it.
Reflection
Which is your strongest work dimension, (1) job knowledge, (2) job skills, or (3) job ethics? Why? How would you rate your overall job skill on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the peak skill you could hope to obtain? What job skill or aspect of a job skill is holding you back from peak performance? What can you do to improve that trailing skill or aspect of skill? Can you ascertain any available training that could improve your job skill? Do you have additional practice opportunities to improve your job skills? Are any simulations available to you, even gaming opportunities, that might hone your job skills? How do you assess your job experience, as positive and thorough, or as negative and lacking? Can you discern any opportunities to improve your job experience through mentoring or reassignment? Do you receive any job feedback, such as in an annual evaluation? Can you seek more feedback and do more with the feedback that you receive? Do you have job-skill goals that you can set to help you give greater attention to your job improvement? Would you be willing to try a process study of your worst or hardest job task or to record yourself doing that task so that you can analyze your performance for improvements?
Key Points
Job success involves the dimensions of knowledge, skill, and ethics.
Skill involves performing to standards consistently and efficiently.
Your employer needs you skillful at its tasks, not your own talents.
Exhibit the ambition, desire, and plan to improve your job skills.
Seek and accept any training that may improve your job skills.
Seek extra practice opportunities at job skills you need to improve.
Simulated practice may be available, even through gaming devices.
Seek job experiences among skilled co-workers and strong units.
Seek and incorporate regular constructive feedback on your job skills.
Set and pursue measurable goals for improving your job skills.
Conduct a process study and record and analyze your poorest job skill.