A Harvard Business School professor discussed why one trait can help anyone reach their full potential sooner than expected.
Professor Joseph Fuller, co-founder of Managing the Future of Work, spoke to CNBC Make It this week about what separates high performers from their less successful counterparts.
“They are not locked into a predetermined career path that they established while in college or when they started their first job,” Fuller said.
“They are open to unexpected opportunities and welcome change rather than fear it.”
This “soft skill,” which is adaptability, according to a blog post on LinkedIn, is the most important trait that is “increasingly in demand.”
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Professor Fuller is a graduate of Harvard Business School and teaches the second-year MBA course “Becoming a General Manager.”
The professor told CNBC Make It that setting career goals and timelines for completing your career is great — until it’s not.
According to Fuller, setting career goals and timelines for achieving them can be dangerous if you close yourself off to an unexpected path or route.
This would be the case if adaptability was needed to help successful people realize options that could benefit their careers.
Adaptability is the ability or willingness to adapt to new conditions in any location.
Fuller told CNBC Make It that adaptability in the workplace is “a skill that is rarely found.”
“People are afraid to try new things and fail. But you can’t grow without leaving your comfort zone,” Fuller said.
Researchers examined the impact of adaptability on careers after deciding to focus on various microtrends in the world of work.
They compared a six-month period in 2022 with the same period in 2023 to see which skills grew the fastest.
“Adaptability is the best way to have flexibility right now,” says LinkedIn Vice President Aneesh Raman.
“The core of change management is building the ability to adapt.”
This skill is considered critical for employees and organizations and can help employees remain competent and calm in the face of possible changes in the work environment.
Although adaptability is the most important trait in the eyes of highly successful employees, it is not the most sought-after skill.
LinkedIn’s February 2024 post on the most in-demand skills this year claimed that greater specialization in communication, collaboration, and leadership would be more valuable.
Other in-demand skills include customer service, leadership, project management, analytics, teamwork, sales, problem solving and research.
“I believe we are on the verge of a more human workplace than ever before,” said LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky.
Roslansky added that this gives individuals “the opportunity to do more fulfilling work and to do that work more easily and effectively with others.”