Keeping with the Teaching Week theme, I'll be focusing on Transdisciplinary Skills and learning how to navigate from one lane to a completely different one. In today's world that is a key skill and is highly sought after, whether you are applying for a job, or postgrad studies.
What are transdisciplinary skills? The term refers to those attributes, capabilities or traits that can be deployed effectively across a variety of fields of endeavour. They enable the holder of the skills to transition seamlessly or with minimum difficulty from space to space.
In the field of educational psychology it is no longer referred to as transdisciplinary skills but PYP, but we'll leave that to the experts. I want to talk about the practical aspects of the things and why you should care about honing yours, at whatever age or stage you are.
They fall into a number of broad categories - thinking, social, communication, self-management and research. We are taught all of these in roundabout ways growing up, but many of us aren't leveraging them effectively in the world to land that job/postgrad opportunity/scholarship.
Examples of Thinking skills - Knowledge acquisition, Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation, Dialectical thought and metacognition.
Examples of Social skills - Accepting responsibility, Respecting others, Cooperation, Conflict resolution, Group decision-making, Adopting a variety of group roles.
Examples of Communication skills - Listening, Writing, Reading, Presenting, Speaking, Viewing and Non-verbal communication.
Examples of Self-management skills - Motor skills (gross & fine), Spatial awareness, Organisation, Time management, Safety and Informed decision-making.
Examples of Research skills - Formulating questions, Observing, Planning, Data collection, collation and synthesis and interpretation.
That's just a summary, the more you read into it the greater the distinctions and the packaging for usage of what transdisciplinary skills look like. We possess these in varying degrees and some have more than others, and some are far stronger in one set of skills than another.
Today's world demands that people be fairly competent across all the skill types to be able to navigate not just one's chosen path, whether that is pursing a career in corporate, venturing out into the world pursing a craft, art, trade or sport, or being an academic.
A good example of this is the interview process for those who are in the formal track of things. Interview questions now are being designed more and more to identify candidates with strong ratings across the various tracks, sometimes even ahead of technical competence.
"Hire for character, train for skills" isn't just a mantra anymore. If you have ever been part of an interview process that involves going to an assessment centre, all the activities at the assessment are about transdisciplinary skills, they are already clear on your technicals
How well you work in a group, your ability to listen, how creatively you can solve a problem, your willingness to present an idea or critique an idea that has been presented, your motor skills. All that is what they are looking at.
These attributes matter because they make you better able to navigate a continually shifting world where what is the way to do things today can be upended tomorrow, and people need to be able to continually reimagine and implement that reimagination of processes and systems.
All of the questions you get asked in a scholarship application are testing some transdisciplianry skill. Normally these focus on communication, self-management and social skills. Understanding that means you can better use your lived experience to respond meaningfully.
More importantly, it means you can tap into other people's lived experiences to create a compelling narrative that will more likely get you to the next stage of the process and ultimately land you that scholarship or opportunity.
Okay. That looks like a good intro into what we are working with. Let's take a short pause here while I respond to some emails. Feel free to ask questions on what I've said so far. Will be looking at transdisciplinary skills in practice using my career as a case study next.
Right, I'm back! So this transdisciwhawhatwhat of it, does it really make a difference? Definitely being able to effectively leverage your transdisciplinary skills and demonstrate their applicability in a different space opens up so many more opportunities for you
So let's use my career as a case study. I have worked in private legal practice (HATED it), agriculture, banking and financial services, and global development. It wasn't just the technical skills that got me in those places, there were people already in those sectors with them
Those people got passed over me, who was coming from a completely different sector because I was able to demonstrate the transdisciplinary skills that I have and how they would be immensely useful in that new space, and produce incremental benefits for the employer.
I knew working in a firm wasn't for me from the get-go. However when you are sitting at home after graduation and someone says there's a job if you want it turning it down is VERY Difficult. After all basa rinotsvagwa uri pane rimwe and all...
My dislike for where I was and what I was doing is what drove me to discover what my transdisciplinary skills were. I hated the work, but chose to focus on what the work, and the years at school had taught me that I could deploy effectively elsewhere.
I looked at it this way: What component of this experience can I master that I can convince someone who isn't looking for a lawyer to hire me over someone who is classically trained in the discipline for which the job is about?
Not just that, but how do I show that these skills in particular aren't just of benefit to me but to the company, and justify them investing the extra time and money in that improving my technical capacity would require in this whole new industry...
I knew I could think logically and interrogate a number of competing ideas with disinterest and discern the pros and cons of each, and be able to cape for any one of them amazingly even if I disagreed with that specific idea. I can do that both speaking and writing.
That's a skill I can use anywhere where convincing people to do something matters, or where there is need to report to high-powered stakeholders - okay, so I can look at PR and Comms roles, lobby groups and trade bodies, organisations involved in policy creation.
Next skill - Listening and empathy. I found client interactions the most interesting part of the work after the purely corporate stuff. I could grasp what the client was saying, what it is they meant & what they wanted from the firm, why it mattered to them.
How do I package that? Design thinking. approaching the object with the end goal of the task in mind and ensuring that the solution is as user-friendly as possible. Who needs design thinkers - architects, management consultants, ad agencies
Next skill - The part I loved the corporate work was the practical stuff on implications on provisions or certain actions in line with the provisions and scenario mapping on what could happen depending on route taken, what they could do to reduce harm or maximise opportunity
The partners hated that approach, they said it was far too much data and the client only wanted to know the meaning of the law. Whereas I said the client wants to know what the law means for their specific operational issue, beyond the legalities. Which approach clients loved.
That's how I got into compliance, which is the unpacking of the practicalities attached to a rule. So that's an example of how one goes about doing the transdisciplinary skills mapping. My list is much much longer than what I have described here, but our purposes this will do.
Fast-forward a few months and one of my connects tells me about an assistant operations manager vacancy on a farm. I'd dabbled in the things 3rd and 4th year so they thought i would know someone who might be interested. Little did they know that that someone was me!
So how do I package what I have to convince someone that they should hire me over an agricultural economics grad? The focus is on the business side of things, which is a good start, but still I'm not exactly rising to the top of the pile here so what to do...
Ops deals with labour, focus on the labour law apsect and how that works in your favour from a labour relations perspective. While on that, they someone to draft and review their legal stuff at no extra cost. Ensuring things are done timeously is a hallmark of legal work.
Also, I'd be great at negotiations with both suppliers and buyers alike. plus for a lawyer I'm great with numbers. Also I'm great at accountability, which is really what you want in this role.
Packaged the things nice nice on the CV and sent through, expecting a regret letter at best, but happy to finally be putting into practice the skills mapping process. Also nothing makes you feel good when you are in a job you dislike like sending out those applications!
A few weeks later I get a call, we'd like you to come through for an interview. Interview?!?!?! When and where coz I''m there! Go for the interview, technical part I fumbled my way through, not bad but not stellar either.
They then ask, "What you bring to our operations?" that is where the tide turned as I had BEEN waiting to get to that part! I can design systems, systems that work and can e replicated and scaled up or down as required. You want internal controls that work, I'm your guy.
Whether it's vendor and supplier payments, labour, leave and payroll management, invoicing, scheduling, I Got You! Plus legal work at no extra cost too. I put those communication skills to work and sold myself consummately shem! You only get one clean shot, make it Count!
Had the interview on Wednesday, Monday morning got the call that I got the job. Whoop Whoop!
So we start work, getting to know all the shift supervisors and their needs, what their pain points are (using that empathy and listening already) with both Management and staff, and what they would like to see. And in turn creating ways of working that enabled them to focus on
their core deliverables while the systems handled everything else. Happier supervisors are nicer supervisors and the staff notice and feel it. So we are all one big happy family increasing productivity. There is clarity on what happens when and how, and who is responsible for it.
3 months into the role I receive a big box from DHL, apparently we are moving into exporting to the EU so there is a whole lot of stuff we need to get done to be able to do so. And that is how I became a Compliance person.
It was my job to read all of that stuff, make sense of it and define what we needed to do & how, and then work with the Operations and Production Managers to make it happen. Lots of crazy hours and many many hectic meetings but because I knew my transdisciplinary skills we did it
About a year into that role, & having set everything up, and the export things going well I knew I was ready for the next step. Again it was time to re-evaluate the transdisciplinary skills bag and see what I had in it that would enable me to land the kind of role I wanted...
What learnings had this 18 months shown me that I could leverage to jump out of agriculture into a completely different field? The key one was being willing to engage with the people on the ground. It's all very well to grasp the CEO's vision but if you don't know how the people
at the bottom of the totem pole are doing what their concerns are ensuring that they too get heard you're going to have a far harder time getting that vision accomplished that you need to.
Also it taught me to be clear in my value proposition and stick with it regardless of what the competition is doing. Create a great product/service, be unapologetic in billing for it. And boy has that skill served me well now that I do consulting work in my won right!
Every career pivot I have made has been enabled by transdisciplinary skills, and I have to pick up at least 2 new ones at every stop on the journey. They set you apart in ways that qualifications can't and allow you into spaces your qualifications wouldn't get you in.
So we have looked at what this concept is and a practical example of how it works. I'm about to disappear again for a bit and do the things that get the bills paid. When I get back I'd like to hear your stories...
What transdisciplinary skills have you learnt and how have they helped you in life? Have you missed out on opportunities because of deficiencies in that regards? What new skills would you like to pick up? If you have other questions or comments feel free to share.
Hi guys! I am back! Hope y'all had a great afternoon. Going through the replies now.
Thanks to @Sukoluh71135313 for sharing her experience and she asks a very vaild question, how does one develop transdisciplinary skills?
Start with what you are good at - What do you do naturally and you do well? That will show you were you are strongest. I was always able to express myself well verbally or in writing and presenting didn't scare so that was the first thing I knew I could use in different spaces
Don't be afraid to ask other people "what do you think I am good at?" You will be surprised at the answers, and things you may be taking for granted about yourself may keep popping up in people's responses.
Many people take things like being kind, patient, considerate, thoughtful for granted, but those can be really powerful traits if you sit with them and package them appropriately for various industries or lines of economic endeavour...
Have you ever heard of the term "scrum master"? My old job put out an ad looking to recruit someone to do just that as a full-time job. In a lot of places that is role you are given on top of your actual work. You'd be surprised the kind of characteristics they are looking for
They put a lot of fancy terms around it but essentially what they want is an empathetic person who can listen well and has the ability to comprehend different ideas - dialectical thinking and interpersonal skills. Yes there are technical requirements, but that won't be the key
The scrum master isn't going to be the technical point person. In a lot of ways they may act like a project manager but their work has a different nuance, so the non-technical skills are going to be what sets the successful candidate apart.
Because at its core, the job is to bring together different ideas, get people to discuss them and pick one, then rally around to deliver on the chosen path. Anyone from any background can thrive in that role once they get that part right.
