#591 No Regret Skills: How to Make Better Decisions

Sarah Ellis (0:00)

Hi, I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper (0:00)

And I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis (0:01)

And this is the Squiggly Careers Podcast, where every week we borrow some brilliance from a person, a place, even a letter the other week, if you've not caught up with that episode. And we try to turn that curiosity into useful action for you and your Squiggly career.

Helen Tupper (0:17)

So something different with this episode is that we're going to do it as a bit of a two-parter. So the thing we're borrowing brilliance from is a sticky statement, something that I overheard at a conference I was at recently.

And we are going to take that sticky statement, which is about the idea of having no regret skills. And Sarah and I are both going to teach each other one of those skills. So in today's episode, I'm going to be talking about the no regret skill of decision-making. And in next week's episode, Sarah is going to be talking about the no regret skill of adaptability. So maybe let's get started with where I heard about this skill from and why it's a relevant one for you and your Squiggly career. So what do you think today's is? Is it a concept? Is it a statement? It's something I heard someone say.

What would you, what do you think we are? Are we borrowing brilliance from him or the statement or the concept?

Sarah Ellis (1:07)

What do you think? I think it's a, well, for me, when you described it to me, it was a sticky statement.

Helen Tupper (1:12)

OK.

Sarah Ellis (1:13)

I was like, it's something that I have remembered and repeated, but we should obviously credit the individual at the same time.

Helen Tupper (1:20)

So today we are borrowing brilliance from a sticky statement. And the sticky statement is no regret skills.

This came from someone called Frank Bowley, who is the head of skills at England. And it was at an event I was at, Learning Power 100, where they were talking about different organizations that are doing brilliant things in learning. And Frank stood up to talk about what was happening in skills, almost like a macro level, like zoom out, this is what is happening with skills. And someone in the audience said, because you've got all of this data around skills and what we need to know, if there was one or two skills that you think are important for us to be investing in, what would you say they were? And Frank stood up and he said, look, I've not got a crystal ball.

He was really honest, like, I can't predict the future. We talk about scenarios in Skills England. And then the sticky statement, he said, but what I can see is that there are a set of no regret skills. And regardless of the scenario that plays out, these skills are consistently useful across all of them. And you know, when you're writing a note, so I was like, no regret skills, underline once, underline twice. I was like, there's something in that.

Sarah Ellis (2:28)

Well, we have so many conversations with companies around the world and skills has been a hot topic for a while now.

But I do think people get a bit confused. You know, they're like, well, which are the skills I should be investing in? I think you do get some should skills. I think there's sometimes a difference between, well, what are the skills that I enjoy? What are the skills that I want? And then there's maybe, well, what are the skills that my organization wants me to have? Like, how do I match those two things together?

And then one of the things I have seen really consistently is a really long list of skills. And then it's really hard to know where to start. So you see, sometimes I've seen like 20, 25 skills and then those companies might say, oh, you know, but obviously you can't be good at all of these. And I'm like, well, what, but which ones do I need to be good at? Am I meant to be putting more energy and investment into some of these areas? So I just, I found the no regret skills really refreshing because I think one, you understand it fast. I'm like, okay, I get it. And I think in the context of a squiggly career, developing in different directions, loads more scenarios, jobs we don't know that are going to exist yet, these no regret skills, I feel like they're worth investing in. They're always going to be useful. You can't lose, which I think is helpful.

Helen Tupper (3:39)

Agree, agree with all of it. I think the risk is because the hot right now skills, so let's use AI as an example, because they get a lot of attention, I think it is easy to under invest in no regret skills. And I think in terms of your Squiggly Career consistency, these are the ones that you're going to take with you, like from roll to roll, move to move, the no regret skills are the ones that are probably going to be quite constant. But I think it is very easy to just almost like miss out on when you could invest in and improve on them, because with so much attention and noise goes towards the hot for now ones.