Forever Skills - The 12 Skills to Futureproof Yourself, Your Team, and Your Kids

by Kieran Flanagan, Dan Gregory

What skills will matter most for work, business and life in the future? Where should you focus your energy and effort when the world is changing at an extraordinary rate? How can you future proof yourself, your organization, and your kids? In this groundbreaking book Kieran Flanagan and Dan Gregory have interviewed hundreds of successful business people, educators, futurists, economists, and historians to uncover the key skills that will always be critical to success in business and in life. Where most futurists increase your sense of panic and anxiety with dystopian images of the not-too-distant future characterized by Artificial Intelligence (AI) taking our jobs, algorithms hacking our most private moments and Austrian-accented cyborgs raising our children, Kieran and Dan remind us that we need to look beyond the things changing around us and focus on the things that won't change within us. These twelve "forever skills" are designed to set you up for whatever the future may throw at you plus help you get more success in your work and life, today.

Genres: Business, Self Help, Nonfiction

Audiobook

Published July 19, 2019

Reviews

[Kayla Medica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of mentions of interviews they conducted but very little of the interviews are included (if at all) in the book. Came across as name dropping, and that they're really important and know a lot but they don't really give you examples to see how you're meant to put their abstract ideas into practice. In saying that, I agree that the skills they listed are "forever skills" but if you don't already have those skills, they haven't really shown you how to acquire them.

[Nic Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent overview of the skills that will be truly needed going forward. Doesn’t actually help too much for anyone looking to develop these skills, just that your need them.

More copy is spent showing how genius the authors were through their own continued self promotion and humble bragging. Would have been good to include a bit more of the content of the hundreds and hundreds of interviews to offer more insight rather than name dropping.

[Jericho Eames · Rating 3 out of 5]

Practical skills that preps you for a changing future. No surprise that they're all very human and intangible "soft skills" which will take practice to master. They paint a pretty good picture of the future if you have said skills intact.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of really helpful views and mentality especially on creativity and communication but I felt the section on control waffled on a bit and points weren’t entirely clear.

Overall a very helpful read on the progression of the future of the workforce and how to navigate it.

[Harrison Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually feel like I think differently after reading this

[Juliet K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably a 3.5 rounded up.
I liked the book overall and the idea of the book and how succinct it was mostly. However, I think it started much stronger than it ended. The last whole section of skills / actions to build those skills. seemed to me to have some description gaps. Still … was a good book and worth the read.