There was a time when learning the 3 R’s (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic) while you were in school would be a pretty good indicator that you would have a long successful career. I know that I was a rebel in school because I knew these subjects were important (especially in a technical career), but I didn’t think that they were the key to a successful career, or being an all-star. I always thought these subjects produced what I called “book smarts”. I went to school with lots of people who fell into the “book smarts” category. They leaned heavily on “look what grade I got in x” or “My degree is in x”. They know all the rules and if the problems they face are all “by the book” they do well. I call this the “happy path”. Change the rules a bit or take them off the “happy path” and they fall flat on their face, because they haven’t learned to apply practical experience and common sense. Don’t get me wrong the 3 R’s are key to a solid educational foundation, but in today’s fast-paced world these skills can only get you so far. There are skills that will have a longer term impact on your ability to pick up and maintain new skills and achieve continued success. Those skills are resourcefulness, resilience, refactoring, and responsiveness.

• Resourcefulness - Having the techniques, tools or the ability to get the techniques or tools you would need to solve the variety of problems that you may have to solve.
• Resilience – The ability to know what to do when you have a problem and stick to it until you have an adequate answer.
• Refactoring – The ability to use the things that you have learned in new ways to solve new problems.
• Responsiveness – The ability to quickly adapt your skills to new and changing environments and situations.

As an endnote the ability to solve problems is absolutely critical to everyone and you can’t always solve them by the book, because today even the books are quickly out of date.