A metaskill is a higher order skill that allows you to engage with functional expertise more effectively. It’s a catalyst for learning and building new skills faster
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF) Report on the Future of Jobs issued in 2020, the jobs that present students will be seeking do not exist. WEF talks about the jobs in 2025 and those in 2030, and how they are starting to take shape as we speak. This brings up the next question, what type of career counseling should be given to students?
This is a tough question to answer and there isn’t a crystal ball to answer this, we must then be disruptive in preparing our students for the unknown. Our counseling will lie then, not on specific careers or majors, but on the precise set of tools that will allow students to handle anything that will arise within the next ten years. We know them as soft skills or essential skills. However, let me throw a new concept into the mix, how about starting to talk about Metaskills.
Gustavo Razzetti defines metaskill as “a master skill that magnifies and activates other skills. A metaskill is a high order skill that allows you to engage with functional expertise more effectively. It’s a catalyst for learning and building new skills faster.” Expressed in easier terms, it is the backbone that allow all other skills to be integrated, interconnected, and developed effectively and efficiently. Meta skills allow for the creation of flexible professionals. Speaking from a motivational point of view, these professionals do not think outside of the box; there is no box.
Razzetti even states that the most important metaskills are self awareness, resilience, and creativity. Self awareness allows us to be empathic, to know ourselves, and to accept and embrace our reality. Resilience allows us to overcome failure, learn from our mistakes, and even to experiment. Finally, creativity allows us to be innovators, problem solvers, and to improvise. These sets of skills make us more adaptable, they allow us to adopt new behaviors or hard skills easily, and to understand the problems, opportunities, and challenges that we face in life.
