The American Management Association (AMA) surveyed 2,115 managers about the most important skills needed in our organizations. It is not the 3Cs but now a different set of 4Cs: Critical thinking/problem solving, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity/innovation skills. Why are these 4Cs skills the critical skills? According to the survey of 2,115 managers, 91% rated the pace of change in business today as the leading cause, followed by global competitiveness (86.5%), the nature of how work is accomplished today (77.5%), and the way organizations are structured (66.3%).

According to the AMA Report, “Proficiency in reading, writing, and arithmetic has traditionally been the entry-level threshold to the job market, but the new workplace requires more from its employees. Employees need to think critically, solve problems, innovate, collaborate, and communicate more effectively and at every level within an organization. According to the AMA 2010 Critical Skills Survey, many executives admit there is room for improvement among their employees in these skills and competencies.”

NEED to do something about this and advance your culture to one of more innovation and collaboration? Learn from my experience conducting innovation projects for over 10 Fortune 500 companies and teaching innovation skills to universities like Dartmouth and Wisconsin. Let me guide your group through engaging, simple, and best practice activities so that you can learn and practice these 4C skills at higher levels to save time and generate better results.

I can customize one of my trademark programs to your organization and launch it as early as this month. I’d recommend starting with the 3Cs of Innovation workshop where I facilitate your staff through their own innovation challenge where they continuously are COLLABORATING, CREATING, and COMMUNICATING. Your group generates and develops needed ideas and catalyzes development of critical skills. I even have a 10 module video program complete with collaborative activities that groups can do on an ongoing basis to keep the collaborative innovation action sustained.

Visit DarinEich.com/workshops to see more and start the conversation. The innovation opportunity bus is leaving…get on now!