Author: thomas.jordan

(För introduktion till denna serie bloggtexter, se http://blog.perspectus.se/?p=693)

23. Perseverance

Ability to sustain engagement and remain determined and patient even when efforts take a long time to bear fruit.

Perseverance may also be understood as a personality trait or virtue, although it is likely that the capacity for sustaining engagement can be strengthened by conscious focusing on the possibilities to achieve long-term positive outcomes. As such, perseverance is related to Long- term orientation and visioning. Perseverance is yet another quality that can be constructive or destructive depending on the nature of the ambitions a person or group pursue, so it needs to be linked to other qualities and skills.

We included some related concepts mentioned in the survey in this category: patience, resilience, determination and decisiveness.

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22. Optimism

Ability to sustain and communicate a sense of hope, positive attitude and confidence in the possibility of meaningful change.

Optimism may be regarded as a personality trait, but here the emphasis is on the capacity to inspire hope in others (and oneself) that it is possible to achieve meaningful results by focusing on what is doable. One aspect of this is skills in supporting people in directing their attention, in this case in the direction of possibilities rather than having an exclusive focus on depressing realities. Of course optimism is not per definition something that is always functional in relation to achieving concrete results when grappling with very complex challenges, it has to be realistic.

Optimism is closely related to Appreciation.

Inner Development Goals 23: Perseverance

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21. Creativity

Ability to generate and develop original ideas, innovate and being willing to disrupt conventional patterns.

Creativity is not a skill in the more narrow sense, nor is it a cognitive capacity that anyone can develop to a high level by specific exercises. However, there are reasons to believe that creativity is linked to adult development processes. A common distinction in the adult development field is to differentiate between preconventional, conventional and postconventional patterns of meaning-making (see e.g. Cook-Greuter, 1999). Conventional meaning-making is associated with taking prevailing norms and practices as given, rather than inquiring into alternative possibilities, whereas postconventional meaning-making involves independent envisioning of what is desirable and how it can be realized. A strongly developed Complexity awareness includes the habit of exploring and seeking understanding of causal relationships and possibilities for alternative scenarios. People with strong complexity awareness tend not to take existing conditions and patterns for granted, but often imagine how things could be like if done differently. Other IDG items related to creativity are Openness and Learning mindset, Perspective skills, and, when seeing creativity as a collective phenomenon, Co-creation skills and other social skills.

Inner Development Goals 22: Optimism

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20. Courage

Ability to stand up for values, make decisions, take decisive action and, if need be, challenge and disrupt existing structures and views.

Courage is yet another IDG that cannot easily be regarded as a skill, but which is still a quality that can be nurtured and developed through a range of strategies. We have here subsumed a couple of related qualities: the courage to advocate convictions, the capacity to go from ideas to actually making decisions, and the propensity to engage in decisive actions in order to achieve tangible results. Courage also entails the willingness to challenge and disrupt deeply ingrained patterns, views and practices in order to open up possibilities for creativity and change. Courage alone is, of course, not necessarily a positive capability, but needs to be guided by benevolence, complexity awareness and commitment to the good of the whole.

Inner Development Goals 21: Creativity

(För introduktion till denna serie bloggtexter, se http://blog.perspectus.se/?p=693)

19. Mobilization skills

Skills in inspiring and mobilizing others to engage in shared purposes.

Mobilization skills are, of course, overlapping with co-creation skills, but deserve a separate listing because mobilization includes reaching out broadly to different groups of people, evoking their interest and offering productive ways for people to become actively involved in various kinds of work towards fulfilling the SDGs. As with several other skills and qualities, mobilization skills can be used for constructive or destructive purposes, and therefore need to be guided by a benevolent Inner compass.

Many of the skills and qualities in the IDG framework contribute to skills in mobilizing people to meaningful engagement, e.g. Communication skills not least story-telling), Co-creation skills, Trust, Inclusive mindset and Intercultural competence.

Inner Development Goals 20: Courage

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18. Trust

Ability to show trust and to create and maintain trusting relationships.

We included trust in the framework even though trust often is understood as an outcome, rather than a skill or a basic attitude. Naïve trust can be very problematic, not least when working with highly contested issues. However, there are skills involved in the trust dimension: approaching other people with an ambition to create as much trust as possible, considering the circumstances; acting in ways that inspire trust (by being transparent, conveying benevolence, being reliable, etc.) and continually deal with events with consideration for building and maintaining trust. However, skillfulness in getting other people to trust oneself can be used for both good and destructive purposes, so skills in creating trust need to be linked to other skills and qualities, such as empathy, compassion and benevolence.

Trust is linked with Integrity and Authenticity, Communication skills and Co-creation skills.

Inner Development Goals 19: Mobilization skills

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17. Inclusive mindset and Intercultural competence

Willingness and competence to embrace diversity and include people and collectives with different views and backgrounds.

In this item we combined attitudes and skills. Being actively interested in seeking out, consider and involve individuals and groups with diverse backgrounds, identities and views is one facet. More specifically, working in international contexts means that differences in culturally conditioned norms, values, attitudes, expectations, behavioural patterns, etc. play significant roles for successful collaboration. Intercultural competence requires awareness of the possibility of intercultural differences, to some extent knowledge about common dimensions of differences (e.g. regarding power distance, gender roles, high- or low-context communication, decision-making practices and communication skills.

A specific aspect of an inclusive mindset mentioned in the survey was willingness to listen to and adapt to local knowledge. Another facet of an inclusive mindset is willingness to share power.

Inner Development Goals 18: Trust

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16. Co-creation skills

Skills and motivation to build, develop and facilitate collaborative relationships with diverse stake-holders, characterized by psychological safety and genuine co-creation.

The choice of the term «co-creation skills» was made after extensive conversations in different constellations. In the first survey, «collaboration» was mentioned very often, but we eventually opted for «co-creation», because the term emphasises the creative and generative aspect of collaboration. Obviously co-creation skills cover a large number of sub-skills and overlap with several other skills and qualities in the IDG framework, such as Trust, Communication skills, Inclusive mindset and Intercultural competence, Mobilization skills, Openness and Learning mindset and Perspective skills (for a detailed analysis of collaboration micro-skills, see Dawson 2020-2021). The focus here is skills in creating favourable conditions for and facilitating productive collaboration and co-creation. Sub-skills include skills in creating an open climate characterized by trust and psychological safety; leading meetings in ways that structure the work process through shared focus, encourage creativity and openness to diverse input; and deconstruct power dynamics that hinder open and creative collaboration.

We chose not to separately list change management skills, which was mentioned several times in the survey, but the concept certainly merits specific attention when designing competence development programs.

Again, there is a very large literature relevant to co-creation, not least regarding facilitation and methods for managing complex issues.

Inner Development Goals 17: Inclusive mindset and Intercultural competence

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15. Communication skills

Ability to really listen to others, to foster genuine dialogue, to advocate own views skillfully, to manage conflicts constructively and to adapt communication to diverse groups.

Communication skills can be described in terms of certain concrete behaviours, such as conveying positive intentions and regard, attentive and active listening, asking open-ended questions and advocating views in constructive ways. However, without a more fundamental grounding in values and psychological maturity, just practicing certain behaviours may not lead to genuine contact, trust, safe spaces and fruitful dialogue. Communication skills are strongly related to several other IDGs, such as Presence, Humility, Perspective awareness, Openness and Learning mindset and Inclusive mindset and Intercultural competence. Awareness of other people›s potentially very different patterns of meaning-making, due to different enculturation, professional training, political worldview and previous life experiences, is necessary in order to realize the need to adapt communication behaviours to varying contexts.

In the survey some respondents pointed to conflict management skills and story-telling skills as important. We chose to include these skills in the communication skills category. Obviously there is a very comprehensive literature on communication, conflict management and story-telling, so large that it is difficult to select representative resources. Some classic references regarding communication are Rosenberg, 1999; Fisher & Ury, 1981; and Bohm, 2004.

Inner Development Goals 16: Co-creation skills

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14. Empathy and Compassion

Ability to relate to others, oneself and nature with kindness, empathy and compassion and the intention to address related suffering.

We have chosen to use both empathy and compassion as concepts with somewhat different connotations. There are different conceptualizations in the literature, and it might be wise to keep the definitions rather open. Empathy is here understood to be the capacity to relatively accurately understand and feel into what other people feel, whereas compassion adds the quality of wanting to relate to other people with benevolence. Empathy and compassion are, of course, important components in emotional intelligence (see e.g. Eklund & Meranius, 2021).

Related concepts that were mentioned in the survey were benevolence, agreeableness and love.

Inner Development Goals 15: Communication skills