Most skills-frameworks found in a professional environment place an emphasis on conferring knowledge, processes, and procedures to produce results. That sounds almost silly right? What else could we be doing other than producing results? Here's the problem: most of these systems fail to understand their own foundations. Underneath any schematized attempt to articulate how best to apply effort towards a defined end is a set of assumptions about what it means to exert human attention to achieve objective outcomes. These systems are, in essence, trying to be mini-philosophies of what it means to exist and enact your will and intention in the world. Under the right conditions they may be very effective, but their success is typically overly dependent on the context in which they are deployed. Ultimately they cease to work or become irrelevant, usually because they are too rigid and unable to adapt to changing circumstances.
Can we arrive at one system that underlies how people bring structure to their work and progress towards their objectives? Instead of worrying about the results we want to achieve, leaders would benefit from focussing on what all other systems share in common. Rather than concocting something new let's look at where the problem starts: the human mind. There are five skills of mind (they could also be called capacities or faculties) that are present in everything we do, to varying degrees. They are required to effectively relate to any goal, ambition or objective. Cultivating them is necessary to develop or master any other skill or, frankly, to do anything at all.
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About the author: David is a Senior Consultant at Accenture, living in Seattle Washington. He is also a student of both mindfulness practices and of western philosophy. After college, he entered the business world with a focus on IT project management where he found a passion for data ethics and philosophy of technology. In addition to his day job, he is currently pursuing a masters degree with a focus on Data Science and Machine Learning at the University of Washington. You can learn more about him at www.davidbeckley.me