Human Skills to Stand Out: Enhancing Stand Out by Debra Stevens with Tomorrows Compass

In a world where automation threatens to devalue routine human work, the differentiator is no longer technical proficiency alone, but the ability to connect, inspire, and collaborate.

In Stand Out: Five Key Skills to Advance Your Career, Debra Stevens outlines a five-week masterclass in reclaiming these human strengths - engage, listen, empathize, collaborate, and inspire.

This white paper explores how the Tomorrows Compass behavioral skills framework can amplify Stevens’s work by providing a clear assessment-driven path to greater self-awareness and targeted development.

We’ll map each of Stevens’s five human skills to Tomorrow’s Compass’s twelve competencies, explain how awareness enables more precise and impactful growth, and present a step-by-step integration model for individuals and teams.

The result: a bridge between knowing and doing, turning a five-week learning journey into a sustained cycle of measurable improvement.

Introduction: Why Human Skills Still Matter

The last two decades have been defined by an explosion of digital tools, AI automation, and data-driven decision-making. As repetitive tasks become the domain of machines, the uniquely human capabilities - relationship-building, empathy, adaptability - are what set people apart in the workplace.

Stevens opens Stand Out with the reminder: “We are not robots.” This is not a romantic plea but a practical challenge: if machines can do the task faster and cheaper, our value will come from the things they cannot do.

Her book offers a five-week masterclass designed to restore and strengthen those very skills. The approach is experiential, urging readers to practice new behaviors daily. But practice alone can be scattershot without a framework for knowing which skills matter most for you right now.

That’s where Tomorrows Compass enters. Built as both a diagnostic tool and a development framework, it helps individuals measure where they stand across twelve future-critical behavioral skills, grouped into three clusters:

• Dynamic Adaptability - sensing, shifting, staying open

• Strategic Problem Solving - driving clarity, insight, and action

• Agile Collaboration - leading, influencing, and building together

  
  

When applied alongside Stand Out, it turns Stevens’s five skills from a universal checklist into a personalized roadmap

Stevens’s Five Core Human Skills

Each week of Stand Out focuses on one skill:

1. Engage – Being fully present with others, showing openness, and building authentic connection.

2. Listen – Practicing deep, intentional listening that seeks understanding before response.

3. Empathise – Recognizing and resonating with others’ emotions and perspectives.

4. Collaborate – Actively working with others to co-create solutions rather than operating in silos.

5. Inspire – Lifting others’ energy and vision through storytelling, purpose, and encouragement.

Stevens frames these as foundational, not optional. In a tech-heavy world, they are the very skills that make human contribution irreplaceable.

Tomorrow’s Compass: The Assessment Advantage

The Tomorrows Compass model is more than a list of desirable skills. It is a measurement system that gives leaders and learners a clear baseline and actionable insights.

The three skillsets and twelve skills in Tomorrows Compass are:

Skillset 1: Dynamic Adaptability

• Inquiring Mind

• Adaptive Digital Intelligence

• Embracing Uncertainty

• Paradoxical Thinking

Skillset 2: Strategic Problem Solving

• Design Thinking

• Dynamic Resourcefulness

• Contextual Intelligence

• Purposeful Focus

Skillset 3: Agile Collaboration

• Relational Influence

• Digital Teamwork

• Cross-Cultural Collaboration

• Change Agility

When participants take the Compass assessment, they get a skill profile: a visual representation of their strengths and developmental gaps. This diagnostic clarity allows them to align Stevens’s five skills with their personal growth needs.

Mapping Stand Out to Tomorrow’s Compass

Stand Out Skill	Tomorrows Compass Competency	Insight Layer
Engage	Relational Influence	Builds trust and presence through intentional, authentic interaction.
Listen	Contextual Intelligence	Reads the room, interprets verbal and non-verbal cues, adjusts understanding.
Empathise	Relational Influence; Cross-Cultural Collaboration	Connects across differences, building rapport and psychological safety.
Collaborate	Digital Teamwork; Cross-Cultural Collaboration	Works fluidly across platforms, geographies, and perspectives.
Inspire	Inquiring Mind; Change Agility	Sparks curiosity and resilience in others, especially in uncertainty.

This mapping transforms Stand Out from a fixed sequence into a diagnostic-led pathway, letting each learner focus where the Compass shows the greatest opportunity.

How the Assessment Makes Stevens’s Work More Impactful

1. Awareness as the Foundation

Stevens encourages self-reflection, but the Compass adds quantitative and qualitative feedback, turning “I think I’m a good listener” into “My Contextual Intelligence scores low compared to peers - listening may be a gap.”

2. Prioritizing the Right Skills

The assessment highlights high-impact areas for immediate development, ensuring time and energy go where they will matter most.

3. Tracking Measurable Progress

Repeating the assessment at intervals shows tangible improvement - reinforcing habits and sustaining motivation.

4. Structured Integration

The Compass provides a framework for linking each week’s Stand Out exercises to a competency, enabling reflection such as: “Practicing empathy this week improved my Relational Influence score.”

5. Scaling to Teams and Organizations

Group data identifies collective strengths and weaknesses, helping L&D leaders design targeted programs

Step-by-Step Integration Model

1. Assess – Take the Tomorrows Compass assessment to establish a baseline.

2. Map – Align your lowest-scoring competencies with the most relevant Stand Out skills.

3. Prioritize – Focus on one or two high-impact areas rather than all five skills at once.

4. Practice – Use Stevens’s weekly exercises as active learning methods.

5. Reflect – Journal or discuss how each exercise impacted your Compass competency.

6. Reassess – After 8–12 weeks, retake the Compass to measure progress and adjust focus.

   
   

Case Example: Remote Team Leader

Scenario:Maria, a senior project manager, leads a global team. Her Compass profile shows high Change Agility but low Digital Teamwork and Contextual Intelligence.

Integration Plan:

• Week 1 (Engage) – Focus on increasing presence in virtual meetings using intentional check-ins.

• Week 2 (Listen) – Practice active listening by summarizing team input before responding.

• Week 3 (Empathise) – Hold one-on-one sessions to understand individual challenges.

• Week 4 (Collaborate) – Introduce collaborative tools and norms to enhance shared work.

• Week 5 (Inspire) – Share success stories in team channels to build morale.

  
  

After 10 weeks, Maria retakes the Compass - Digital Teamwork scores rise significantly, and team engagement metrics improve.

Conclusion & Call to Action

Debra Stevens’s Stand Out is a powerful blueprint for reclaiming the human skills that matter most. But skill building is most effective when anchored in self-awareness and measurable progress.

The Tomorrows Compass assessment turns Stevens’s masterclass into a personalized, data-driven development plan - ensuring learners practice the right skills in the right way for the greatest impact.

Take the Tomorrows Compass assessment, map your results to Stand Out’s five skills, and start a targeted journey toward becoming the kind of human professional who truly stands out.