In one of the recent public speeches in Kazakhstan, an observation was made that makes you think. According to the "Atlas of New Professions" — a joint project of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives and the Skolkovo School of Management — by 2030, about 186 new professions will emerge in the world that do not exist today, and 57 current ones will disappear. This is not a futurological forecast or the assessment of a single analyst — it is the sum of observations by expert groups, and at the current pace of digital transformation, the numbers seem rather conservative.
In our practice at West Star Ltd over the past two years, we observe the same thing on a micro-scale. Professions that seemed stable — routine accountant, primary data entry operator, sales manager assistant, template text copywriter — are shrinking before our eyes. They are being replaced by roles for which there are no established names yet: AI agent operator, model result validator, automated process designer, corporate memory data analyst. And the most interesting thing is what distinguishes people who easily transition into new roles from those who get stuck in old ones. It's not about technical training or age. It's about three key competencies that are not profession-dependent but determine the ability to remain in it.
In this article, we will analyze these three competencies, see how they work in the practice of Kazakhstani business, and where their real limitations lie. And let's clarify right away: these are not "self-help life hacks." This is a framework through which it makes sense to look at your own career, hiring in a company, and team design.
COMPETENCY ONE — CURIOSITY AS A PROFESSIONAL TOOL
As children, we were all curious. A child explores the world by default — asks questions, explores space, is not afraid to show ignorance. By the age of 30, this trait is muted in most adults. Defense mechanisms kick in: "I already know," "I don't have time for this," "it's too complicated for me," "why do I need this if I already have a job." Curiosity shifts from "default" mode to "on-demand" mode — and gradually fades away completely.
In the digital age, this becomes not a personal deficit but a professional risk. Knowledge becomes obsolete faster than it can be taught. What I knew about working with AI models at the beginning of 2024 was already outdated by summer. What was cutting-edge practice in building API integrations a year ago is now an outdated pattern. The speed of change requires a person to be in constant learning mode. And the only thing that supports this mode is curiosity as a habit.
In our team, we see this very clearly. Developers who come with the habit of "I know Python, that's enough for me," fall behind those who try MCP servers, study new libraries, read about how models are changing within six months. Not because the former are worse as professionals. Because they are in defense mode against the new, while the latter are in absorption mode. After a year, the difference in productivity becomes multiple — and catching up becomes almost impossible.
Curiosity can be trained. Simple practices that we use ourselves. Reading at least 30 minutes a day of material outside their main specialty — for a developer, these can be articles on architecture or product management, for an accountant — on AI and automation. Recording new terms and concepts with a mandatory analysis of what they mean in practice, not at the level of superficial acquaintance. Regular experiments — trying one new tool or approach every week, even if it's not needed right now. This discipline is exhausting in the first months and becomes natural by the end of six months.
COMPETENCY TWO — THE RIGHT TO MAKE MISTAKES
In post-Soviet corporate culture, there is a deeply ingrained habit — to look for the guilty. If something went wrong, the first question is not "how to fix it," but "who allowed it." This creates an environment where employees instinctively avoid risks, do not propose new ideas, do not take on non-standard tasks. Why — after all, any mistake is punished, and any success is taken for granted.
In an era when the rules of the game change every quarter, this culture is deadly. Anything new — whether it's implementing AI in accounting, switching to a new accounting system, launching a Telegram bot for clients, entering a new market — is an experiment with a non-zero probability of failure. If a company punishes for failure, no one will experiment. And in two years, such a company will find that competitors have moved ahead because they experimented and calmly learned from mistakes.
This also applies to individual trajectories. The career of a person who never tries new things out of fear of making a mistake looks linear and predictable — but this is an illusion of stability. After a few years, such a person finds that their skills are no longer in demand, and they cannot transition to a new role because they have forgotten how to try.
In our practice, this manifests itself in almost every major project. When we launched the AI accountant, the first versions frankly didn't work — the model misrecognized documents, gave strange answers on tax code norms, broke on Kazakh texts. If we treated each such mistake as a catastrophe, the project wouldn't exist. Instead, each mistake became a source of data: where the model fails, which prompts give stable results, which scenarios cannot be left without human validation. After a year, the AI accountant became a working product — but only because we allowed ourselves to make it wrong before making it right.
At the team level, this means a simple thing: the culture must distinguish between two types of mistakes. Mistakes from negligence — for them, it really makes sense to bear responsibility. Mistakes from attempts — they should not be punished but studied. Without this dividing line, nothing new will appear in the team. There will only be repetitions of what worked yesterday.
COMPETENCY THREE — INTERNAL OBSESSION
This is the most difficult competency to analyze because it is not about skill but about internal motivation. Every professional who achieves something significant has something inside that doesn't let them stop. For some, it's money, for others — recognition, for others — the desire to build a product, for others — the desire to create something beautiful or important. The word "obsession" here does not mean pathology — it means having a living internal engine that starts on its own, without external stimuli.
Without this engine, nothing serious can be built. You can upgrade your qualifications as much as you want, read books, attend training — but if there is no reason inside for why you are doing this, all this work converts into fatigue and burnout, not results. And vice versa: a person with a clear internal "why" overcomes obstacles that seem insurmountable. They work 12 hours a day not because they have to, but because they can't do otherwise. They take on tasks for which others lack energy. They don't stop when a bad streak comes.
In the Kazakhstani business environment, there is a persistent illusion that motivation is something that a company "gives" to an employee through salary, bonuses, corporate events, and social packages. This works at the level of basic needs but does not make an employee productive beyond average. Productivity beyond average is only possible when a person has their own internal value that aligns with what they do at work. If there is no alignment — no bonuses will compensate for the emptiness.
For us at West Star Ltd, this factor turned out to be the most important when hiring. Technical skills can be improved in three to six months. Curiosity — in six months to a year with the right environment. Internal obsession — not at all. It either exists or it doesn't. Therefore, the first thing we try to understand when talking to a potential employee is whether they have their own passion for what they do. Do they want to build a product, or just want to get a job? Are they ready to work on a task on a weekend because it doesn't let them go, or is it just working hours from 9 to 6 for them?
HOW THE THREE COMPETENCIES WORK TOGETHER
Curiosity without the right to make mistakes turns into timid curiosity — a person learns about new things but never tries them. The right to make mistakes without curiosity is endless experiments without direction, a meaningless enumeration of options. Internal obsession without the first two competencies is stubbornness that breaks against reality in a year or two.
Only together do the three competencies form a working system. Curiosity provides direction and a constant influx of new ideas. The right to make mistakes allows testing these ideas. Internal obsession provides the energy to bring testing to a result. Remove one — and the system stops working.
In our products — AI accountant, OData Hub, warehouse integrations — all three competencies are embedded in the process. Curiosity is regular experiments with new models, tools, and approaches. The right to make mistakes is understanding that 70% of product ideas won't work, and that's okay. Internal obsession is that we build not "because there is a market," but because we believe that 1C data should be available to AI agents, that accountants should have decent tools, that Kazakhstan needs its own digital integration infrastructure.
WHERE THIS FRAMEWORK HAS REAL LIMITATIONS
Any model explaining success risks turning into another motivational poster. To prevent this from happening, it is necessary to honestly indicate what it does not explain.
These three competencies are not a sufficient condition for success. They are necessary. You can have all three and not achieve results because you were unlucky with the market, because the money ran out at the wrong time, because you got the wrong partner, because the country entered a crisis. All these factors exist, and they are not subject to any competencies. If someone says that their success is determined only by three competencies — they are either disingenuous or not taking luck into account.
Internal obsession is a double-edged sword. It gives energy, but it also leads to burnout. People who work on internal motivation without limiters often burn out completely after a few years — not because they broke, but because they burned through their own fuel. Therefore, in mature age, it makes sense to add a fourth competency to this one — self-preservation. The ability to say "enough" at the right moment. Without this, obsession becomes destructive.
The right to make mistakes has boundaries. There are areas where a mistake is more expensive than any lessons it can bring. In finance, one major mistake can destroy a company. In working with client data, one mistake can cost a reputation. In medicine, aviation, nuclear energy, mistakes should not be allowed at all. Therefore, "give yourself the right to make mistakes" is a working setup for areas with acceptable risk, not for all. And you need to be able to determine which zone you are in now.
Curiosity can be trained, but not for everyone. Some people are organically not interested in what lies beyond their profession. This does not make them worse as specialists — but it limits their ability to change roles and develop. From a team design perspective, this means that routine roles should be filled by some people, and pioneering roles by others. Trying to make an uncurious person curious is both psychological violence and a waste of time.
WHAT TO DO — PRACTICAL CONCLUSION
If these three competencies really determine a professional's ability to remain in demand in the digital age, what follows from this in practice?
If you are evaluating your own career, don't start with the question "what skills should I develop." Start with another: how active are these three competencies in me right now? Am I curious about what is happening beyond my profession? Do I allow myself to try new things, or do I avoid risk? Do I have an internal passion for what I do, or do I work "because I have to"? Honest answers to these three questions give more than an annual professional development plan.
If you are a manager, assess whether the environment in the company supports these three competencies. Do employees have time and space for research and learning, or does every hour have to be "productive"? Does the company respond to mistakes with analysis or with finding the guilty? Do you select a team based on value alignment or only on technical skills? If the answer to any of these questions is negative — this is a specific growth area that will yield results in a year.
If you are a business owner, keep in mind that these competencies cannot be bought. They cannot be hired "turnkey," like hiring for a ready-made project. They can only be embedded in the company's culture — and this is work for years, not a quarter. But this work has a cumulative effect. Companies where these three competencies are institutionalized become qualitatively different in five years — not thanks to some revolutionary technology, but because they constantly learn, constantly experiment, and constantly move forward.
The world is changing faster than ever. Technologies are a tool. Business models are a structure. And people with the right set of internal competencies are what make the use of tools and structures meaningful. Curiosity, the right to make mistakes, and internal obsession do not guarantee success. But they give the only real chance to stay in the game when the rules are rewritten every year.