Soft Skills

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Soft Skills

Today another important topic – building your soft skills. 

If we cannot communicate effectively, whatever we do might will be for nothing!

So, what are soft skills anyway?  One definition is: “personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people”

First – you need the right technical skills to get your job interview and get your job / career change.  If you want to be a systems analyst, you need the appropriate skills and abilities.  If you want to be an accountant, you need the appropriate accounting skills.  Do you want to be a doctor?  They you need the appropriate medical skills (and credentialing). 

But let’s look at the rest of it. 

Have you gone to a restaurant and the surly server asks “and what do you want?” instead of “Can I help you?” 

You want your accountant to be able to explain why she put certain expenses in one category; and how she arrived at the net income (or the tax amount payable).  If she just hands you the various papers without an explanation, you would miss the reasons for the decisions and processes.

Taking the definition – to work effectively and harmoniously with others – sounds like something we should have learned long ago.

A friend once shared three secrets of getting work done:  (1) Show up; (2) Show up on time (or early – and work later); (3) Show up on time and be ready to be productive.

I remember a co-worker who seemed like he never got anything done.  He would be at the coffee machine; he’d be talking to other co-workers; he would rarely be at his desk – and when he was (in the cubicle next to mine) – we would be on the phone working on a civic group he was involved with.

How about you?  Come late and leave early?  Waste time at work – and then wonder “Where did the day go?”

We’ve talked about attitude – do you know people that are absolutely hard to be around?  They are always crabby, work on your attitude and personal skills (and personality).

Scenario:  A researcher comes up with a 100% cure for cancer – but because of neurological problem, the researcher is unable to communicate the cure to others. 

While the scenario is extreme, the point is:  You might have solved a great problem, created the best app ever, and found a way to combat world poverty, but if you can’t get your message across, it gets lost.

So, what makes up communication?

·         Written communication

·         Verbal communication

·         Body Language

·         Nuances and jargon

Written Communication:

To be an effective communicator, you need to write well.  In this day where you have to express yourself in 140 characters for Twitter, which can be too limiting.  You condense characters for text messages like UR for You Are.  Frequently we lapse into phrases that may be familiar to some of your audience but not all.  We use expressions like “After the kickoff, the game went south”. (Huh?)  The meaning of “went south” is that it fell apart, but when we use informal phrases, we can leave some people confused.  In my classes I’ve had international students what have asked what I meant by a certain informal phrase (or … more likely, DIDN’T ask and left class confused).  In writing, you need to be succinct and logical. 

Business English is different than English literature.  I remember a three paragraph memo from working at Citibank.  The first paragraph basically said “we like the project”; the second paragraph said “But, we might have some questions”; and the last paragraph said “We don’t really like the project”.  It wasn’t that clear and clean.  You could sense the writers didn’t want to say that his business unit didn’t like the project immediately, so give some praise to the developers.  Consider your audience.

Can you improve your writing?  YES

Why do you think you took 12 years of English, followed by college English classes.  Practice.  For a starter, write an analysis of where your work field will be going in the next ten years with artificial intelligence.  Let somebody critique your writing so you can improve it – such as having a friend colleague help you.  I used to have my daughter review my papers for suggestions and positive comments.

So .. how about verbal communication?

There are business communications; formal communications; informal communications; communication between friends; communication between spouses; communication between parents and children; communications between bosses and employees. 

I went to: http://www.littlethingsmatter.com/blog/2010/11/30/10-verbal-communication-skills-worth-mastering/ for some suggestions for verbal communications skills:

1)      Be friendly

2)      Think before you think

3)      Be clear

4)      Don’t talk too much

5)      Be authentic

6)      Practice humility

7)      Speak with confidence

8)      Watch your body language

9)      Be concise

10)   Listen carefully

Let’s look at #3 – be clear.  Watch use of jargon or special language.  Don’t be vague (or .. .in the casual language – “beat around the bush”) – come to the point.  While I see this more in written essay questions from students where they never really come to the point in their analysis.  English can be a tough language – some words have multiple meaning.  In a similar fashion, there are homophones – words pronounced the same but spelled differently – foul / fowl; ad / add; hour / our; hear  /here.  In written communication, the reader can see “hear” and understand the author is implying using the ears to ‘hear’ as compared to being ‘here’.  But, in verbal communication, the listener cannot see how the word is spelled.  Make the meaning clear from your complete sentence.

And #5 – be authentic.  Don’t be what you think the other person wants you to be – be yourself.  After all, who can be you better than you can?  In communication, don’t play games – say what you need to say and listen and make the communication work.

Other ways to improve your verbal skills with additional practice might be the Toastmaster’s Group.  They generally meet every week or every other week and members have to give presentations.  If you are scared of speaking before a group, you need to PRACTICE, PRACTICE,PRACTICE!!!!

Assignment:

Write a two page analysis of your job.  Send it to somebody (or more than one) to review and critique.

Write two pages of goals, where you are at and where you want to be.  Review it for quality writing.

Read the ten suggestions above from the website for effective verbal communication – what do you need to work on?

Quote for today: “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”― Toni Morrison