Transforming Sri Lanka as a global IT BPO Telecom
hub:
Professionals need excellent soft skills
Dr Kuhathasan CEO, CENLEAD
Soft skills relate to people issues. They are equally important, like
technical skills. These are the skills that make clients and customers
feel happy as well as keep them loyal.
Technology, customer-driven markets, an information-based economy and
globalization call for an increased reliance on, and demand for, soft
skills. Many employees today look for a set of skills that are often
developed of cross-functional assignments. These are termed soft skills.
“Soft” skills include oral communication, written communication,
critical and lateral thinking skills, and the development of an overall
sense of the “big picture”.
Soft skills are the essential skills that all employees must develop
to achieve success in the workplace. Be it a CEO of a company, an HR
executive, manager, counsellor or an ordinary employee, all must master
these skills.
Among others, the following are considered as the key soft skills
Excellent communication skills.
Excellent inter-personal skills.
High level of drive and determination.
To think effectively at strategic level.
Able to initiate and manage change.
Proven ability to lead.
Good negotiation skills.
Motivating team builder.
Dynamism with a real sense of urgency.
Coaching, counselling and mentoring skills.
Inspirational manager and a motivating leader.
Capable of thinking laterally.
Creative and innovative in all aspects of work.
Ability to create win/win deals.
Communication skills
The ability to communicate in a clear, concise and unambiguous manner
is essential for good inter-personal relations and efficient functioning
of any organization. It is important for leaders and managers to develop
communication skills so that they get things done from answering the
phone, to writing e-mails to putting together a proposal – how well you
put your point across will affect others’ perceptions of your abilities.
You have to make sure that each interaction paints an intelligent
picture of yourself.
Lobbying
Lobbying is the process of generating support for a point of view in
advance of a meeting at which a decision is to be taken.
People are more inclined to stick with a view that they take with
them into a meeting than they are to be won over by something they hear
in the course of it.
Your confidence will be boosted if you are able to go there knowing
that you can count on the support of a number of those present.
Networking
Networking is an essential soft skill. It has become more important
as organizations and ways of working have changed. It is no longer
enough to know who is directly above and below you, or even on par with
you.
To be effective you need to be able to draw on contacts from a wide
spectrum, across the entire organization and beyond it.
As organizations have de-layered, re-engineered, flattened and in
many cases disintegrated into individual business units, getting things
done is no longer just a case of issuing orders. To make things happen
you have to know the right people.
Building trust
When you trust somebody, you hold the belief that he or she won’t
exploit, cheat or use you in any way. You can rely on trusted people to
do what they say they are going to do. You can share information in the
knowledge that it will not be misused. Trust is the cornerstone of
interpersonal relationships.
A workplace in which there is a high level of trust is one where
colleagues can feel secure and where genuine teamwork and cooperation
can flourish.
On the other hand, mistrust creates uncertainly, conflict and reduced
individual confidence. Trust is a fragile thing. It can take a long time
to build and a moment to destroy, and often it is the small things that
knock holes in our trust.
Persuasiveness
We have to influence someone to do what we want them do (eg a
salesperson trying to persuade a buyer or a negotiator trying to
persuade another negotiator).
You may not consider yourself as either a salesperson or a negotiator
but you are a persuader nonetheless.
Think how often you have an idea that you need to ‘sell’ to your boss
or to colleagues. Think how often, say in a meeting or discussion, you
have a point of view that you want to persuade other people to agree
with or adopt.
The plain fact is that in most of your interactions with other
people, you are seeking to excert some influence – to persuade.
Team work
In today’s corporate world, there’s no room for egos. Being a good
team member means putting the good of the team ahead of any personal
ambitions and agendas. It means respecting others, opinions, hearing
people out and involving everyone in finding solutions to problems. As
you start out, the easiest way to get recognised is by being a good team
member.
Flexibility
Good working relationships are like bridges; if they don’t allow for
some movement then they collapse.
The person who always has to be right or always has to come out as
winner will not be too successful. You need to know when to overlook
failings and as when to accept less than you might have been seeking.
That doesn’t mean you always have to compromise your own views or
wind up with solutions that merely represent the least unattractive
options.
But you should ensure that other people’s needs and points of view
are fully taken into account and that decisions are not dictated by ego.
Counselling
Counselling is a help provided by managers to the subordinates in
analyzing their performance and on-the-job behaviour so as to improve
their performance. Its a trusting and supportive superior subordinate
relationship. In other words, counselling enables an individual to take
responsibilities by helping him/her to overcome his/her worries and
hopes and resolve difficulties.
Thus, it helps eliminate emotional disequilibrium created among
people, removes all barriers and stumbling blocks to effective
performance and relieves the subordinate of emotional tension.
Understanding difference
In our private lives we seek friends and partners whose
personalities, interests and views correspond with our own, but at work
there is a greater likelihood of finding ourselves bound together with
people of a different outlook. However, the fact that people look at
life from wholly different perspectives does not have to be a reason for
gnashing of teeth.
Handled properly it can be team strength. So celebrate diversity,
play to people’s strengths and never assume you know what others are
thinking.
Expectations of others should abide by the same conditions as those
you set for yourself. They should be realistic and achievable,
recognising that mistakes happen from time to time. People will tend to
perform to your expectations. Value them and expect a positive
contribution and you will generally be rewarded.
Empathy
Empathy is important because it enables us to understand how other
people are: what makes them, tick, how their worlds work, what matters
to them. It is also through empathy, and empathy alone, that you will
really find a way to deal with your difficult people.
Influencing skills
Influencing effectively is the one core skill that every leader and
manager needs. In a business environment, there is no other skills that
so clearly defines the competent from the merely average or outright
disastrously poor performer.
For instance, you can be a brilliant strategist, but what use is that
if you can’t persuade people to accept your strategic ideas? You may be
capable of being a terrific financial controller, but the skill will
remain notional if you can’t persuade people to follow your protocols.
Influencing is also a core life skill. If you have it, you will be
able to manage most of the challenges that your business and personal
life presents.
Receiving criticism
The first step in handling criticism in a confident manner is to
remove the notion that it represents an attack on all that you stand
for. While that assumption is in place you are likely to react
inappropriately. Certainly, some criticism will be unjustified or
invindictive, but you can only judge its validity by listening
dispassionately and removing anger and emotion from our response. If you
can do this, you will be in a better position to respond assertively to
negative criticism and to draw the useful lessons from constructive
criticism.
Pleasant manners
Manners in general, spring from our consideration for others. Even in
a business context, manners are another name for kindness, tact and
self-respect. In some people, this consideration for others is innate
but in many of us it has to be inculcated.
In a business context, the lack of it shows up the most in our
treatment of subordinates. Some people believe that it is unnecessary
for a superior to be polite to his subordinate and that a curt,
aggressive manner can be useful in business. But this is far from the
truth.
Good manners oil the wheels of our daily contacts with other human
beings, thereby reducing friction.
Negotiating
Formal negotiating usually involves a deal with your partner
organization. While it may be perfectly amicable, it may still involve
hard bargaining.
It might encompass wide-ranging issues such as commissions,
incentives, working practices or introducing new technology. Commercial
bargaining is about making business deals. For example,. Negotiating a
new contract with a suppliers, completing an important sale, agreeing a
takeover, all involve commercial bargaining skills.
Negotiating skills
A quick mind
A strong reserve of patience
An ability to conceal without lying
A capacity to inspire trust
Assertiveness at key moment and self – effacement at other times.
Decision making
Managers make decisions because they are constantly either responding
to change or initiating it. A decision is only necessary if:
There are two or more possible outcomes.
Some value or importance is attached to the outcomes.
The actual outcomes differ in some way.
Decision making is fundamental about choice. Without a choice you
need make no decision. Similarly, if there is no real difference between
the final outcomes, choosing hardly matters either.
In the wider context of the organization’s future, your managerial
decision making is a way for you to excel, to stand out from those with
whom you are competing. When you understand your organisation’s
strategic intent, what it aspires to be, you can place all decisions in
a powerful perspective.
Problem solving
Everyday we encounter problematic situations which cause some degree
of uncertainty or difficulty in achieving the outcome we want. Resolving
these situations is commonly called problem solving. It involves skills
which play a fundamental role in our work, social and private lives.
People who are good at solving problems adapt more quickly in times
of rapid change, they make better use of their knowledge and skills and
are generally the high achievers. Problem-solving ability is therefore a
major factor in determining personal success.
Listening
Listening solves mutual problems: It is ridiculous to disagree with
someone until you understand their point of view.
Listening leads to cooperation: when people reckon they are important
to you, they will be more inclined to respect you in return and
cooperative with you.
Listening helps your decision-making: by listening to the experience
and ideas of others, you improve your own judgement.
Listening builds your own confidence: the more your understand
others, the more likely you are to do and say things to which they will
respond positively.
Listening prevents conflict: talking a decision before listening
leads to the foot-in-mouth experience we never forget. You have two ears
and one mouth: take the hint.
Proposing
Think carefully about how you word a proposal and practise it on
yourself or a colleague to gauge the effect before you actually put it
on a paper.
Again, the tweaking of the odd word can make the difference between
it being accepted and being thrown back in your face.
Here are some basic points to remember:
Frame the proposal in the positive: in terms of what do you want
rather than what you don’t want.
Package the proposal so that is has a number of component parts which
can be adjusted or negotiated if necessary.
Phrase your proposal in such a way that it sounds as if you are
floating on objectively good idea and inviting the other side to join
in.
Get your basic attitudes right
There are no ‘difficult people’ as such, but there are limits to our
ability to deal with certain individuals. Certain difficult individuals
may resemble difficult individuals but, like the rest of us, they are
individuals first, second and third.
There are no irrational people, but there are limits to our ability
and our desire to understand those who think differently from us. People
always act rationally from their point of view.
People always do the best they can – with the personal resources
(from their upbringing, education, experience, etc.) they have, and
within the constraints their map of the world imposes on them. To change
what they do, you may have to help them. |