GO ON, think about yourself. Give your ego a well deserved massage. Think about how wonderful you are.
In particular, think about your soft skills: your communication skills, teamworking ability, adaptability, integrity and capability to inspire. Because having the soft stuff sussed is the key to career success.
But according to Jo Ellen Grzyb, a director of the Impact Factory, in business we tend to focus too much on our failings. She prefers to get people to think about their successes. “It’s not about negotiating the best deal there has ever been in the history of the world, it’s the day-to-day stuff. For me that’s when soft skills come into play,” she says.
Grzyb suggests that you sit down with a blank piece of paper and write down your skills and the occasions when you demonstrated those skills.
If you find all this navel gazing and positive thinking a little uncomfortable, she suggests writing down the qualities shown by role models and heroes that motivate and inspire you. Then ask yourself whether you have these skills or whether they are skills that you wish that you had.
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Another approach is to think about how other people see you and contrast that with how you want to be seen, and finally what stops you from having the qualities that you want. A common example is the inability to deal effectively with conflict-evoking situations because of the fear of being disliked.
An alternative approach to understanding yourself is to get other people to gaze at your navel. Victoria Winkler, an adviser for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, says that formal work reviews, talking to human resource staff and line managers, and asking friends, colleagues and family who know you well about your strengths and weaknesses, is another option.
Then comes the difficult part — particularly if your problem is procrastination — doing something with the findings of your self-audit.
Grzyb says: “Focus on the one thing that is easiest to shift and would make the most difference. Pick the path of least resistance. People say that you have to leave your comfort zone, but life is uncomfortable enough. I prefer to get people to stretch their comfort zone.” So, the conflict avoider could try saying out loud, when a suitable situation presents: ‘I don’t like conflict but I think we need to talk about x, y or z. Say what you don’t like and put it on the table’.”
Winkler says that the key to improvement is often experience. “You need to seek out opportunities. If you feel that you are not very good at giving PowerPoint presentations, the only way you are going to learn is to seek out opportunities to give more presentations,” she says.
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Alternatively you could just carry on as you are for the rest of your career, never improving and never progressing further than the staff canteen. The choice is yours.
CAROL LEWIS
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Soft cell
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SOFT skills matter. We might be fuzzy about what they are — people skills or the ability to deal with uncertainty — but employers want them and business pundits say that we need them.
Tony Blair and former US President Bill Clinton are said to have them in spades. While Blair’s deputy, John Prescott, and Clinton’s successor, George Bush, are often accused of being bereft in this department, they are still more successful than most. So just how essential are they really?
Over the coming weeks we aim to collect some solid data on soft skills; why we need them and how to get them.
This week’s advice comes from Impact Factory (www.impactfactory.com) and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (www.cipd.co.uk)