Tag Archives: soft skills

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How Good Are Your ‘Soft Skills?’

question markOrganizations often talk about the value of finding employees with “soft skills,” meaning abilities to communicate and work well with others. This is not a given. In fact, current media use patterns have lessened the chances that younger Americans will need repair their initial instincts to be other-centered. Here are some questions that explore some of the dimensions of these attributes. The questions represent general patterns, with room for individual exceptions. How many did you correctly guess?
1. If I am with a work colleague and my phone rings, a reasonable course of action is to pause our conversation, offer a brief apology, and take the call.
  • A. Yes
  • B. No
2. Prior to a meeting of a work team you will lead, it’s a good idea to send around a brief agenda of items to be considered.
  • A. True
  • B. False
3. It’s ok to leave your phone on and in sight during a committee meeting, especially if it is in a silent mode.
  • A. True
  • B. False
4. Video meetings on Zoom or other services can be just about as good as meetings that happen in the same room.
  • A. True
  • B. False
5. In a meeting of colleagues it is probably better to call out someone’s mildly offensive comment immediately, rather than pointing it out to them later in private.
  • A. True
  • B. False
6. It is probably a waste of time to ask member in a new taskforce of 10 to introduce themselves before a meeting starts.
  • A. True
  • B. False
7. You have a meeting with your team. One member often contributes too much and pulls the group away from the subject at hand. Assuming everyone fits around a rectangular conference table, where is the ideal place to ask that person to sit?
  • A. Along the table length.
  • B. In a chair opposite the leader at the other end of the table.
  • C. It does not matter.
8. A problem-solving group will usually make better decisions if the boss is also in the room.
  • A. true
  • B. false
9. Generally, the human efficiency curve for most individuals increases throughout the workday.
  • A. True
  • B. False
10. The best way to prepare for remarks that you must give to a room of colleagues is to write out what you want to say so that they can be read back clearly in your presentation.
  • A. true
  • B. false
11. Being anxious before a presentation is normal and usually helpful.
  • A. True
  • B. False
12. In research on gender differences and communication
  • A. Women are more likely to favor asking for clarifications or raising questions.
  • B. Men are more likely to favor stating their opinions on a topic.
  • C. Neither are true.
  • D. Both are true.
13. Withholding making a final decision in a meeting because differences remain is most clearly associated with
  • A. Quakers
  • B. Catholics
  • C. Lutherans
14. Working in a group is likely to increase the chances that there will be dissenters who will oppose an emerging group consensus.
  • A. True
  • B. False
15. Job reviews and terminations are rarely easy for managers or employees. Even so, it is acceptable to deliver negative evaluations or separation to an employee without necessarily  meeting them in the same space.
  • A. True
  • B. False

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Answers:

1. B. No. Something in our nature leads us to imagine an urgent message waiting in an unanswered call. But rarely do calls deserve such priority. The person(s) in your presence should be considered first. They deserve your undivided attention.

2. True. With a few exceptions it is a courtesy to all of the meeting participants to indicate the focus of the meeting. They may want to prepare. Or they might appreciate the chance to look over materials that will be considered in the meeting. It borders on the rude to spring a significant surprise on group members, if the meeting is to gain their input.

3. False. Leaving your phone screen on and in sight of others is a distraction to you and communicates your view that you may soon have something better to do. Ditto for laptops, which have turned into common props used to fake meeting-related work. New messages and e-mails can wait. Since we do not multitask well, give your attention to those in the meeting. If you feel like you really don’t need to be there, simply excuse yourself.

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4. False. Zoom and its counterparts are useful. But because they are mediated through limited images and often poor sound, they represent a degraded way to connect. The inconvenience of being in the same space is often offset by the added communication information received when you see a whole person.

5. False. A seriously egregious comment may need an instant response, but a comment made in innocence or ignorance rather than with malice can be better addressed privately.  And forget the urge to do some virtue signaling. Criticism of another in public usually means a loss of face and defensiveness for the person that receives it. In private, the offending comment can be corrected without inflicting the deeper harm of a more public reprimand.

6. False. It is worth the time to ask members who may not know each other to introduce themselves, if their comments are brief. Our identity is affirmed in our name. It will also be possible for more of the business that transpires to be done on a first-name basis.

7. A. A rectangular table has power positions and weaker locations. On a corner side a constant contributor might be reined in by not having easy eye contact with all members of the group. That may ease their urge to dominate. The power positions are at the two ends of a table. Everyone can see people in these locations.

8. B. False. There can be extraordinary circumstances where the boss is needed to supply crucial information, but case studies suggest that participants in a meeting are more forthcoming with new ideas without concerns about pleasing the boss or guessing their preferences.

9. B. False. Count yourself lucky if this pattern cited in the question fits you. In fact most are less productive toward the end of a routine workday. A mid-afternoon “slump” is common.

10. B. False. A good rule of public speaking is to prepare notes for what you intend to say, but to stop short of preparing a manuscript to read to a group. Most of us are boring readers. We are usually more interesting when we amplify ideas we have prepared as talking points worded in what feels right in the moment. Most of us can be good at this type of extemporaneous speaking, which more closely duplicates natural conversation. But few of us have the skills of actors to breathe life into a prepared script.

11. A. True. What researchers call “communication apprehension” is common and can be useful. An extra shot of adrenaline can make you more motivated to succeed and perhaps even more animated. But repress the urge to remind your audience of your jitters. They will want to hear what you say more than they want to hear about your fears. Focus on the message, not yourself.

12. D. Both A and B are true. In settings where there may be some differences of opinion, some research indicates that men are most comfortable affirming what they believe. On the whole, women will seek ways to bridge differences in belief.

13. A. Quaker traditions value reaching a consensus before proceeding with an action. If doubts among a group exist, they would be less likely to force a vote that will end in a divided result. This is a worthy goal for any group, if not always possible.

14. B. False. With exceptions, groups tend to exert pressure on “dissident” members to accept the thinking of the majority. In some classic studies this is known as “groupthink.”

15. False. Of course it is possible to fire someone via some medium. But it is usually a cruel communication choice. When at all possible, life-altering decisions affecting an employee should be delivered face to face.

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The Illusive “Soft Skill”

                                         Pixabay

Persuasion is less a single skill than a range of capacities available in a specific circumstance.

A recent study conducted by the social media site LinkedIn ranked skills “in demand” by a broad sampling of employers.  They included certain “hard skills” like knowledge of computer language, as well as more people-oriented “soft skills.”  As reported by CNBC, the two most sought of the latter type were “creativity” and “persuasion.” LinkedIn recommended that job seekers would benefit from a course in persuasion or “becoming a thought leader.” They also recommended a course in consumer behavior: one of a large group of university courses focusing on marketing, advertising and public relations.

As a long-time student of persuasion, I’m grateful for the acknowledgement. And most students get it. Courses in persuasion and advocacy are rarely seen by them as a waste of time. Even so, one-word rankings of traits can easily fall prey to our common habit of asking a term to do too much.  As an idea, “persuasion” actually represents a thick onion with layers of ideas, strategies, unanticipated responses, and complicated effects.  Hence, its less a “skill” than a microcosm for many of the vagaries of human interaction.

To cite just one dimension, a lot of influence-making depends on attributes of character that audiences see in particular sources. The Greeks were the first to note that a persuader’s reputation is a huge wildcard.  The possible permutations begin to multiply rather quickly when we query the nature of character.

It’s useful to remember that figures like Aristotle and the Sophists–itinerant teachers of rhetoric (circa 335 b.c.)–considered the ability to make a compelling case for one’s own honesty was the essential pathway to power within the various city-states where they resided. Aristotle asserted that a person’s “ethos” is probably their best persuasive tool.  He noted that  “who you are sometimes speaks louder than what you say.”  In the preferred term of the times, the virtue of an advocate mattered as much as anything else.

 

It simply won’t do to reduce persuasion to a set of strategies, if the perceived virtue of an advocate matters as much as anything else.

 

In terms of this kind of classical analysis, the President may be able to ‘tweet’ with the rancor of a practiced bully.  But who can school him on becoming a better human being? We are always somewhat skeptical about the motives of politicians.  But Trump’s credibility has fallen so low that, as recent polls reveal, many voters and most women no longer believe him.

Source credibility is just one area of many areas that make up the study of persuasion. It is one thin layer of the onion. It helps to illustrate the larger point that persuasion is less a skill than a context-specific capacity  shared jointly by advocates and their audiences. If this plea for complexity sound like the familiar gambit of academics who want to enhance their subject’s importance, I suppose that’s true.  Even so, none of this precludes making a case for a given advocate.  But we must also ask to whom, on what subject, and in what circumstances?  When we begin to focus on the particulars of any single example, naming the positive qualities of a source and their persuasibility is tricky. In effect, it asks us to not just  look at the layers of one onion, but layers in a virtual bushel as well.