Hughs Blog

It is the soft stuff that wins

I was presenting a set of leadership skills to future rheumatologists today when my client admitted “You know we refer to this as ‘soft skills’.” Now I’ll be the first to admit that learning how to listen properly or resolve issues with colleagues or your boss won’t cure arthritis, but it might get you a job or help you keep it.

I often use the example of the study referred to by Malcolm Gladwell in Blink that could predict doctors that would avoid malpractice suits based on their client care. More specifically, the ‘problem-free’ doctors tended to start their patient interviews with an orienteering comment (“First, Mrs. Smith, I will ask you some questions and then I’ll inspect the leg…”), used some humour and spent more time with the patient. Hmmm, sounds like soft stuff to me.

And it just makes sense. If you want someone to be a part of a productive team, work with clients and report to a boss, you want them to have people skills and personal management skills. It’s no good having the best trained, most experienced whatever if they are incompetent in a team or their leadership skills are nothing short of abusive.
Here’s my list of top picks that makes for winners in the workplace (let me know what are yours):

1.    Balance listening with advocacy. No point being a great listener if you can’t speak your mind convincingly. Employers want to know what you think once they know they have been heard.
2.    Keep promises. This should be a point of pride, not something that slips once you get busy. Little promises (“I’ll get right back to you on that…”) or big ones (“My sales will be up 10% by the end of the quarter”) all go into the trust account with someone. And like it or not they are checking the balance.
3.    Be a team player. I think it was Michael Jordan that once said “There’s no ‘i’ in ‘team’, but there’s two in ‘idiot’!”. Don’t let your need to be right or have power overshadow the health of the team.
4.    Understand money. It doesn’t matter if it’s on your job description or not, but employees that understand the basics of a profit and loss statement or budget are always going to make better decisions toward the bottom line.
5.    Organized (just enough). I’ve never worked for a client that doesn’t experience change and occasional crisis. People need to have good systems for their office space and being organized with their time, but not be obsessed by it.
6.    Committed to health. Know how to turn work off and recharge the batteries. Taking work home every night and sacrificing family and exercise time might be laudable, but it’s also stupid.
7.    Aware and willing to share. Be able to listen to your intuition, recognise right from wrong and speak up when you think either praise is due or better is possible. We’re long past the days when the boss was the only one giving feedback.

These are seven skills that could take a lifetime to master, but I’ve included them regardless because of how important I think they are. These should all be on anyone’s shopping list when looking for employees and on your training calendar if you want to keep them.’

You can probably think of others, drop me a line and let me know.

Hugh D. Culver is a thought leader in personal performance at work. He has worked with over 450 organizations to inspire change, growth and success in the workplace. You can reach Hugh at hugh@HughCulver.com

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