Nothing Soft About Soft Skills: The Bedrock Skills Your Team Needs

We still see this struggle daily, even after decades in the business.

Core competency skills - or “soft skills.” Also known as people skills.

Yes, everyone who doesn’t consider themselves a “people person” just rolled their eyes. But hang in there with me.

We all know what soft skills are. There are lots of interpersonal and emotional intelligence skills wrapped up into that little umbrella that many still struggle with. Things like collaboration, communication, teamwork, managing conflict, adaptability, and a bunch more. 

The funny thing is, none of those listed above are “soft” at all. They’re bedrock skills that are the foundation of most roles.

All the industry knowledge and technical skills in the world won’t be nearly as effective without these core competencies. Someone can be the smartest person in the room with the most expertise on a particular topic, but no one will know that or value their contribution unless they can communicate it in a receptive way. A massive project that takes dozens of people to build won’t get completed without knowing how to collaborate and work in a team. These foundational skills are still of the utmost importance, no matter how fast technology advances or how streamlined and automated we make our teams.

Most of the leaders we speak to keep telling us they need help with getting their teams to engage, to be motivated, to seek out feedback, and to learn how to progress. Their teams still struggle with collaborating and communicating effectively, interacting in team environments, managing differences (this is a big one!), and being flexible in how they approach their role. 

We’ve seen this more frequently lately with younger generations entering the workforce. The interpersonal skills, the emotional intelligence, and these core competencies aren’t as advanced as many leaders and managers hope for or would expect. (Kinda like asking our teens to lift their heads out of their phones and focus on interacting with PEOPLE, not the pixels on their screens).

To prove the point, in the 2019 Global Talent Trends report, 89% of recruiters said when a hire didn’t work out, it usually came down to a lack of soft skills. In the same report, 80% of companies surveyed said soft skills were increasingly crucial to the organization’s success. In fact, the specific skills they were looking for but were having a hard time finding were creativity, collaboration, persuasion, adaptability, and time management. This shows the growing importance of these core competencies to the workplace overall, but they are still the top things managers and leaders struggle to address with their teams.

Now, for the good news. 

We delve into how to address these and improve team collaboration, communication, adaptability, and more “soft skills” during our Coaching Career Bootcamp. 

Join us this Friday, December 8, 2023, for a LIVE virtual coaching bootcamp with me, Julie Winkle Giulioni, and Phillip Migyanko, MPCC, where we delve into ways to elevate your team and prepare you for a successful 2024 and beyond. 

Dec 8, 2023

8:00 AM - 12:00 PM CST

Live via Zoom

Check it out here, and join us.

Register here: https://www.salesprogress.com/career-coaching-bootcamp