The diminishing role of repetitive tasks might seem threatening as some jobs have been replaced, but it also heightens the importance of soft skills. Companies that enhance employees' capabilities in areas like cultural awareness, communication, conflict resolution, negotiation, and feedback can therefore expect a positive return in the long run.
85% of career success comes from having well-developed soft skills, and only 15% from technical knowledge. With the right Soft Skills Training, employees can navigate their roles with more creativity, empathy, and agility, ultimately driving their companies to succeed in the human aspects of business that machines cannot replicate.
Whether you work remotely from home or in person at an office, you are bound to encounter colleagues, collaborators, and leaders that make up a rich tapestry of individual backgrounds and experiences. This ecosystem can be visualized through the lens of the diversity wheel model, which consists of four layers:
The whole point of diversity in the workplace is not just about tolerance, but also embracing and leveraging different perspectives that can spur creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. So culturally competent employees are primed to contribute more to the organization and become higher performing.
Good storytelling shouldn't be limited to when a company needs to sell products to customers, it should also be applied to how employees communicate their ideas and findings to each other and to higher ups. A good framework to consider when you're the storyteller is the 3R's of storytelling. The 3 R's stand for: relatable, remarkable, and relevant.
As the dialogue within a multicultural and articulate workforce deepens, the role played by conflict resolution and negotiation techniques becomes increasingly apparent. Frameworks like the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Model help employees can gain insight into their own and others' conflict-handling styles.
The Thomas-Kilmann model identifies five primary conflict-handling modes based on assertiveness on the y-axis and cooparativeness on the x-axis. For example, in a competing mode, which is fueled by high assertiveness and low cooperativeness, the focus of the conflict is to get your perspective accepted. Understanding one's preferred conflict-handling style and then adapt it to the situation can lead to more effective resolutions and workplace dynamics.
Last but not least, the art of feedback. Feedback are not only hard to give but also hard to receive. Emotions and egos can run high when one's work is being criticized. The feedback matrix takes the guesswork out of how feedbacks should be handled. The matrix includes four key quadrants: collaborative, investigative, informative, and corrective.
Ultimately, feedback should go beyond mere criticism to become a tool for personal and professional development. It encourages not only the highlighting of areas of excellence but also the exploration of future possibilities.
Soft skills in areas like cultural awareness, communication, conflict resolution, and feedback enriches organizational dynamics and make work more exciting for employees. It's no surprise that those who are equipped with good soft skills can devote more energy into creative ideas that drive innovation, or even become effective leaders that bring out the best in their peers. Ultimately, while automation helps to drive down costs, human talents are the brainpower that drives future business growth and brings the next big idea to life.
