Soft Skills 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 1

Soft Skills: An Overview

LEARNING MILESTONES

This Chapter will enable you to:

Understand the urgency in developing your soft skills.

Recognize that personality development equals soft skills.

Differentiate between soft skills and hard skills.

Master the soft skills required by the industry.

Explore practical solutions to acquire soft skills.

Learn new business phrases and build your vocabulary.

Expert Quotes

A person without soft skills is like an ATM without cash…Just a Machine!

Hard work pays off. Soft skill pays off more.

1.1 Importance of soft skills

Do you know of a person who promises to send you an email, but never bothers to send it? And does not even apologize when you meet later? Or sat next to a smelly co-passenger on a train who insists on talking too loudly on the phone, keeps getting up and stepping on your toes? Or feel irritated when a friend just doesn’t listen properly and is distracted while you speak? Or a colleague who always thinks negatively and is always a pessimist? These are just some examples of poor soft skills that we encounter in our daily lives. Soft Skills also known as Life Skills, People Skills, or Relationship skills. Whatever the name, whether you are a student or a professional, it is almost essential that you have to communicate or interact in public at some point or the other. Whether it is presenting your project work, interacting with your bosses, clients, or teachers, appearing for group discussions or job interviews, or excelling in the real world, people from all streams need the all-important `soft skills’.

65% of the Indian population is 35 or under, and approximately 50% of the country’s population of 1.25 billion people is under the age of 25. However, we face a huge employability crisis in the country. Repeated surveys have shown that just about 7% of Indian graduates are employable.

In 2017, Deloitte also reported that soft skill-intensive occupations will account for two-thirds of all jobs by 2030.

♦ In this scenario who will be able to get the jobs of their dreams?

♦ Who will be able to form effective relationships and networks to build their careers and live their dream lives?

♦ And if employers have an oversupply of candidates, who will make it to the shortlist of candidates?

The answer: Only those with superior relationship skills, creativity skills, and those who display the ability to operate in a dynamic business environment and prove themselves as team leaders will survive and that too by having superb Soft Skills.

The book enables the reader to apply the theory they are learning through books and to practice that knowledge to make correct decisions. The goal is to become positive successful professionals and better human beings. And finally, to achieve their life’s goals.

1.2 Personality development and soft skills

Due to the disconnect of the academic curriculum with industry requirements, it is a fact that a majority of college students and young professionals lack the communication or soft skills to succeed in the Real World. At the same time, it is also a fact that almost all individuals want to succeed in their careers and lead a fulfilling and enriching life; They want to develop their personalities!

What then is personality development?

Every individual has a unique persona which can be tapped through a systematic and logically organized training schedule. People can be trained to increase their grooming, communication, and leadership skills, which they can acquire and use immediately in the real world. The goal of acquiring good soft skills should not simply be to educate. The ultimate goal should be to build competency.

Soft Skills help students to acquire leadership skills and communicate better.

Students develop better inter-personal skills, which have a positive effect on their personality.

People with powerful personalities are generally perceived to be more knowledgeable and well informed than others. They develop self-confidence and a positive mental attitude. They are able to see the positive aspects of life and view problems as opportunities. They view the glass as half-full rather than half-empty.

They live an enriching life and finally build a successful career.

The positive mental attitude that students attain by developing their communication skills gives them the confidence to not just become better communicators, but also better human beings.

1.3 Soft skills v/s hard skills

Hard Skills are the technical skills acquired through formal education or on the job experience.

However, Research done by Harvard University shows that 85% of job success comes from having well-developed soft skills, while only 15% of success are based on technical skills. In other words, students spend only 15% of their lives trying to acquire skills that account for 85% of their success! That in a nutshell exposes the lack of preparedness of individuals in their soft skills. Students spend their entire education learning by rote, without any idea of applied knowledge, to acquire technical skills. It is essential that the technical education imparted in the college should be given a corporate and industry oriented perspective.

1.4 Industry need: from campus to corporate

Industry leaders, and corporate experts all agree on one thing: That Lack of ` employability’ skills in job applicants is the single biggest headache for recruiters today. The Time and budget spent on training are only shrinking and companies now want to hire candidates who can hit the ground running and perform from Day 1! According to a report by Wheel box: `India Skills Report 2017’, these are the skills that the industry is looking for.

It is obvious that about 15% of the skills required are related to hard skills. Soft Skills form the crucial 85%!

1.4.1 Disruptive technologies and soft skills

Covid and the resulting lockdowns and work from home situations across the world have disrupted online communication forever.

For school children and their teachers, entrepreneurs and professionals, young and old alike, everyone has had to adopt to the new mode of communication: Online! Maybe not out of choice. But definitely out of necessity.

The 21st Century has brought computers and the Internet at the center of human life. Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Internet of Things are the keywords and ideas which have taken a real place in our lives. From mere concepts, these are actual realities which threaten the core of our existence: our jobs! A study, conducted by a US-based company ADP, which did a survey on employees in India found that nearly 63% of the surveyed employees expected that automation would take over jobs of people doing simple and routine work.

Case in Point

In February 2018, Amazon opened its first automated grocery store in the US called Amazon Go. This store does not have cashiers or attendants. Using AI and cameras, the shoppers can purchase what they like and leave without human interaction, and the payment is automated. This could leave almost 23 lakh cashiers potentially unemployed!

More and more companies are replacing repetitive, process-based jobs with bots and robots. This means that jobs which were hither to consider the domain of humans are being done by robots. For example, automated processes may soon replace the kind of work software developers were performing for foreign clients, which involved maintaining software by occasionally plugging in simple code and analyzing data.

Case in Point

According to a report from the World Economic Forum, 85 million jobs will be replaced by machines with AI by the year 2025.

Case in Point

Fabric and clothing brand Raymond recently said that it was on its way to replace 10,000 of its employees with robots over the next three years, according to an article in Trax.in. This makes up for 33% of its 30,000-strong workforce in the country.

A study conducted by the World Economic Forum called ‘Future of Jobs’,

Lists interpersonal skills like sharing, collaboration, creative thinking, team integration and negotiation as crucial for humans to beat the competition their jobs posed by Computers and Artificial intelligence. Now more than ever in age of AI and Big Data, it becomes critical that professionals develop creative thinking and communication skills to enable them to program the AI and handle strategic complexities, something that AI cannot.

1.5 The most important soft skills required for life success

We all want to develop our Personalities. But which aspect of Personality should we focus on? The answer lies in a holistic development covering the four pillars of Human development. These four pillars are:

Physical

Mental

Spiritual

Emotional

A good personality development program is a 360-degree learning program that helps an individual to become happy, confident, and eager to face the challenges of daily life with a Smile! Persons with dynamic personalities are able to thrive in an atmosphere of discussion and debate on a variety of subject’s which helps them to speak more confidently on a wide range of subjects.

While there are innumerable soft skills, the book has highlighted only those soft skills that Corporate experts, Business Leaders, Entrepreneurs, and Leading Management thinkers have thought as crucial to Professional and personal success.

Mastery of these soft skills is shown below and detailed in the book will lead to Personality enhancement.

Graphical Representation of these all-important Soft Skills:

1.6 How to develop soft skills

People from all vocations and all professions should aim to develop their soft skills. Doctors should display empathy and kindness in dealing with sick patients irrespective of their workload. Lawyers should develop the ability to be non-judgmental and display lack of prejudice when dealing with their clients. Engineers and other people employed in technical fields must develop the ability to look beyond their numerical ability, tools, and systems and develop inter-personal skills and the ability to get along with others. Those employed in the service industry need to display positive body language and perfect etiquette and professionalism. Students should become better listeners and develop relationship skills with their peers and teachers and parents. Even homemakers need soft skills to maintain an atmosphere of peace and harmony in their households.

However, the fact remains that acquiring soft skills is not easy. It is not an event that takes place all of a sudden. It is not a pill or medicine that one can take. Instead, acquiring soft skills is an on-going process of self-improvement and self-management. Our education system has drilled in us the ability to work within a structured system. However, in the real world, the ability to think out-of-the-box is crucial for success.

So, let’s begin the process of developing soft skills without delay! The first step is the hardest.

Based on the author’s long corporate and business experience, here are some easy ways to acquire soft skills. The book will elaborate on the most crucial soft skills that the reader should study to develop a powerful personality:

♦ Read: Reading newspapers, blogs, articles, and books. Don’t just think of reading as a simple act of reading. Treat reading as if you are having a cup of tea with an expert. And that expert (the author) is giving you all the wealth of experience in a short time and helping you to avoid costly mistakes.

♦ Observe: Learn from others’ experiences. Don’t repeat their mistakes.

♦ Write: Write down anything that inspires you. A habit, a gesture, an act that you observe in another person or in a movie, TV, real life, just about anywhere.

♦ Listen: To others, especially elders or more experienced people. Listening involves not just one’s ears, but you need to listen with your entire mind.

♦ Appreciate others: Compliment them on their achievements. Appreciate life and its gifts. Be thankful for the present and hopeful for the future.

♦ Act: Don’t just think, act now! Take the plunge and fight your inner demons. Conquer your fears.

♦ Speak: To an expert about any issue or problem in your life. Learn to be more open about your feelings and share your thoughts and in return you will receive a wealth of information from others.

♦ Internalize soft skills: The soft skills so acquired should become part of your basic nature. You should act and appear and practice the habits so acquired. These should not appear artificial else you will be called a `fake’.

♦ Train yourself in soft skills: For example, if you are scared of public speaking, take a professional course. Explore online programs if distance or cost is an issue. Steven Covey in his book: ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ talks about acquiring a habit: `Sharpen the Saw’. This means keeping your skills active by constant training and staying ahead of the curve. The training needs to be an iterative process, which means that through continuous contact programs and re-training sessions, the learning remains fresh and relevant. Coach Prashant offers personal coaching and trainings in soft skills.

Remember: Soft skills are not in-born! Soft Skills can be acquired by training combined with Practice.

1.7 Global perspective

India’s strong IT/ITES backbone gives it an advantage in adopting digital communication. And taking advantage of this, many partnerships and business models are being developed both by the public sector and private sector to develop India’s soft skills potential.

For example, US-based IT giant Oracle announced that it will build a new 2.8 million sq. ft. campus in Bengaluru. This will be Oracle’s largest facility outside of its headquarters in Redwood Shores, California. Oracle will launch an initiative to train more than half-a-million students each year to develop computer science skills by expanding its partnerships to 2,700 institutions in India from 1,700 at present.

Japan will set up six manufacturing training institutes in rural areas. The plan is to train 30,000 people over 10 years in Japanese style manufacturing skills and practices. Japan-India Institute of Manufacturing (JIM) and Japanese Endowed Courses (JEC) in engineering colleges will be designed by Japanese companies in India. Cooperation between the public and private sectors would be established for this purpose.

Responsibility

The SANKALP (Skill Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion Programme) aims at providing job-ready training to 350 million Indians. Apart from this, the government would set up 100 India International Skills Centers that will conduct advanced courses in foreign languages to help youngsters to prepare for overseas jobs.

There are many other such initiatives in the pipeline. Visit the Skill India website for more details or visit a skill development center in your area to see how you can upgrade your skills.

Soft skills form a backbone of these initiatives with the partners to encouraged them to develop soft skills along with technical skills.

However, we cannot wait for the benefits to trickle down the channel. The responsibility for developing soft skills remains with the individual.

1.8 Summary

It’s a very competitive world out there and only the truly motivated and driven individuals will be able to get ahead of the pack and beat the competition. This is because when it comes to choosing between two equally technically qualified individuals, soft skills are the differentiating factor between success and failure.

Soft skills are the backbone of life success.

Without soft skills, Personality development is not possible. The book demonstrates how the reader can acquire Soft Skills to overcome setbacks, challenges, and economic headwinds with determination and courage. How even a person with limited exposure and limited means can become the personality that everyone looks at and says Wow!

Whether you realize it or not, your mind has a secret invisible board. On one side is written the letters PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) and on the other, the letters NMA (Negative Mental Attitude) are written. Soft skills help us to focus on our strengths, the positives and work on eliminating the negatives.

Soft Skills give rise to a positive attitude that naturally attracts the good and the beautiful.

Your success, health, happiness, and wealth depend on how you use soft skills and develop a strong and impactful personality!

Knowledge check

What is the difference between Hard Skills and Soft Skills?

How can Soft skills increase employability in the face of Artificial intelligence & Automation?

What is the Industry requirement for Soft Skills?

List the three Verticals of key soft skills with two examples of each.

What are the ways in which soft skills can be developed?

Additional resources for self-development

Personality development for your Dream Job: https://www.udemy.com/personality-development-for-your-dream-job/?src=sac&kw=personality

Resource Blog on Soft Skills: http://www.coachprashant.com

Case in Point

You are a failure! You will never succeed in life shouted Sudhir’s father! Get out of my house! His mother pleaded with her husband to be soft on their only son, but he wouldn’t have any of it. I never want to see your face again.

Sudhir hung his head in shame and sobbed silently. Realizing that his father would not relent this time, he picked up his bag and left the house with his mother sobbing behind him. Not having anywhere to go he went and sat in the nearby bus stand when a car stopped by. It was Rahul, his close friend, a rising star in his MNC job.

Rahul an IIM-A graduate asked him: Hey long time no see my friend! Where have you been? Sudhir tried to hide his face but Rahul insisted that he sit in the car.

What happened, he asked?

Sudhir said, my father caught me drinking during the day again. I was fired from my job due to my alcohol problem and was depressed. I was never successful at what I did in life and look where it has brought me. I don’t have any future. Whatever, I have tried my hands on-business, work, relationships, I have been a failure. I don’t know what I should do? The future looks so bleak.

Rahul said: Success? Do you know what success is? Just because you experienced some failure early in your life, you got scared. You ran away from adversity and failure. You couldn’t accept challenges. That’s why you are in this state. You know I can tell you so many things about success if you will listen.

Surely, said Sudhir, I want to know.

Rahul said. "Let me tell you about successful people:

They are strong technically. But they are also stronger in their `Soft Skills’

They give the best to whatever they do. Successful people don’t make excuses and keep learning from their mistakes.

They don’t take shortcuts. They put in a lot of hard work and effort.

They do smart work more than hard work. They think creatively. Think with your head, not with your hands. Rickshaw pullers use their hands. You have been hired to use your brains. Think!

Remarkably successful people habitually do what other people won’t do. They go where others won’t go because there’s a lot less competition and a much greater chance for success.

Average success is often based on setting average goals. Don’t be average! Set your goals high and work backward from that.

Character: Successful people follow their moral compass and do what is right.

Vision: People who are successful have the ability to think beyond the tip of their nose. They bear short-term pain for long-term gain.

Persistence: When the going gets tough-the tough get going. No slacking, no sitting. Only hardcore action is the mantra for successful people.

Learn from their mistakes. Only a fool makes the same mistake twice.

Mentor and teach others. Successful people believe in setting systems, sharing knowledge, and learning from others.

Seven habits of highly successful people

That’s all fine, said Sudhir. But what about at work? How do I get successful at work? I never seem to hold on to a job. I don’t seem to have a goal in mind. Look at you! We started our careers together but look where you have reached. I feel like a loser.

Rahul said: "There are seven habits of highly effective people, especially helpful for one’s corporate career.

The Seven Habits (excerpts from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey)

Be Proactive. I recommend an attitude of taking charge and doing action instead of thinking.

Begin with the End in Mind. Covey recommends formulating a personal mission statement to document one’s perception of one’s own purpose in life.

Put first things first. Prioritizing work that is aimed at long-term goals, at the expense of tasks that appear to be urgent, but are less important. Delegation is presented as an important part of time management.

Think Win/Win describes an attitude where by mutually beneficial solution are sought, that satisfy the needs of oneself as well as others, or, in the case of a conflict, both parties are involved.

Seek First to Understand, then to be understood. Thoroughly listening to another person’s concerns instead of reading out your autobiography results in increasing the chance of establishing a working communication.

Synergize describes a way of working in teams.

Sharpen the saw focuses on balanced self-renewal. Joining a training program like those conducted by First Personality can easily keep your body and mind active.

Asking the right questions

Rahul continued: Why can’t I get a job? Why am I always so broke? Why can’t I have better relationships? These seemingly valid questions can cause difficulties in your life and your success. If you want to get a job, make more money, lose weight, or achieve any other worthwhile goal, it’s time you start asking better questions.

A much more effective strategy is to ask solution-focused questions. Instead of Why can’t I get a job? the following are much better questions because they lead directly to solutions:

What can I do to make a positive and lasting impression during my next interview?

What would I have to do to get a job in the next 30 days?

How can I become more qualified than any of the other candidates?

What other skills do I have that I can emphasize that will make up for my lack of experience?

What five things can I do to stand out from the 100 other applicants?

Can you see how asking these kinds of questions will lead to dramatically different answers and results?

Asking What can I do to get a job? versus Why can’t I get a job? isn’t just a play on words or the latest pop-psychology trick. It’s an effective strategy to solve a problem because when you start asking solution-focused questions, you tend to start finding solutions.

Successful people ask solution focused questions. You too must do the same Sudhir!"

Rahul said: "I know whatever I am saying, you will forget very soon. I will tell you one trick to remind you of the solutions and things we have discussed today.

Trick: Wear a rubber band on your wrist. Every time you ask a problem-focused question, give yourself a snap and rephrase the question. It might take a few days or even weeks to break the habit, but before long I guarantee that you will have a bruised wrist and a lot fewer problems."

Wow, said Sudhir, I will do this immediately! I feel good already. I am going home, and apologize to my parents. Then I am going to call my old boss and request him to give me one more chance.

Keep me updated on your progress said Rahul. "All the best.

Remember: If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way; if you don’t, you’ll find an excuse."

Applied knowledge

Describe the qualities that Sudhir lacked which made his life so difficult.

What are some solutions that Rahul suggested, that you can apply in your own life?

Think of some solution-focused questions that you can ask yourself for a real world problem that you are facing.

Build your vocabulary

Learn and use the Words and Business phrases used in this chapter to improve your Spoken English Skills:

Make the cut: To get Shortlisted.

Persona: The aspect of someone’s character that is presented to or perceived by others.

Rote: Learning without understanding.

Holistic: Taking into account an overall, 360-degree approach. Not just focusing on one aspect but on the entire issue as a whole.

Ahead of the curve: Beating the competition. Being in fashion, up-to-date with the latest trends, fashion or technologies.

Hit the ground running: Start something without delay or wasting time.

***********

CHAPTER 2

Emotional Intelligence

LEARNING MILESTONES

This Chapter will enable you to:

Understand what is emotional intelligence?

Learn how EI helps us at home and at work.

Develop an understanding of the relation between IQ and EQ.

Know how self-awareness and self-management can be powerful personal transformation tools.

Find out how social skills and empathy can be strong motivational tools.

Master