5 Critical Soft Skills Foundations for Personal Mastery

Across almost all kinds of training programs out there, soft skills are probably one of the hardest to select for. Either you're going for some program related to the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, or you are attempting to develop something on your own and reinventing the wheel. After working in the space of training and education for the last 24 years, I am more certain that there are some critical competencies for personal mastery that one will need now, more than before.

#1: Self-Leadership and Accountability

This has been, by far, one of the most important soft skills required within organizations. Heaven knows most people are experts at pointing fingers, casting blame and playing the victim. I remember in an early employment setting, the IT guy was playing Minesweeper when I asked him to help sort out the email problem we had. He said it was a very complex thing that would need a few days to sort out. So I trusted him. After walking past his cubicle a couple of times and seeing he was advancing in Minesweeper but not my problem, I decided to literally take things into my own hands, studied Networking, and discovered that the problem wasn't as difficult to solve and ended up rebooting the email server, much to that guy's displeasure. Oh well. The fact is that self-leadership is crucial means we need to learn to start looking from within. Any judgement we have (e.g. their department is very sticky about such things; her boss is not supporting of such ideas) also requires us to take a step to ask if we are indeed telling ourselves the story to justify a barrier exists that we can't do anything about. There's always a choice, and while I'm not saying we have to bear the brunt of every problem that surfaces, I do believe that there is a way to account for things we can act upon, rather than wish and wait for others to do it. In a fast-paced environment, taking responsibility for one's actions does not mean others escape scot-free... but you can rest assured that when you do, you surpass the problem faster, while the remnants will haunt those who don't act upon them.

The issue goes much higher, of course, when people are pragmatic and "left-brained" in their approach. They would rather just get the job done. Yes, there is a place for such behavior. But the question will ultimately remain: what are we rewarding? If in an organization, mistakes are problems and the persons shifting responsibility are rewarded rather than those attempting to bring diverse ideas together to build a way forward, the organization becomes tainted with a lack of trust which builds good teams and leaders. In building awareness for self-leadership, individuals will learn to accept that good things happen to bad people, and vice-versa, but that doesn't mean that we should stop seeking the best versions of ourselves. Employment in any company after all, is never infinite.

#2: Communicating and Empathy

The ability to express oneself is one of the most highly valued skills in the professional world today. Unfortunately, it is often because a professional opinion is offered, that others tend to keep quiet and accept what has already been said. This points to two issues. First, the belief that what we think is not important, and second, that others who have a professional view or authority are always right. The truth is, the passer-by who sees a problem being solved by scientists often can provide a perspective that could shift the way the scientist views the problem... if they are willing to listen.

Hence, the key to communication is to build the capabilities to establish empathy. No, I don't mean you have to be a counselor. What I mean is learning to peer through the layers of their being, to understand how they function. How do they think? Why do they think this way? If I were in their position, what might I want that is not being verbalized? What are their motivations for behaving the way they do? What does their conversation say about their background and model of the world? Basically, where are they coming from?

These questions help you to anticipate their needs, interests, concerns and expectations so as to design a feasible communication plan to influence, negotiate and potentially win others over to your way of thinking.

#3: Emotional Balance

Since the time when we started studying what was going on in our brains, we've also come to recognize that there's plenty we don't know. In fact, stress is weird in the sense that depending on our meanings associated with stress, one person could crumble while another would rise to the occasion. Barring mental illness, of course. Ultimately, emotional balance is by far one of the most important abilities one can use to cope with the changes in life. We all know that change is happening at an increasing pace, but the truth is that while we evolve materially, humans still need to learn to live in the hear and now in order to reconnect with self and arrive at meaning.

A key framework I often teach shows people that the way we interpret the world around us requires preparation. I had spoken to a school I was consulting for and one of the senior management had made a comment - when you are upset, how do you apply this model, especially when it happens? I was shocked because they had no clue that emotional balancing isn't about waving some magic wand so that problems stop and you can sing Kumbaya. Instead, it must be something you deliberately practice. If you wait for the 100m race to start running, you're going to be in for a big disappointment. This is the reason why strategies like meditation and cognitive-behavioral therapy are helpful for those of us who are experiencing high cognitive load that may put us out of sync with ourselves. Learning to connect with oneself introspectively is likely to help create greater self-awareness.

In my Emotional State Model, the events that happen to us often become triggers that lead to an uncontrolled spiral of reaction rather than response. Emotions cannot be helped, and therefore neither can results. But the truth is that to get the results you want, you need to plan for and rehearse your behaviors, states and mental faculties well. Using this model, we teach organizations self care for well-being and stress management, personal motivation and energy management, as well as to use it as a means for managers to observe and tune into others' ways of thinking for change or leadership purposes.

#4: Collective Problem-Thinking and Solution Design

As a facilitator, I have had my fair share of good days and bad. One of the bad days, a team was going through their discussion and they ended up getting very defensive with one another, causing a shutdown of their communication. They skirted the actual problem in favor for superficial responses and answers. As a result, there was no real solution. That's not so surprising because a lack of trust creates all these issues.

But on the flip side, and there are times when collaboration led to positive solutions, those would be powerful milestones to establish trust. So, you see, the ability for individuals to collectively think about their problems and design their solutions with their team's diversity in mind would have a better chance of creating a better organization anyway.

Using a thinking framework known as the SCORE model, we invite participants to design their pathway forward by ensuring that they are clear about their current reality as well as the root causes. Often, it is easy to identify root cause situations in machines, but not necessarily in other people. As a result, those who are less able to empathize will fail to see from another person's perspective. Empathy is a critical element in collaboration, and if teams and organizations want to move forward, they need to learn the art of thinking together in spite of potential hostility and dissent. The truth is that persuasive effort needs to be put into place so that one doesn't just give up on the first two or three tries at navigating in that direction.

The management team must consider these implications. A client I coached was working for an organization that had the tendency to shut her ideas down. The more she did it, the more she came to realize that they weren't interested in her ideas, and hence ended up working for a competitor that literally stole their business. It was a shame because the management team themselves were somewhat despotic, shutting down anyone or anything that was not liked by them. They suffered the consequences.

#5: Effective Inquiry and Coaching

Now comes coaching. Because I run and certify people in coaching methodologies, I am clear that most people get stuck asking questions simply because they are in the wrong frame of mind. Many offer advice rather than inquire, simply because it is faster to have contributed something than to wait for someone to collaboratively work on an answer. The truth is that giving people an answer isn't good. You hired people to think. So make them think. Or else, it's like hiring a professor to do research only to tell him to serve drinks to visitors.

Questions open up our world, and often are responsible for shifting our perspectives. As a result, this is probably one of the most powerful personal development skills. Yet, there is no workshop that centers its attention on this. The best CEOs and leaders ask the right questions so as to challenge limiting beliefs and cultures within the organization. These questions are not intended to provoke people as much as to be provocative of thinking. Advice giving may be helpful, but if you don't train up the way of thinking by giving someone with a brain a real job to do, you might simply be making people exactly like you through that advice.

Conclusion

These don't stop here. The design itself for any corporate training must be well-matched against the needs of each organization. There are many hands-on activities that can help to define the way people grow through these programs and approaches to support transfer of learning back to the workplace. Ultimately, if people are your best resource, perhaps we need to develop them in ways that activate their inner potential to contribute to the growth of their organization.