S.O.S Soft (Survival) Skills

“Save Our Skills” — it’s a distress warning!

Stop thinking soft skills are a “nice to have” and start viewing them as a survival skill.

Think about it: you need them to communicate effectively, lead teams efficiently, read people accurately, etc.

When I did my TEDx Talk “Saving Soft Skills From Extinction,” it was motivated from the perspective if we keep going down the current road of poor soft skills they’ll eventually disappear.

Let’s use technology as an example.

Younger generations continue to improve and depend on technology for daily tasks.

That is a double-edged sword.

On one hand technology can assist us in the speed of completing work, BUT it can also strip us away from soft skills that differentiate us as humans.

S.O.S. is an urgent plea for help.

I’m urging you to start looking at soft skills as a means to survival, both personally and professionally.

So much of providing “value” is supplying a need in a market of demands.

Essentially standing out from the crowd.

One of the ways to do that is to improve your soft skills…and there’s only one method that works.

PRACTICE.

• Want to be a better public speaker? Volunteer to speak in front of people.
• Want to learn to be a better listener? Start listening and ask for feedback.
• Want to be more empathetic? Put yourself in others’ shoes and feel their emotions.

You can agree that soft skills are important, but your actions speak louder than words.

What are you actually going to do about it?

Companies that WAIT until talent leaves to their competitors are losing out.

The best way to be proactive is to offer soft skill training.

1. It’s a mixture of teaching, role playing and group discussion.
2. Soft skills are NOT taught in college and rarely offered during onboarding.
3. Until you start looking at soft skills as a necessity turnover will continue to be an issue.

Why?

Because 75% of people leave their job because of a poor manager.

You can probably guess what separates the bad/even good from great managers right?

Strong soft skills.

So I urge you NOT to be like everyone else and label soft skills as luxury to have.

Beat your competitors by training your team with the soft skills to retain talent, gain customer loyalty and increase sales plus your bottom line.

Now that you’ve gotten your warning, what are you going to do about it?

Reply S.O.S. in the comments and together let us push your company to the top!

God Bless,

Scott