Importance of Soft Skills
Ø To handle interpersonal relations.
Ø To take appropriate decisions .
Ø To communicate effectively.
Ø To have good impression and impact to gain professional development, etc..,
Ø Strong work ethic.
Ø Positive attitude.
Ø Good Communication skills.
Ø Time management abilities.
Ø Problem – Solving skills.
Ø Acting as a team player.
Ø Interpersonal relations & Self Confidence.
Ø Ability to accept and learn.
Ø Flexibility / Adaptability.
Ø Working well under pressure. Etc..,
Career Limiting Moves
- Fighting with others in meetings
- Off - Colour jokes
- Bad mouthing – projects or people
- Unwillingness to listen to others
- Disrespect for authority
- Negative Attitude
How can you improve your Soft skills..
- Look for opportunities to interact with others
- Learn to adapt the way you explain things to people of different ability levels
Interpersonal Skills
- Man is a social animal & his success in life largely depends on his relationship & interaction with others We must respect the views & sentiments of others.
- When we want to differ their views, we must very politely give hints to them without wondering their feelings
Body language
Definition :
Body Language is the unconscious forms of expressions and body movements which communicate to people observing us, about ourselves i.e our attitudes and true feelings, without even a word being spoken.
Non verbal language
§ Face is the index of the mind and it clearly displays the persons interest
§ Body language presents to the audience what we feel & think about the particular matter Ex: Nodding one’s head
§ Body language (e.g, arms crossed, standing, sitting, relaxed)
§ Emotion of the sender & receiver (e.g, speaking clearly, enthusiastic)
Indications from Body Language
•Confidence or lack of same.
•Nervousness or tension.
•Frustration or dismay.
•Attitude- lethargic or active and alert.
•Power or Authority and pride.
•Love, hate or anger.
•Suspicious behavior, lying or keeping a secret.
•Interest, boredom / excitement.
•Fatigue
•Morale
Interpretations from Body Language
Positive Vibes
–Upright Shoulders
–Firm Handshake
–Open arms and hands
–Smiling
–Eye contact with occasional natural breaks
–Nodding while listening
– Gesturing with hands while talking
–Leaning forward while sitting
Negative Vibes
•Drooping shoulders
•Shuffling gait
•Crossed arms and legs
•Standing with hands inside the pocket
•Fidgeting, playing with hair / jewelry, running tongue along teeth or tapping feet.
•Wet palms and limp handshake
•Avoiding eye contact or starring continuously
•Leaning back and looking down while sitting
NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR – INTERPRETATION
- Brisk, erect walk (Confidence )
- Standing with hands on hips(Readiness, aggression)
- Sitting with legs crossed, foot kicking slightly (Boredom)
- Sitting, legs apart (Open, relaxed)
- Arms crossed on chest (Defensiveness)
- Walking with hands in pockets, shoulders hunched (Dejection)
- Hand to cheek (Evaluation, thinking)
- Touching the lips, rubbing or hiding the nose with fingers (Doubt)
- lying, hiding, Rubbing the eye (Doubt, disbelief)
- Hands clasped behind back (Anger, frustration, apprehension)
- Locked ankles (Apprehension)
- Head resting in hand, eyes downcast (Boredom)
- Rubbing hands (Anticipation)
- Open palm (Sincerity, openness, innocence)
- Pinching bridge of nose, eyes closed (Negative evaluation)
- Tapping or drumming fingers (Impatience)
- Steeping fingers (Authoritative)
- Fondling hair (Low self-confidence; insecurity)
- Tilted head (Interest)
- Stroking chin (Trying to make a decision)
- Looking down, face turned away (Disbelief)
- Biting nails (Insecurity, nervousness)
- Pulling or tugging at ear
SOCIAL SKILLS
Introductions
& Social Interaction
•Informal & Formal talk
•Informal gathering – Deals
•Topics to avoid.
•What is personality
•Topics to avoid
•Escorting & leading
•Ladies first – you last.
•Opening car doors
•Leading to table
•Not deserting
•Sarcasm
Personality
•Looks least important. •Grooming & cleanliness
•Dressing sense.
•Posture & bearing
•Vigor & enthusiasm
•Energetic & warmth
•Extrovert or introvert
•Sense of humour
•Voice & accent
•Knowledge
•Eyes & movement
•Friendliness
•Type of Speech.
•Content v/s Presentation
•Get up when a lady enters
•Vulgar jokes
•Books –read latest books
•Good jokes prepared
•Not too much of “I”
•Speed of delivery
•Telephone conversation
•Length of speech
•Subtle Humour
•Non verbal assets
Types
of Audience
•Impartial
•Indifferent
•Action oriented
•Hostile
•Enthusiastic
•Reluctant.
TEAM BUILDING
Team building is a collective term for various types
of activities used to enhance social relations and define roles within teams,
often involving collaborative tasks.
•It is
distinct from team training, which is designed to improve the efficiency,
rather than interpersonal relations.
•Many team-building exercises are intended to
expose and address interpersonal problems within the group.
•Over time, these activities are intended to
improve performance in a team-based environment. Team building is one of the foundations
of Organizational Development that can be applied to groups such as sports
teams, school classes, military units or flight crews.
DEFINITION
:The formal
definition of team-building includes:
•Aligning around goals
•Building effective working relationships
•Reducing team members’ role ambiguity
•Finding solutions to team problems
Approaches to Team Building
Goal setting
•This emphasizes the importance of clear objectives and individual and team goals. Team members become involved in action planning to identify ways to define success and failure and achieve goals. This is intended to strengthen motivation and foster a sense of ownership. By identifying specific outcomes and tests of incremental success, teams can measure their progress. Many organizations negotiate a team charter with the team and (union leaders).
Role clarification
•This emphasizes improving team members' understanding of their own and others' respective roles and duties. This is intended to reduce ambiguity and foster understanding of the importance of structure by activities aimed at defining and adjusting roles. It emphasizes the members' interdependence and the value of having each member focus on their own role in the team's success.
Problem solving
•This emphasizes identifying major problems within the team and working together to find solutions. This can have the added benefit of enhancing critical thinking.
•Interpersonal-relations
•This emphasizes increasing teamwork skills such as giving and receiving support, communication, and sharing. Teams with fewer interpersonal conflicts generally function more effectively than others. A facilitator guides the conversations to develop mutual trust and open communication between team members.
Relevance of Team Building
The effectiveness of team building differs substantially from one organization to another. The most effective efforts occur when team members are interdependent, knowledgeable and experienced and when organizational leadership actively establishes and supports the team.
Effective team building incorporates an awareness of team objectives. Teams must work to develop goals, roles and procedures.
Effect on performance
Team building has been scientifically shown to positively affect team effectiveness. Goal setting and role clarification were shown to have impact on cognitive, effective, process and performance outcomes. They had the most powerful impact on effective and process outcomes, which implies that team building can help benefit teams experiencing issues with negative affect, such as lack of cohesion or trust. It could also improve teams suffering from process issues, such as lack of clarification in roles.
Goal setting and role clarification have the greatest impact because they enhance motivation, reduce conflict and help to set individual purposes, goals and motivation.
Teams with 10 or more members appear to benefit the most from team building. This is attributed to larger teams having – generally speaking – a greater reservoir of cognitive resources and capabilities than smaller teams
Challenges to Team Building
The term 'team building' is often used as a dodge when organizations are looking for a 'quick fix' to poor communication systems or unclear leadership directives, leading to unproductive teams with no clear vision of how to be successful. Team work is the best work.
Dyer highlighted three challenges for future team builders:
•Lack of teamwork skills: One of the challenges facing leaders is to find team-oriented employees. Most organizations rely on educational institutions to have inculcated these skills into students. Dyer believed however, that students are encouraged to work individually and succeed without having to collaborate. This works against the kinds of behavior needed for teamwork. Another study found that team training improved cognitive, effective, process and performance outcomes.
•Virtual workplaces and across organizational boundaries: according to Dyer, organizations individuals who are not in the same physical space increasingly work together. Members are typically unable to build concrete relationships with other team members. Another study found that face-to-face communication is very important in building an effective team environment. Face-to-face contact was key to developing trust. Formal team building sessions with a facilitator led the members to “agree to the relationship” and define how the teams were work. Informal contact was also mentioned.
•Globalization and virtualization: Teams increasingly include members who have dissimilar languages, cultures, values and problem-solving approaches problems. One to one meetings has been successful in some organizations.
The roles people play in meetings.
There are a number of different roles that people adopt in meetings, some of which are listed below. These roles are not always constant - one person might adopt several of these roles during one meeting or change roles depending on what is being discussed. Your score for each category should give you some idea of which of these roles you play in teams.
ENCOURAGER
Energizes groups when motivation is low through humour or through being enthusiastic. They are positive individuals who support and praise other group members. They don't like sitting around. They like to move things along by suggesting ideas, by clarifying the ideas of others and by confronting problems. They may use humour to break tensions in the group.
They may say:
"We CAN do this!"
"That's a great idea!"
COMPROMISER
Tries to maintain harmony among the team members. They are sociable, interested in others and will introduce people, draw them out and make them feel comfortable. They may be willing to change their own views to get a group decision. They work well with different people and can be depended on to promote a positive atmosphere, helping the team to gel. They pull people and tasks together thereby developing rapport. They are tolerant individuals and good listeners who will listen carefully to the views of other group members. They are good judges of people, diplomatic and sensitive to the feelings of others and not seen as a threat. They are able to recognize and resolve differences of opinion and the the development of conflict, they enable "difficult" team-members to contribute positively.
They may say:
"We haven't heard from Mike yet: I'd like to hear what you think about this."
"I'm not sure I agree. What are your reasons for saying that?"
LEADER
Good leaders direct the sequence of steps the group takes and keep the group "on-track". They are good at controlling people and events and coordinating resources. They have the energy, determination and initiative to overcome obstacles and bring competitive drive to the team. They give shape to the team effort. They recognize the skills of each individual and how they can be used. Leaders are outgoing individuals who have to be careful not to be domineering. They can sometimes steamroller the team but get results quickly. They may become impatient with complacency and lack of progress and may sometimes overreact.
They may say
"Let's come back to this later if we have time."
"We need to move on to the next step."
"Sue, what do you think about this idea?"
SUMMARISER/CLARIFIER
Calm, reflective individuals who summarize the group's discussion and conclusions. They clarify group objectives and elaborate on the ideas of others. They may go into detail about how the group's plans would work and tie up loose ends. They are good mediators and seek consensus.
They may say:
"So here's what we've decided so far"
"I think you're right, but we could also add ...."
IDEAS PERSON
The ideas person suggests new ideas to solve group problems or suggests new ways for the group to organize the task. They dislike orthodoxy and are not too concerned with practicalities. They provide suggestions and proposals that are often original and radical. They are more concerned with the big picture than with details. They may get bored after the initial impetus wears off.
EVALUATOR
Evaluators help the group to avoid coming to agreement too quickly. They tend to be slow in coming to a decision because of a need to think things over. They are the logical, analytical, objective people in the team and offer measured, dispassionate critical analysis. They contribute at times of crucial decision making because they are capable of evaluating competing proposals. They may suggest alternative ideas.
They may say:
"What other possibilities are there?"
or "Let's try to look at this another way."
or "I'm not sure we're on the right track."
RECORDER
The recorder keeps the group focused and organized. They make sure that everyone is helping with the project. They are usually the first person to offer to take notes to keep a record of ideas and decisions. They also like to act as time-keeper, to allocate times to specific tasks and remind the team to keep to them, or act as a spokesperson, to deliver the ideas and findings of the group. They may check that all members understand and agree on plans and actions and know their roles and responsibilities. They act as the memory of the group.
They may say:
"We only have five minutes left, so we need to come to agreement now!"
"Do we all understand this chart?"
"Are we all in agreement on this?"
Written Communication Skills
- Writing evaluates a person’s proficiency indications, spelling grammar etc…
- Errors committed while writing circulars, reports & agenda considerably spoil the image of the writer
- Good visual presentation using graphics, color, balanced design layout- adds so much to written communication.
- Keep handouts and other written materials for your presentation.
Presentation Skills
§ Presentation skills include planning, preparation & delivery of the message
§ Making a formal speech is one form of presentation
§ Presentation skills can be broadly categorized into physical oral, & electronic
§ Success in life depends on presenting ideas in an appropriate manners
§ Look at the eyes of audience & speak in a natural, conversational voice
§ Appropriate voice will make the presentation effective and interesting
§ Ask for feed back from your audience about your presentation & change accordingly
§ In presentation especially, stop occasionally to ask the audience understand what you have said
Team Work
- People of either gender, different age groups, qualification, status & skills work as a team with a common objective of accomplishing the task
- The success of any organization largely depends on in the coordinated efforts of its employees
- It mainly refers to the agreeableness & co-operation among the team members
Basic elements of good teamwork:
§ Goals: What we're trying to accomplish together.
§ Roles: Who does what and how we handle overlaps and interdependencies.
§ Process: How we run our business and how we work together.
§ Relationships: Communication and interpersonal skills for getting work done
Professional ethics
- Professional ethics is the need of the hour in India
- When a person is at the work spot, he must think of his work only
- He must put his heart & soul into the work
- Each employee is a organic part of the organization & must strive to contribute his mite to the successful functioning of the organization
Work Ethics
• High energy, high initiative.
• High trust, team work, positive attitude (to press on in the face of obstacles).
• Collaboration, communication.
• Complementary skills (harness diversity).
• Courage to risk making mistakes, adventure, celebration.
• Ability to detect & recover from deviations/mistakes quickly (tolerance for premature ideas, loud thinking & building ideas on one another)
MANNERISMS & ATTITUDE
• Courteous
• Polite and helpful
• A “can-do” attitude
• Motivation
• Initiative; self-starter
• Hard worker
• Honest
Time & Stress Management
- Prioritize the work & schedule your time accordingly
- Impotent work should be allotted more time & taken up first
- Listening to classical music & practicing Yoga will considerably reduce the physical, emotional & mental stress of an individual
Leadership communication skills
- Leaders, executives & managers need to be very clear about what they expect from others
- Trust your self
- Keep smiling
- Share & stay together
- Always learn new things
- Accept responsibility for your self & your actions
- Look at problems & challenges
- Be grateful always
- Love your self
PERSONAL APPEARANCE
• Clothes Clean and Pressed
• Hair clean and combed
• Teeth brushed
• Shower, use deodorant
• Do not let your after-shave/perfume be overpowering
• Tip: for train travelers, keep a bottle of deodorant/perfume in your drawer
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
“The capacity for recognizing our own feeling and those for others, for motivating ourselves, for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.” Daniel Goleman
EMPATHY
•Empathy is one's ability to recognize, perceive and directly experiential feel the emotion of another.
•As the states of mind, beliefs and desires of others are intertwined with their emotions, one with empathy for another may often be able to more effectively divine another modes of thought and mood.
•Empathy is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another' shoes", or experiencing the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself, a sort of emotional resonance.
• This means a person with empathy will understand the emotions and predict the likely responses of another individual. This is one of the most important qualities of a manager.
“DEFINITION OF MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP”
•Leadership is the process of influencing others to get the job done effectively over a sustained period of time. It involves influencing the work behavior of others to achieve organizational goals.
•Management is the process of getting things done through the efforts of others.
•Communication is the process of flow (transmission & reception) of information, ideas, understanding and feelings among people.
RELATIONSHIP -- EMPATHY, EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, COMMUNICATION, LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT
•EMPATHY
•part of
•EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
•which establishes
•EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATIONS
•which assists in assuming
•LEADERSHIP
•which is the most important quality of a
•MANAGER.
Examples
•Understanding problems of workers whose houses were washed away during floods.
• Understanding the thought process of a union leader who has come to you for negotiations i.e., his need to balance the interests of workers with the need to come to a reasonable, viable, sustainable settlement.
• Army example : An newly commissioned officer…when he joins his first regiment he has to live with his troops and not in the OFFICER’S MESS and has to do the job of the lowest soldier, sweeper or gunner for 3 days and work his way up to an officer rank, having done the job of each higher appointment.
•BY DOING THIS HE UNDERSTANDS THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE ORDERS HE PASSES ON EACH OF HIS SUB ORDINATES.
No comments:
Post a Comment