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What Are Soft Skills? Top 8 - YouTube
Channel: Communication Coach Alex Lyon
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- What are soft skills in the workplace?
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We're going to look at
the top eight soft skills
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that cut across most
professional situations.
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(upbeat music)
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One way to understand what soft skills are
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is by looking at hard skills.
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These are job-specific technical skills.
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So if you're a software developer,
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your hard skills are
your ability to program.
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If you're an accountant,
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it's your ability to
do your client's taxes.
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Every area of specialty comes
with certain expectations
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for technical knowledge
and hands-on skills.
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In contrast, soft skills are more general
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and cut across most types of jobs.
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Soft skills are essentially your ability
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to work well with others.
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When a physician takes the time to connect
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with other doctors with
a professional attitude
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and talk to nurses in supportive ways
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and really listen to patients,
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those physicians are
building relationships
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through their soft skills.
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When I do consulting and workshops,
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the most common problem I see
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is that most of my clients
are smart, they're competent,
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but they have underdeveloped soft skills
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and it's holding them back.
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So two resources I would
suggest are on my website.
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I have classes at the
Communication Coach Academy.
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Then there's always at
least one free class there.
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I also have a free PDF download
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on the five essential communication skills
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that every professional should have.
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I'll put links to those in the
description below the video.
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To prepare for this video,
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I looked at five different
online articles on soft skills
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until I started to see clear overlap.
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links to those articles are
in the description below.
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And I stopped at five articles
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because they all started
to mention the same skills.
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I then boiled down those separate lists
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into the eight most commonly
mentioned soft skills
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across those lists.
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So roughly speaking, I list
these in order of priority
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based upon those lists
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and also my own professional experience
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working with clients
in corporate settings.
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So here's the list.
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Number one, the top soft skill
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on almost every list is leadership.
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Now, granted, you could say
that all of these soft skills
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are part of leadership, and
that's accurate in one sense,
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but here we're talking
about perhaps the difference
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between management and leadership.
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Managing, in many ways, is about
maintaining the status quo.
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Management is usually tied
to an official position.
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Leading, in a nutshell, is your ability
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to successfully guide a group of people
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from point A to point B,
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and you don't need an
official leadership position
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to demonstrate that.
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I was once working with a client
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and I came back a year later
to the same organization
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and they guy I had been
working with had been promoted
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from individual contributor team leader.
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He had the same hard skills
roughly as everybody else,
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but he showed leadership skills
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long before they ever promoted him
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to the actual leadership position.
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So some specific leadership
skills he was good at
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were communicating,
inspiring goals and a vision.
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He's also a pretty good
coach, teacher, mentor,
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and motivator to the team.
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Leadership also means
keeping the effort on track
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by facilitating building consensus
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and engaging everybody along the way.
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You can do all those things
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even if you don't have the word supervisor
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in your job title.
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Number two is communication.
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Like leadership, this word
means a lot of different things.
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So I'll narrow it down to
being skilled at both verbal
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and nonverbal communication.
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Verbal communication
often means your ability
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to communicate clearly and concisely.
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This usually means giving clear updates
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at group and team meetings.
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It means being good at
writing emails and reports,
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so they are easy to
follow and well-organized.
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Nonverbal communication
often means the vibe
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that you give off.
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Your communicating maybe
supportive, positive,
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and other kinds of good nonverbal cues
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like eye contact, facial
expressions, body language.
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I know a guy I used to work with
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who gave off horrible non-verbals.
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He used to roll his eyes and make faces
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when he disagreed and shake his head.
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His boss finally had
to talk to him about it
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because it was dragging
everybody else down
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and really was holding him
back from his own advancement.
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Without ever saying a word,
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you can create a negative
or positive impression
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just based upon your nonverbal cues.
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At more advanced levels,
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communication skills would also include:
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good public speaking
and presentation skills.
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Stand up speaking is a great
way to accelerate your career.
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Good storytelling skills
are also important
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and can help you make a point
in a way that really sticks.
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And your persuasive communication skills
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will help you build a case
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when you're asking for a
project approval, funding,
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or getting people enlisted
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into an initiative that you care about.
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Number three are your
interpersonal skills.
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And on some lists, this is
simply called people skills.
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But generally speaking,
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interpersonal skills include things like,
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listening well to others.
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We get a lot of credit
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for paying attention when
other people are talking
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and signaling to them that
we're following along.
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We also want to communicate
a positive attitude.
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We want to be friendly,
courteous to others.
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And I'm thinking of a
guy I used to work with
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who had an excellent ability
to build rapport with others,
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to show empathy.
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He used light humor
when it was appropriate,
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and this made it much
easier and enjoyable for him
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to bond with others and
to get the work done.
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Interpersonal skills
also count our ability
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to communicate assertively
and say what we mean,
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but do it in a way
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that does not come across
as aggressive or hostile.
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And you have to learn to be diplomatic,
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especially when you disagree.
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And that also may include giving criticism
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in supportive ways
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and accepting criticism
with composure and maturity.
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Number four is work
ethic, self motivation.
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We want to demonstrate that
we have a strong work ethic,
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an internal drive and dependability.
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Other people should know, for example,
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that they can count on us.
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That means taking
self-responsibility for our work,
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taking initiative and
showing good self-direction.
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When I receive calls from
employers for references,
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most employers will ask me
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about an applicant's
ability to meet deadlines,
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their attendance, time management.
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These are the basics,
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and I think what they're
really asking about
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is the work ethic and self motivation.
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Employers don't want to hire people
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they have to micromanage
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and wonder if they're
going to be working hard.
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Number five is teamwork.
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And again, this is another big word
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that can certainly
include many of the skills
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we've already mentioned.
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But specifically, teamwork
often means our ability
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to collaborate work cooperatively
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with others on joint projects.
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Part of teamwork is knowing how to connect
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and put your heads together
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with other people on your actual team
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and also work with people
in other departments
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in larger organizations.
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I'm thinking of a boss,
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a former supervisor I used to work for,
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who had very high marks on teamwork.
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She was able to work with a
diverse group of stakeholders
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who often did not share
her area of expertise.
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She took a good collectivistic
view of the team,
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the team outcomes, and the entire effort.
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She came up out of her
silo, you might call it,
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her own little area of
expertise in jargon,
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and she learned how to talk to everybody.
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We probably all know
people who do the opposite.
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They are too individualistic
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and only concerned about their own tasks
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and their own individual projects.
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But if you want high
marks for soft skills,
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then working with other people
on a team is really critical.
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Number six is problem solving.
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I was talking to a friend
of mine the other day.
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He works behind the scenes in television
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and he said that his job is
essentially solving one problem
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after the next all day long.
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They start with a plan,
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but there's never enough money or help,
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and there's always obstacles
they didn't see coming.
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And our ability to find
a way to move forward
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and solve those problems
is really important.
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Problem solving usually
involves critical thinking,
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logical reasoning, and we
have to have the ability
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to think through an issue
clearly and reasonably.
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Problem solving also involves
making good decisions,
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informed decisions.
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We can't just do what we feel like doing.
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We have to come up with a solution
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that actually is going to work,
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not just the first idea that comes to mind
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or just go with our favorite
way of doing things.
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And that takes preparation
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and a systematic approach,
research, creativity,
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and a good dose of
personal resourcefulness.
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Number seven is flexibility
and adaptability.
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Most of us work on a variety of tasks
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with all sorts of different people.
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And that means we have to be
flexible and open to change
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and find new ways of
doing things oftentimes,
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and this is really hard for some people.
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I worked with a client for a
while who is very inflexible.
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And once she got an idea in
her head, she would protect it
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and she would shoot down
any other suggestions.
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Well, that's not a good
example of soft skills.
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We need to have the self-awareness
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to realize that we have
our own personality quirks,
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our own mental boxes,
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and we have to do our
best to put that aside.
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We have to get better
at adapting to others
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and responding to uncertainty
and change with flexibility.
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And that means at times
to be open, trainable,
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and work well under pressure on deadlines,
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and somehow still get described
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as someone who is easy to work with.
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We have to learn how to roll with changes
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and keep moving forward
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even when the situation is ambiguous.
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Number eight is our ability
to manage and resolve conflict
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and even negotiate a little bit.
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And this begins, of course,
by being the kind of person
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who does not create conflict.
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I honestly believe that when
people say they're looking
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for someone with good
conflict management skills,
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that's another way to say,
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we don't want someone who
is going to cause conflict,
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who has a tendency to create drama.
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And you can usually tell
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because this type of person
has a win-lose philosophy.
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In order for them to win,
somebody else must lose.
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So they act competitive in times
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and in places where it's
not necessary at all.
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In my experience, people with a win-lose
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or conflict-driven approach
usually brought that with them
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from their own personal life
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and they brought it into the workplace.
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They are like that every place
they work, in other words,
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and you don't want to be this person.
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So first don't be a source of conflict.
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And next, when conflict
comes up between you
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and others around you,
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learn to deal with it
appropriately and productively.
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That means looking for common ground,
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finding ways to get
everybody's interests met,
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and somehow using a disagreement
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to make things even better in the end.
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And this might mean drawing
on negotiation skills
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or facilitation skills
to hear everybody out,
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make sure everybody feels understood.
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You want to take a win-win approach
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and look for a satisfactory outcome
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for everybody involved, not just you.
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It often means being the bigger person,
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the more mature person, in other words.
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Question of the day.
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Which of these top eight soft skills
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do you need the most work on personally?
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And feel free to check
out my free download
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of the five essential communication skills
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that every professional should have.
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And there's always a free class
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at my Communication Coach Academy.
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Links to all of those resources and more
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are in the description below.
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So thanks, God bless; and
I will see you next time.
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