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Soft Skills for Business Success

Guest post by: Terri Levine

Article Overview: Employers focus too much attention on technical ability and know-how, little realizing that sometimes it is the "soft skills" that can mean the difference between a mediocre employee and a great employee.

Soft Skills for Business Success

We now recognize the need to prepare employees for business success with adequate social or soft-skill development. Many employees may have the technical ability but unless they know how that ability is communicated and perceived they may not enhance the organization, give their best performance or create their best productivity.

In a market where you are affecting the lives of families and their children, you don't want your people showing up "rough around the edges". You want people to represent themselves so that how they look, speak and act is consistent with who they are and with the objectives of the organization.

Coaching soft skills for business success smooths out the rough edges that detract from role performance. By incorporating a holistic approach combining elements of image, coaching, presentation skills, team development, and business protocols, you build strong employees for your organization.

James Champy in his best selling book Reengineering Management argues that "issues traditionally regarded as soft - intangible issues of people and company culture - should be handled as hard issues, tangible issues, disciplined issues. They must be recognized, in short, as issues that are as critical to the success and survival of the company as the more commonplace hard issues such as money and machinery".

By giving substance and rigor to soft skills, and through coaching, employees will increase their capacity to understand themselves and others and will become more outwardly focused. They will expand their range of responses so they will be more comfortable with new people, new business changes and new expectations. Employees that are coached in this manner are empowered to fully use their skills and abilities as they integrate new roles and competencies. The skills may be soft but the results are hard!

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Article Tags: coaching, employees, soft skills, training



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