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Soft Skills, Hard Numbers

Written by: Peter deLisser

Article Overview: Leaders know they need the "soft" skills but the book-keepers require "justification" for the results. However, in this "soft" economy with reduced staff, every conversation contributes to the "bottom line".

Soft Skills, Hard Numbers

Many senior executives are feeling great pressure in this economy to improve three "soft" skills - meeting management, responsible listening, and teambuilding.

To no one's surprise, financial people suggest cutting the "soft skills." Before doing so, senior executives need to review the "hard" numbers. Executives spend 90% of each day communicating, and yet only 5% of them spend time and effort trying to improve their communications skills, which require: handling 200 messages each day, spending half their time in meetings, speaking 30 percent of each day, and listening 45 percent of each day.

Here are examples of how these "soft" skills affect the "hard" numbers:

1. Effective meeting management pays off. Before conducting a two-day off-site meeting, have a published agenda with clear meeting objectives; otherwise, conflicts arise as people fight to elevate their own agendas. They not only lose two days of productivity, they also lose respect for your managerial abilities. Effectiveness of meetings is also damaged when executives denigrate any staff member's individual contribution ("that's a stupid idea"). This immediately reduces the number of people who are willing to surface new problem-solving ideas.

When holding unproductive meetings, show a lack of respect for staff members - and the word spreads. If 10 people attend the meeting, they will share the results with 300 people by the end of the day. They will tell their friends or colleagues that "there was no agenda," and "Charlie was told he had stupid ideas." Spreading such information creates an unsafe interpersonal environment by creating mistrust, conflict, and ineffective problem-solving. These are talented executives who spend 50% of their time in meetings and yet they have never studied "How to Run Effective Meetings."

2. Responsible listening saves money. Senior executives spend 45% of their time listening, and yet only 5% have had even a two-hour course in listening in which they actually practiced skills. The cost for a senior executive unskilled in listening is high, particularly when under pressure. Anytime an executive loses his or her temper ("that is a stupid idea") or their self-confidence (decides not to respond or ask questions), no listening can take place. If there is no listening, it is difficult to have new ideas heard or make necessary changes. Trust can't be built in a team in which 95% of the members are unskilled at listening to almost anything without losing their temper or their self-confidence.

3. Effective teams get results. Building productive teams requires that each senior executive, and particularly the team leader, know their personal communication strengths and weaknesses. They discover those by taking a motivational style inventory and then sharing the results. For example, the executives who say things like "that is a stupid idea" may be results-driven individuals. When communicating, their strength is to be direct, focused, urgent, and authoritative. That is what has made them successful. Unfortunately, when they cannot reach a desired result, their greatest strength automatically becomes their greatest weakness. They become irritable, insistent and impulsive. If the people on their team know that, they might be able to make allowances. Without that information, "mistrust, inter-group conflict and rigidity" take place.

Senior executives need to commit to hard tasks in a soft economy. They need to commit hard funds for the hard tasks. There will be an increased return on investment by accelerating the ability of senior executives to study, practice and implement effective meeting management, responsible listening, and teambuilding. Making funds available and implementing coaching sessions will create an interpersonal competency and psychologically safe environment, which increases success in problem solving.

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Article Tags: meeting management, skills, teambuilding



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