The Power of Soft Skills

Illustration Copyright 2020 Glenn Witmore

I'm doing a FREE webinar on "The Power Of Soft Skills" on Nov. 17, 2020. 

You can register here.

This blogpost provides some reference information for the presentation.

I'll add more items here as they become available. 

Please do comment with your thoughts!

There are lots of movies about superheroes, so I want you to know that…
You can be a superpower through the use of the power of soft skills!

My friend, Glenn Witmore, created this graphic for my presentation. He’s a professional comic book artist who has worked on major superhero licenses and owns captainclockwork.com where you can find more about him and his work.
As you can tell, Glenn didn’t use my likeness to create the character here in the foreground LOL 

Wikipedia provides a top10 list of softskills.
Maybe it will help to talk about hard skills. Hard Skills are those we learn from classes or get certified in, like Project Management, AI, Python, Scrum Master, SAFe Agilist or even using a tool such as spreadsheets.

What is a common thread in soft skills? People! Dealing with people! Sometimes they are called “People Skills”.
How do they vary from “Hard Skills”?

Active listening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_listening

Four Stages of Competence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence

By asking questions we produce some stress which can motivate people to make improvements.

Yerkes-Dodson Law – becoming stressed to the point of distress

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerkes%E2%80%93Dodson_law

Stress can turn into distress when it becomes overwhelming and productivity will decrease. 

Have you ever had this happen?

Freedom Ladder: https://gohighbrow.com/the-freedom-ladder/

Maslow's Hierarchy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs  

Altruism – caring for the needs of another while sacrificing your own needs.

John Kotter’s books “Leading Change” “The Heart of Change” and his website

“7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Franklin Covey 

Design Thinking – IBM information and course (digital badge option)
https://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/

Why soft Skills are so difficult to teach
https://www.nationalsoftskills.org/why-soft-skills-are-so-difficult-to-teach/

“Emotional Intelligence: no soft skill”
https://www.extension.harvard.edu/professional-development/blog/emotional-intelligence-no-soft-skill

Books:
Never Eat Alone – Keith Ferrazzi
How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie

 Please add your comments!