The 55 Soft Skills That Guide Employee and Organizational Success

Most people have heard of soft skills and perhaps can list one or two. The authors, Dr. Tobin Porterfield and Bob Graham, both university professors with extensive business backgrounds, have uncovered a list of 55 soft skills that employees and organizations are increasingly unleashing to spur innovation and growth.

This book lists each of the 55 soft skills, drawn from a review of hundreds of academic articles and their experiences in various industries, including manufacturing, energy, publishing and start-ups. The book also explores how each of the soft skills might appear in the workplace. The result is a book that explains an important driver for success in this hyper-competitive, technology-first business climate.

By blending soft skills with people’s technical skills, those aptitudes, competencies and expertise most education focuses on, employees and organizations can overcome challenges in today’s complex workplace. As organizations, and the leaders and employees that work for them, seek a new edge to achieve greater productivity and innovation, focusing greater attention on soft skills could be the difference maker.

The authors discusses better-known soft skills like emotional intelligence, written communication and listening, as well as unrecognized soft skills like empathy, adapting to change and persistence. Written in an easy-to-read, actionable style, each chapter, which addresses a specific soft skill, serves as a powerful springboard for looking at work in new, exciting ways.

The 55 Soft Skills That Guide Employee and Organizational Success is perfect for executives, leaders and employees in all fields, at all levels.

Here’s an excerpt from the book’s introduction:

“If you don’t know what soft skills are, you aren’t alone. People ask us that question all the time.

“Let’s start there. Soft skills are not technical skills – the aptitude, knowledge and expertise that enable you to perform work. Colleges and universities, and even high schools, focus most of their attention on teaching technical skills, which can easily be assessed. Think about things like an algebraic formula, the rules for using commas, preparing a financial statement or tax form. The steps are clear; the outcome is clear.

“Soft skills are different. They are somewhat nebulous. The situations in which they are applied greatly influence how they are used and which ones to use. What works in one situation probably won’t work in the next situation. Think of the skills you need to use to be an effective team member or colleague, skills like listening, empathy, being persuasive, being a leader and leading change in an organization, to name a few. How to lead a team on a project changes from project to project. With one group, you have to offer constant reminders; with another, it might be constant feedback or praise. And you won’t know until you get into the situation and try things.

“Over the last few years, we have uncovered a list of 55 soft skills. Yes, the number surprised us, too. We even find it difficult, even as the creators of the comprehensive list of soft skills, to remember them all.

“We fell into our study of soft skills after noticing and talking frequently about how the effective use of these skills helped us. (Okay, in some cases, we would discuss how weaknesses in some soft skills hurt us.) We started to study them more closely, watching for them in our lives and the people around us. In 2016, we set out to uncover a complete list of soft skills. We expected to find 10 or 15. But we identified 55 of them from scouring research dating back to the 1970s. We originally had closer to 75, but some researchers used different words to say the same thing. For instance, we agreed that managing people and being a good manager are the same thing.

“To say we were shocked by our discovery would be to put it mildly.”

And that’s where this book takes off — and where you can boost your career and your team.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B078TQPR7V
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mason-West Publishing House (January 4, 2018)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 4, 2018
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 671 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 117 pages