Soft Skills are usually addressed Softly

More and more acclaimed ( by themselves) experts on soft skills tackle the subject too soft.

Soft skills are important as long as these are developed based on hard scientific and proven and tested in the field ground.

That’s why there is a shift nowadays on renaming soft skills into Essential skills.

Let me give you an example!

Saying to people that active listening is key to effective communication, is toooo soft. Thank you very much. It is like trying to teach business accounting through a well written children’s arithmetic book or describing to people what exercises do they need to do to gain muscle.

Changing habits is one of the most if not the most difficult thing. It is like trying to beat gravity. Therefore, you need to design a program and guide people step by step to initiate and complete the transformation. This, requires hard scientific and proven in the field techniques and methods adapted to the needs of individuals or teams. Such methods and techniques might involve coaching, role playing, individual exercises, acquiring stamina and self discipline techniques etc.

Staying on slogans, quotes as well as text book recipes is toooo shallow and ineffective.

Yiannakis Mouzouris
B.Sc. Mech. Eng., M.Sc. Mgt
Business Consultant / Trainer
Performance Management Specialist