The pandemic tested us in so many ways professionally, challenging us to do our jobs in less-than-ideal circumstances. Not surprisingly, we relied heavily on soft skills to navigate our way through the prolonged uncertainty.
According to Prudential’s latest Pulse of the American Worker survey, the top three soft skills workers gained last year include adaptability, problem-solving, and time management; here’s how to cultivate them:
1. Adaptability
Adaptability is the quality of being able to adjust to new conditions. It’s about being open and flexible instead of fixed in your mindset and in the way you do things.
In the business world, change happens—and not just during a pandemic. Between mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructuring, and management changes, those who remain flexible hold the key to career success. Maintaining the ability to adapt your thinking and actions to handle unforeseen circumstances can help position you as an indispensable member of the team who can roll with the punches.
To build your adaptability:
- Challenge yourself to consider new possibilities instead of falling back on “because we’ve always done it this way” thinking.
- Offer up alternative solutions, even—and especially— when initial ideas are turned down. Adaptable people understand that thinking through and offering many possible scenarios will help them arrive at a favorable option, even if it’s not the first suggestion.
- Keep calm and confident under pressure when faced with unexpected challenges and changing circumstances.
- Move away from a one-size-fits-all mentality when managing your team, and instead, ask each person their goals and how you can best support them.
- Look for opportunities to stretch yourself and showcase your adaptability by volunteering for new assignments and proactively increasing your skillset and knowledge base.
2. Problem-solving
Problem-solving skills help you solve issues quickly and effectively and often use the additional soft skills of awareness, creativity, innovation, curiosity, and grit to be most effective.
To hone your problem-solving:
- Use awareness to identify and anticipate issues. When you pay attention, you’ll notice details other people miss. And those observations can help you get a jump on problems.
- Change your mindset to see problems as hidden opportunities. That supposed “headache” might lead to a new service, product, or offering.
- Employ creativity to come up with solutions. Creativity is the ability to perceive the world in new ways, find hidden patterns, make connections between seemingly disparate things, and generate innovative solutions. When you’re creative, you’re able to turn new and imaginative ideas into reality.
- When you implement and evaluate solutions (especially new ones), don’t get discouraged if they fall short. Use grit to determine what worked and what could be improved, and then make tweaks to keep going and find a way to solve the problem.
3. Time management
Your ability to prioritize and focus your attention to tackle work projects is crucial. How and with whom you spend your time and your productivity while doing so demonstrate your focus and commitment to what—and who—matters most.
But this can be easier said than done, especially when the sheer volume of to-dos and requests feels overwhelming.
To master time management:
- Learn to say no to things that don’t support your short- or long-term goals.
- Realize that not all tasks are created equal. Do, decide, delegate or delete tasks based on their urgency and importance.
- Batch routine tasks (like responding to emails) by carving out specific times in the day for it—and let others know to call you if something is really important.
- Eliminate distractions by turning off notifications, putting your phone on airplane mode, and closing your door.
- Establish (and maintain) boundaries. You are not obligated to be on 24/7, so limit your availability.
- Embrace mono-tasking to make progress on one thing at a time.
- Work with your own circadian rhythms, doing your most important work during your peak time, whenever that is.
- Don’t forget to build in breaks to rest and recharge so you can tackle another day.
"soft" - Google News
July 01, 2021 at 12:30AM
https://ift.tt/2UfzQPs
The Top 3 Soft Skills Of The Pandemic And How To Cultivate Them - Forbes
"soft" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2QZtiPM
https://ift.tt/2KTtFc8
Bagikan Berita Ini
ReplyDeleteAwesome very delight, thank you for this valuable content
Soft Skills Training In Chennai
Soft Skill Online Training