| | MAY 202019Chairman, with Ratan Tata, for a while. Through various interac-tions that took place at work every day, I witnessed his tremendous hu-mility and feeling for others. It was clear that his down-to-earth nature, warm and patient listening skills, and ability to remember names, is what endeared him to almost ev-eryone who worked with him.Conversely, I can cite the exam-ple of a young professional, a CA from a reputed institute, with about five years experience but limited people skills. He was above average in his functional domain, but poor at communicating with peers, rigid about work demarcations and nev-er stretched himself to help juniors. He put in his papers at his current job on being pulled up for poor col-laborative skills. While serving no-tice, he dodged handover formali-ties and did not complete pending work. This caused difficulties for his replacement. He was also rude in his exit interview. Later, when he needed help with exit formalities, nobody in the organisation was ea-ger to assist him. Senior manage-ment will always spot such a can-didate and be hesitant to give him/her a leadership role.I can think of three key skills which I believe are vital for any employee, irrespective of the in-dustry or stage of career ­ Persuasion: Persuasion in the workplace means convincing oth-ers to agree to your point of view or action plan. Persuasion is a valuable trait for any organization as it can boost productivity by get-ting various stakeholders (such as co-workers, clients, business part-ners, and others) to work towards a common goal. To be persuasive, it is essential that you are genu-ine in your interactions and also explain to all parties how your proposal could meet the work ob-jective. Additionally, it's important to address any concerns or objec-tions respectfully and without any biases.Collaboration: This is the sec-ond important skill after persua-sion. Collaboration in the work-place means working with two or more people or groups (par for the course) to achieve a common ob-jective. Simply put, collaboration is teamwork on a higher scale, to accomplish a strong meaningful purpose. For collaborating well, it's important for all members involved to be able to share ideas freely and also be agreeable to different perspectives. Empathy: This is perhaps one of the most needed skills, not just at the workplace but in all aspects of life. Empathy is the ability to understand other's thoughts, emotions and experiences. In the workplace, empathy would mean having respect and care for co-workers, as opposed to demon-strating authority and power. An empathetic leader or co-worker makes everyone feel part of the team and boosts positive feelings of loyalty and trust.More and more companies are recognizing the need for the above soft skills and adopting learning and development programs to make employees aware of their pre-conceived notions and hidden biases. As per the LinkedIn Glob-al Talent 2019 report, 92 percent of talent professionals and hiring managers agree that strong soft skills are getting increasingly im-portant and impacting the future of recruiting across the world. The challenge for every em-ployee now is to become a pro-fessional that employers want in their organisation, and every team leader wants in his or her team. Srinivasa Addepalli
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