Soft skills

How to deal with the increasingly rapid pace of change surrounding organizations? In yesterdays webinar #irm #webinar #doha chapter about the effect of major events on organizational resilience, we concluded that an open, relationship based culture was key.

Resilient and adaptive corporate cultures rely on a balanced mix of hard and soft skills. Hard skills are quantifyable, auditable KPIs and exist predominantly in the upper, conscious part of the iceberg.

Soft skills are the domain of attitude and behavior. They reside under the waterline, in the unconscious part which can be felt but is less measurable. As a result it is considered less productive and easily left behind. However cultures relying mostly on hard skills tend to be more rigid and therefore vulnerable to change.

Kaptein developed 8 qualities which define soft skills: transparancy, room for discussion, feasibility, involvement, exemplary behaviour, enforcement, clarity and ownership.

Investing time to develop soft skills across all layers is crucial to develop basic trust in people and processes. Intrinsic motivation and ethical behavior as leading principles instead of control and pressure. In which company would you want to work?

Thank you Hatem ElSafty
Alexander Larsen Mykhailo Rushkovskyi Daan van Elsdingen