Training Industry Quarterly - Summer 2011 - (Page 40)

CLOSING ARGUMENTS | TIM SOSBE “THE VOICE OF THE INTELLECT IS A SOFT ONE, BUT IT DOES NOT REST UNTIL IT HAS GAINED A HEARING.” — SIGMUND FREUD F THE SOFT TOUCH or most of us, when we think of workforce development, the hard skills come to mind first. We tend to focus on the actual job-performance procedures, on mandated types of training and on learning to support corporate objectives. That’s to be expected, as these programs are the ones that most visibly and directly advance the organization’s overall capabilities. But the reality of today’s business world is that hard skills are only part of the story. Focusing on the softer side of training also provides power, potential and profit. Think about it for a second: • Corporations large and small use trust as a marketing tool, everything from insurance companies to battery manufacturers. Trust is a soft skill. • You’ll often hear business leaders talk about the engagement levels at their organizations, the commitment their workers have to corporate agendas. Engagement and commitment are soft skills. • How about passion? Love without passion is love lacking energy, and workplace performance without passion is a simple business transaction. Passion is most certainly a soft skill. • Happiness may seem like something that comes from eating ice cream or sharing a joke, but it’s a business tool as well. On average, happy people show up more, work harder, raise morale and generally get things done. Oh, and they live longer too, even though happiness is a soft skill. • I’m saving the best for last: If you combine happiness, passion, engagement and trust, you get loyalty. Loyalty not only gives an organization a sense of history, but it increases retention of key talent. You guessed it: Loyalty is a soft skill. 40 Understanding all of that is the easy part. Next up, what are you going to do about it? How do you support, leverage and empower skills that at least poetically are more connected to the emotional core, the heart, than they are to the brain, the intellectual core? Are trust, loyalty, passion, happiness and engagement something you can teach – or at least harness? Clearly, a large segment of the training industry supplier market knows the answers, with companies offering a variety of courses and conferences, workshops and materials, all designed to build business by inspiring the traits that matter. Many companies may tell you that you can’t measure trust, which means you can’t put a reliable dollar figure on it, but they still recognize the value when they see it. They also recognize the value even more when they don’t see it. Want an example? Think about coaching. In most cases, coaches aren’t there to teach executives the mechanics of doing their job … those skills were learned on the way up the ladder. Coaches instead focus on happiness, on work-life balance, on passion, on loyalty, on engagement. It’s the trickle-up theory of performance: Build the better employee and you’ll build a better business. Addressing the soft side is the perfect opportunity to make a huge impact: Minor investments that lead to major benefits. Get creative and think about ways you can create hard results by supporting soft skills. You might even tap into new levels of engagement that you didn’t know you had. Tim Sosbe is editorial director of TrainingIndustry Quarterly and general manager of TrainingIndustry. com webinars. E-mail Tim. TrainingIndustry Quarterly, Summer 2011 / A Training Industry, Inc. ezine / www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ http://www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Quarterly - Summer 2011

Training Industry Quarterly - Summer 2011
The Formula for Performance
Table of Contents
Ad Index
Training for Transformation
Working Smarter: New Ways of Learning
Classroom Training: 7 Scary Problems
Technical Training: Where Does it Belong?
Social Learning: Focus on Collaboration
Performance Management: Focus on People…and Profit
Adding Social Media Tools to Learning Portfolios: 10 Questions to Consider
Bridging the Gap: Training and Business Results
Managing Knowledge in High Performance Organizations
UPS
Web 3.0: Transforming Learning
The Soft Touch

Training Industry Quarterly - Summer 2011