Motivation Monday - Motivational Guest

Most Important Skills For Careers And Businesses 

 By Clint Cora

"It’s always great to see students study hard to get good grades.   Decent grades will help guarantee a bright future academically and for career.  Top grades will enable graduates to get their foot in the door in the fields of their choice.

  However, after more than twenty years working in the corporate sector, I can say that grades and even technical skills do not determine how successful a person will be professionally.  Instead, the most important set of skills that will determine how far one will go in his or her career (or small business) involves dealing with people, ie., people skills.

  People skills or soft skills as they are sometimes known, are how effective one deals with many different types of people on a daily basis.  The wider the range of others in terms of ages, cultures and company levels that one can deal with, the better that person’s people skills.  

It doesn’t matter which field it is but the most successful individuals are not necessarily the ones who had the highest school grades or are the most technically gifted.  Instead, the top stars in each field are the ones with the best people skills. 

 

Unfortunately, people skills are not usually taught in classrooms at any educational level.  So many students who end up spending all their time and energies during their school years to maximize their grades do not end up with decent people skills, especially if these skills were not developed outside of the classroom.  In effect, their development was unbalanced too much towards pure academics. 

Once these individuals enter the workforce, they will soon realize that those with superior people skills will end up moving up the corporate ladder faster.  Their competition will get promoted through the ranks past them.   If they are lucky, after a few years of learning the hard way, these individuals will learn to develop much needed soft skills and hopefully, management will notice their improvement in social interactions at the office enough to warrant promotions.  

The same thing with those who start small businesses.  Better people skills will often result in more business.

  However, most folks in this situation will not be so lucky.  They are either too set in their ways to change or don’t even recognize their own personal deficiencies.  These individuals will have reached a ceiling in their fields relatively quickly in their careers.  

Fortunately, this problem can be addressed.  For those already in the workforce, people can utilize seminars as part of on-going professional education on soft skills including diversity training.  All management potential candidates as well as current management should attend to further develop these skills.

 
Parents also need to be educated so that they foster a more balanced development for their children.  Academics are important but kids need to learn soft skills as part of their overall development."

Clint Cora is a motivational speaker, author and Karate World Champion. 

Visit http://www.clintcora.com/freeinspirationpersonalgrowth.html for a FREE 3-part Personal Development Video Series.