If you’re a manager, HR specialist, team lead or a growth-oriented individual, you’re probably thinking of how to best improve your or your team’s performance in 2023. And soft skills are a major subject in that matter. A LinkedIn survey found that 92% of talent professionals find soft skills equally or even more important than hard skills when it comes to making an offer to the best suited candidate for the job. 

However, where to start? There are attention-worthy articles and tops in that matter, enlisting the most sought after and useful soft skills for the future of work. They all sound great, they all are beneficial, they can all potentially turn your career and feeling of wellbeing/self-worth around. As a learning enthusiast myself, I sometimes need to remind myself to take a step back, breathe and think of it strategically before I plunge myself neck deep into a never-ending list of growth leads. 

Here are a couple of ways you can go about this, individually or in a team context:

Self-reflect for a while, kindly and honestly

There clearly are some strengths in your portfolio that you are naturally good at and whilst recognizing that, you can also think of situations, tasks, contexts that require effort on your part and might even drain you (e.g. negotiation rounds, giving feedback to others, handling an angry customer). 

Investigate

• You can do that by asking peers, colleagues, friends, close partners or managers, to give you tips on your improvement and ideally, find out some blind spots that might surprise you (Hey thanks, never thought of that!). 
• There are also psychometric tools that are quite accurate in detecting your work related strengths but also pointing out improvement areas in your behaviors. You might be a natural communicator and seller, enthusiastic, assertive and inspiring, whilst also needing to pay some extra attention to your time management and efficiency skills. 
• As a team, it’s worth running a learning needs assessment process, either during your performance reviews or as a separate event. Precious input can be found in your colleague’s daily routines, management’s feedback and your company’s objectives for the year. 

Find a strong WHY

Building new soft skills or changing existing behaviors can be a long journey and it usually takes us outside our comfort zone, changing the way we’re neurologically wired to function. Our brains may even interpret this change of route as going against its survival instincts and tactics (we’ve been doing it like this all of our lives and we survived, why mess with that and risk getting hurt?). 

For those who score high on agreeableness, for example, disagreeing with a higher up or providing uncomfortable feedback to a colleague, even if it’s in an assertive, respectful manner, might entail a huge effort and send them down a spiral of uneasy emotions (fear, usually, takes the crown).  It makes for a more consistent effort to set out a strong reason for why to work on that specific skill and put yourself through the discomfort when the time comes (e.g. more time with your family, better health and energy levels, career advancement towards a desired role). 

Whatever it is, make it hit home as close as possible!

Prioritize

Ok, so you have your list and your WHYs. Time to get going….doing what? In my practice and speaking to other learning professionals it seems to add up to this: start with something that feels at least remotely comfortable, that is doable and doesn’t throw you in a sea of unknown territory and radical changes. This way, you can find the process enjoyable, see small wins along the line and not exhaust yourself from the very beginning of your journey.

For example, when I started working on improving my empathy, I “practiced” on my close friends whom I felt comfortable with and cared for deeply. I then found it easier to do so in a work environment with my colleagues, my superiors and then worked my way up to the most difficult clients. 

Practice

Seems logical, yes, but consistency is key to acquiring any new skill, and soft skills are no exception. To do so, try and find daily contexts to exhibit that skill even if it’s not in the workplace or in your ideal/end goal setting. You can be assertive at the supermarket during the weekend, you can be mindful of your time management during a one day trip or try to be more adaptable and tolerant when going out for drinks with your friends. The “muscle” you work on is the same and it only gets stronger and more reliable the more you consciously exercise it. 

As far as learning goes, luckily we live in the era of information, so the choices are multiple:

• formal training and workshops at work
• group or individual mentoring and coaching
• online classes, podcasts and remote learning from learning platforms 
• books and free classes from universities 
• open classes and events related to your goals

Compassion for yourself – it cannot always be quick & perfect

This is the one we usually skip and it’s a major soft skill in itself that shows profound emotional intelligence. I for one avoided self-compassion deliberately for years because I genuinely thought it would make me lazy and self-complacent. Sounds familiar?

However, in the rare occasions that I managed to be compassionate to myself (through guided meditation or coaching, mainly), the results and my own mental state had significantly improved. Whether you manage to be kind to yourself by nature, need a friend/peer/coach to help you or via guided meditation, give it an honest shot. 

It might be the most courageous thing you do during your learning journey this year!