Developing a “Professional Mindset”

     There is a gap between what business leaders expect from fresh grads, and what the new job takers offer. In most cases the hires are intelligent, ambitious, and technically savvy. They have proven their ability to accomplish the work based on the knowledge gained (Compliance Scores). They’re committed and passionate about wanting to rise through the ranks and make a mark. So, what skills were these new professionals missing? 

Soft skills are the issue. These are the traits and behaviours that characterize our relationships with others. And we know that these qualities are necessary for strong motivation, sustained focus, and productive collaboration. As organizational structures evolve and globalization speeds up, these soft skills are going to be more crucial than ever before. Specifically, these new grads are not ascribing enough value to people skills and emotional intelligence at the workplace. 

THE FACTS: 

Statistics about recent graduates in the workforce.

• 69% believe that people skills get in the way of doing their jobs well.
• 70% believe that their technical skills are more valuable than their people skills. 

While, the Business Leaders and HR directors report the opposite. 90% believe that employees with strong people skills deliver a better commercial impact.

• 85% see technical skills as the basic necessity for new hires while, soft skills are what sets them apart.
• 91% believe that employees with refined people skills advance faster.

When organizations like Google conducted inquiries into the skills that make certain employees “Stars”, they generally find that people skill based competencies matter more than those based on technical and reasoning skills. It’s evident that a strong intellect and relevant experience are basic capacities that someone needs to land a job. But, they’re not what makes a person soar. 

These soft skill qualities manifest in various ways. Here are some characteristics of a person with a robust cache of soft skills: 

• Collaboration. Being able to adjust in any team and deliver. A business leader once told a consultant at McKinsey, “I have never fired an engineer for bad engineering, but I have fired an engineer for lack of teamwork”. (Influence Scores)
• Adaptable. The ability to adjust to change happening around you and in your environment signifies good self-management. It also requires one to know how to prioritise tasks on hands. (Steadiness Score)
• Ability to interacts easily with dissimilar people. A high People Skilled person will generally have smooth interactions with co-workers, customers, and clients from different groups or cultures. (Influence Scores)
• Able to reason under pressure. This requires an individual to have a mix of self-awareness, focus on task and quick stress recovery. This puts the brain in an optimal state in difficult circumstances and helps deliver desired performance. (Steadiness & Dominance Score)
• Lucid & Compelling Communicator. An effective communicator is a great listener and has the ability to understand how another person thinks. This is an aspect of leadership skills and empathy. (Dominance Score)

THE SOLUTION So how can you equip yourself with these skills?

• Learning Time Management: A professional college is a unique environment and it’s crucial you don’t become too scattered or too fixated. It’s important to use this time to evolve different facets of your personality. Your present environment offers your lot of opportunities for developing it. That’s where time management becomes important.
• Here’s a tip. List the things you have to do and you want to do. This can be a daily list or weekly list or a long-term list. Learn to develop a practice of asking yourself, “Can this wait?”, “Can I put it aside?”. There can be only two answers YES or NO. You’ll find that the answer to very many is almost always Yes. Then prioritise those “Yes’s” that needs immediate attention and set target slots for those that have been put on the waiting list. Learning these processes will help in getting the max of the 24 hrs we all have.
• Developing an Effective Communication and a Feedback habit: It’s important that one develops an effective communication style. As you learn to prioritise your time you will have to give different kinds of messages (agreeing or not agreeing) to different persons, at different levels (to college mates, to staff or to professors and even parents). Communicating this with the right intention so as to generate goodwill is a great skill and can be developed by training and practice. This a great skill because as leaders, you need the capacity to decide what matters now and then make it clear to the concerned people, kindly. 
• This also applies when providing feedback on actions you have agreed to take. (This must of course include both the positive and the negative.) The feedback should be communicated in such a way so as to generate needed action with goodwill and the receiver also feels comfortable with it. Learning to give appropriate feedback as needed is a great self-development tool.
• Emotional intelligence: Self-regulation is a fundamental aspect of emotional intelligence. If you learn to manage your emotions, you will recover quickly from the day-to-day stress of life. This means that whenever you feel a strong emotion surface, you are able to become aware of it, you are able to label it, and you can let it pass without reacting instantly. By doing so you are allowing yourself to re-focus on the issue with an agile mind and relaxed body.
• For this, a self-management method that is recommended is to devote a few minutes for Self-Introspection daily. This can be done preferably before going to sleep or immediately after waking up. Review the activities of the day gone by and how you responded and managed it. 
• This helps in many ways. First, it resets your brain so you are triggered less easily and less often by other people or events. Second, it helps you plan the coming day and trains your brain to recover quickly. Third, it gives you a tool you can use immediately in moments of high stress. 

  Remember that self-discipline, resilience, empathy, collaboration, and communication skills are all soft skills competencies that distinguish star performers from average. Not only will these soft skills boost performance and potential at the college, but they improve relationships and levels of contentment outside of it too. Remember “Rome was not built in a Day”. So, start with small affirmative steps, it will make you a better you.