What this video to learn how Serious Soft Skills can help your team to uncover and employ its soft skills to achieve more in less time. Find out how leveraging your team’s soft skills portfolio can improve team morale, productivity and creativity — and even help with hiring and retention.

Soft skills encompass all of the skills we use beyond technical skills, which are best described as the aptitudes, competencies and skills necessary to perform a job. Technical skills can be taught and tested. By contrast, soft skills are best developed through experience.

The list of soft skills in academic literature numbers more than 50; some of the big ones are communication, listening, problem-solving, time management, self-reflection, teamwork, leadership and life-long learning.

The fast-paced and varied workplace of today, spurred by increased reliance on technology and globalization, make these soft skills of increasing interest to employers, who say time and again that workers are deficient in their soft skills development. The effective integration and cultivation of soft skills — no easy task — could make the difference in your organization between failure and success. They are that important.

Yet many people overlook them or dismiss them since they are not as easy to identify or teach. Do you fall in that group? If so, our work may be of vital importance to you now and for the coming years. Get Our Insights! Don’t you think you should at least join our Insights list now?

Soft skills are making a difference in countless organizations, yet the attention being paid to them by organizations and their workers is minimal.

Just calling them soft skills seems to suggest that they are less important than technical skills. But soft skills like communication, teamwork, leadership and problem-solving are helping organizations in all sectors find new ways to perform well.

Looking for an example. How about T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, two companies outperforming big boys like Nordstrom and J.C. Penney because they are relying on employees’ instincts rather than big data to choose what they will sell?

Here’s how it is working. When retailers of all sizes are struggling, the corporate parent of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, TJI Cos., has reported an increase in same-store sales for 33 consecutive quarters (that’s more than eight years). TJI Cos. annual sales beat Nordstrom and J.C. Penney combined.  The magic: The roughly 1,000 buyers for these companies are trained on what a good value would be, then allowed to practice — under the watchful eye of a mentor — for three years, according to a Wall Street Journal article. During that time they are taught what has sold in the past, the latest trends and other important factors in making good buying decisions so when they are on their own, they can draw on all that knowledge to properly interpret the current situation. The buyers then have the soft skills make on-the-spot decisions about what their customers will want to buy. The reliance on instinct allows the companies to move faster to get merchandise on its racks where customers can buy it.

Technical Skills Aren’t Enough

A successful organization looks different today than it did 20 or 30 years ago. Organizations need workers who have mastered the technical skills (the aptitudes, competencies and skills necessary to perform work tasks). But they also need workers who have strong soft skills, those hard-to-teach skills that help you overcome the increasingly complex set of challenges. Innovation, lightning-fast communication and globalization are but a few of the challenges must of us face at work each day.

Getting Serious About Soft Skills

Serious Soft Skills, as the name implies, is dedicated to improving people’s understanding of the role of these soft skills, how they can be enhanced and what you can achieve with them.

We have been studying these matters in workplaces and in academia, and we have published and presented academic journal papers addressing some aspects of this topics. We continue to publish and present, seeking to better understand these areas and to present that information in ways that people can relate and react favorably.

Check out our book, The 55 Soft Skills that Guide Employee and Organizational Success, the first book of its kind, cataloging all 55 soft skills.

You also can access our podcasts and our video podcasts.

Take a look and tell us what you think. If you want our insights, please join our Updates list.

You also can schedule a free phone evaluation, where we can discuss how we might support your quest for unleashing soft skills for yourself and your organization.

Dr. Tobin Porterfield and Bob Graham