Soft skills training

Recently I was delighted to be asked by a client to deliver a training programme on soft skills targeted at a mix of younger executives and middle management, and the feedback both from the organisation and the attendees went far beyond my expectations. Safe to say, it was a ‘win, win’ for all concerned, so I thought that I’d share a few of the tips here.

As part of the introduction it was important to give purpose to why I was talking to the audience. - ‘The company believes in you and wants to invest in your development and future’.

So, what are ‘soft skills’? - ‘Character traits and interpersonal skills that categorise a person’s relationship with other people.’ - They compliment hard skills that are gained through more formal learning. And the really important part to note is that soft skills are a ‘hidden’ asset to the individual and business.

Having attended numerous conferences, watched webinars and been on training courses over the last 30+ years I took on board my experiences and what I feel works best for me in these situations and adopted a practical and interactive approach that I believe engages the audience better, keeps them involved and awake!
On so many occasions I have been in conference halls when a presenter has lost the audience and you see people scrolling through their phones, talking amongst themselves or even worse than that falling asleep or walking out!

Another consideration was the length of time for each training session, and I proposed to the client up to 3 hours per session for each group over 4 weeks, meaning that I could deliver the same training to different groups, one in the morning and to another in the afternoon. The reason for this was two-fold, firstly to make sure that I could easily maintain interest levels with the attendees and secondly, to minimise disruption to the daily working of the business.

Breaking down the topic to four parts it was possible to lead the attendees through a journey, much in the same way that groups ‘form, storm, norm and perform’, as proposed by Bruce Tuckman back in the 60s.

During the first session we looked at who we are, breaking down different natural traits and strengths and at the same time demonstrating that there is no right way and no ‘better’ person; every team needs a mix of talent. We discussed personal experiences and talked about emotional intelligence - about conditioning versus choice. From this we moved to discussing conscious and unconscious reactions and looked briefly at some studies by Freud and Jung. The whole session was a road of discovery so that the attendees could recognise their natural qualities and at the same time build awareness of other people and team members and how collectively a team works together. Throughout I referred to corporate messages and encouraged participants to share practical examples.

Moving forward in weeks two and three I brought in more theories and talked about organisational skills, time management, shared some models to help with planning and prioritising and demonstrated the need for positive evaluation. Communication was next and the need for effective listening to help build a strong team. From there we looked at what is pressure and how to manage stress before bringing in the need for feedback and constructive criticism on a personal level and how this also comes in to the art of negotiation.

Finally to week four when I ran a practical session. Participants were given role-play situations that were filmed. This was really interesting because in one of the earlier weeks I had been asked if this would be part of the course and I had carefully avoided answering the qeustion. It was clear to me that a number of people weren’t initially comfortable with this, and yet by the end everyone took part.

I had to build trust with the groups and did this by keeping a light-hearted approach whilst maintaining professionalism and encouraging two-way interaction, and I believe this was why it worked.
Following each day there was a short debrief with either a senior manager or the HR director in order to give and receive feedback. The whole programme was a really positive and fun experience for the individuals, the business and me, and on the back of that I have managed to secure more work with the client which is a testament to success.

If you think that you or your organisation could benefit from a similar experience then please get in touch.