Soft Skills 3rd Edition

Personality Development for Life Success

Prashant Sharma

• Publisher: BPB Publications
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9789391392093
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Careers

Essential guide to set your path to great success

Key Features
The book is like a GPS for the reader, where they are able to visualize the quickest ways to reach their desired goals.
? Experts Quotes
? Learning Milestones
? Learning Mastery: The Essentials of the topic
? Case In Point: Real World examples for application of the concepts
? Illustrations and Graphics
? Knowledge Check
? Case Studies
? Applied Knowledge based on the Case Studies
? Business Jargon and startup terminologies
? English Vocabulary Building

Description
? Is it Possible to get High-Impact Online or Physical Communication skills and Soft Skills in a very short period? ? Is there a way to build executive presence to get promotion, sales and visibility for your efforts from your leaders, recruiters and clients?
? Can you develop mental strength, motivation & confidence to approach your lives with a positive mental attitude?
? Can you increase your sales or income in a very short time by adopting easy and basic changes in your life?
?Do you want to learn from a corporate expert's 20+ years experience, so that you can avoid costly and time consuming mistakes and make the right decisions?Yes, through this book you can do all the above and more!Welcome to the ultimate guide to unleashing your potential. This book aims to impart high-impact soft skills like executive presence, time management, public speaking, first impression, professionalism, etiquette, negotiation, job interview, group discussion, leadership, teamwork, communication, creativity, interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, and much more.In a post Covid world, building a strong Online Presence has become a necessity. Whereas online meetings used to be optional, it is the norm now. A new chapter on Online Presence has been added to give the reader a competitive advantage in this new Virtual online space.A Good professional needs to have strong Language skills. Recognizing this need, the book has a section in every chapter that highlights important words and Business phrases used in the corporate industry along with their meanings. Hacks used for speed learning:
Experts quotes | learning milestones | learning mastery: the essentials of the topic | case in point: real world examples for application of the concepts | illustrations and graphics | knowledge check | case studies | applied knowledge based on the case studies | business jargon and Start-up terminologies | English vocabulary building Here are a few questions our readers have asked the author.
1. I am very strong technically. Why must I learn soft skills?
There is a popular saying

What you will learn
The book aims to provide the reader with a practical understanding of corporate and business life. It has been written by an experienced coach and industry professional with a real-world corporate perspective.

Who this book is for
The book imparts proven coaching techniques and takes the reader on a journey towards exceptional leadership and management. Book helps the reader to apply it immediately in their lives and keep for life.

Table of Contents
1. Soft Skills: An Overview
2. Emotional Intelligence
3. Self-Image Management
4. Team Building and Cooperation Teamwork, Conflict Management, Negotiation Skills
5. Time Management and Goal Setting
6. Communication Skills
7. Verbal Communication- Part 1
8. Verbal Communication - Part 2
9. Non-Verbal Communication
10. Building Online Presence
11. Level 2: Career
12. Level 3: Courtesy & Habits Guide To Correct Etiquette, Grooming & Hygiene
13. Resume Writing & Job Applications
14. Group Discussions
15. Personal Interview and Interactions
16. The Art of Promoting Yourself

CHAPTER 1

Soft Skills: An Overview

LEARNING MILESTONES

This Chapter will enable you to:

Understand the urgency in developing your soft skills.

Recognize that personality development equals soft skills.

Differentiate between soft skills and hard skills.

Master the soft skills required by the industry.

Explore practical solutions to acquire soft skills.

Learn new business phrases and build your vocabulary.

Expert Quotes

“A person without soft skills is like an ATM without cash…Just a Machine! “

“ Hard work pays off. Soft skill pays off more.”

1.1 Importance of soft skills

Do you know of a person who promises to send you an email, but never bothers to send it? And does not even apologize when you meet later? Or sat next to a smelly co-passenger on a train who insists on talking too loudly on the phone, keeps getting up and stepping on your toes? Or feel irritated when a friend just doesn’t listen properly and is distracted while you speak? Or a colleague who always thinks negatively and is always a pessimist? These are just some examples of poor soft skills that we encounter in our daily lives. Soft Skills also known as Life Skills, People Skills, or Relationship skills. Whatever the name, whether you are a student or a professional, it is almost essential that you have to communicate or interact in public at some point or the other. Whether it is presenting your project work, interacting with your bosses, clients, or teachers, appearing for group discussions or job interviews, or excelling in the real world, people from all streams need the all-important `soft skills’.

65% of the Indian population is 35 or under, and approximately 50% of the country’s population of 1.25 billion people is under the age of 25. However, we face a huge employability crisis in the country. Repeated surveys have shown that just about 7% of Indian graduates are employable.

In 2017, Deloitte also reported that “soft skill-intensive occupations will account for two-thirds of all jobs by 2030”.

♦ In this scenario who will be able to get the jobs of their dreams?

♦ Who will be able to form effective relationships and networks to build their careers and live their dream lives?

♦ And if employers have an oversupply of candidates, who will make it to the shortlist of candidates?

The answer: Only those with superior relationship skills, creativity skills, and those who display the ability to operate in a dynamic business environment and prove themselves as team leaders will survive and that too by having superb Soft Skills.

The book enables the reader to apply the theory they are learning through books and to practice that knowledge to make correct decisions. The goal is to become positive successful professionals and better human beings. And finally, to achieve their life’s goals.

1.2 Personality development and soft skills

Due to the disconnect of the academic curriculum with industry requirements, it is a fact that a majority of college students and young professionals lack the communication or soft skills to succeed in the Real World. At the same time, it is also a fact that almost all individuals want to succeed in their careers and lead a fulfilling and enriching life; They want to develop their personalities!

What then is personality development?

Personality development means enhancing soft skills, which enables you to develop a creative & cooperative mind-set, choose and attain a career of your choice, realize your life goals and finally help to become well-rounded, popular individuals.

Every individual has a unique persona which can be tapped through a systematic and logically organized training schedule. People can be trained to increase their grooming, communication, and leadership skills, which they can acquire and use immediately in the real world. The goal of acquiring good soft skills should not simply be to educate. The ultimate goal should be to build competency.

Soft Skills help students to acquire leadership skills and communicate better.

Students develop better inter-personal skills, which have a positive effect on their personality.

People with powerful personalities are generally perceived to be more knowledgeable and well informed than others. They develop self-confidence and a positive mental attitude. They are able to see the positive aspects of life and view problems as opportunities. They view the glass as half-full rather than half-empty.

They live an enriching life and finally build a successful career.

The positive mental attitude that students attain by developing their communication skills gives them the confidence to not just become better communicators, but also better human beings.

1.3 Soft skills v/s hard skills

“Having hard skills gets you hired. Lacking soft skills gets you fired.”

Hard Skills are the technical skills acquired through formal education or on the job experience.

However, Research done by Harvard University shows that 85% of job success comes from having well-developed soft skills, while only 15% of success are based on technical skills. In other words, students spend only 15% of their lives trying to acquire skills that account for 85% of their success! That in a nutshell exposes the lack of preparedness of individuals in their soft skills. Students spend their entire education learning by rote, without any idea of applied knowledge, to acquire technical skills. It is essential that the technical education imparted in the college should be given a corporate and industry oriented perspective.

1.4 Industry need: from campus to corporate

Industry leaders, and corporate experts all agree on one thing: That Lack of ` employability’ skills in job applicants is the single biggest headache for recruiters today. The Time and budget spent on training are only shrinking and companies now want to hire candidates who can hit the ground running and perform from Day 1! According to a report by Wheel box: `India Skills Report 2017’, these are the skills that the industry is looking for.

It is obvious that about 15% of the skills required are related to hard skills. Soft Skills form the crucial 85%!

1.4.1 Disruptive technologies and soft skills

Covid and the resulting lockdowns and work from home situations across the world have disrupted online communication forever.

For school children and their teachers, entrepreneurs and professionals, young and old alike, everyone has had to adopt to the new mode of communication: Online! Maybe not out of choice. But definitely out of necessity.

The 21^st Century has brought computers and the Internet at the center of human life. Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Internet of Things are the keywords and ideas which have taken a real place in our lives. From mere concepts, these are actual realities which threaten the core of our existence: our jobs! A study, conducted by a US-based company ADP, which did a survey on employees in India found that nearly 63% of the surveyed employees expected that automation would take over jobs of people doing simple and routine work.

Case in Point

In February 2018, Amazon opened its first automated grocery store in the US called Amazon Go. This store does not have cashiers or attendants. Using AI and cameras, the shoppers can purchase what they like and leave without human interaction, and the payment is automated. This could leave almost 23 lakh cashiers potentially unemployed!

More and more companies are replacing repetitive, process-based jobs with bots and robots. This means that jobs which were hither to consider the domain of humans are being done by robots. For example, automated processes may soon replace the kind of work software developers were performing for foreign clients, which involved maintaining software by occasionally plugging in simple code and analyzing data.

Case in Point

According to a report from the World Economic Forum, 85 million jobs will be replaced by machines with AI by the year 2025.

Case in Point

Fabric and clothing brand Raymond recently said that it was on its way to replace 10,000 of its employees with robots over the next three years, according to an article in Trax.in. This makes up for 33% of its 30,000-strong workforce in the country.

A study conducted by the World Economic Forum called ‘Future of Jobs’,

Lists interpersonal skills like sharing, collaboration, creative thinking, team integration and negotiation as crucial for humans to beat the competition their jobs posed by Computers and Artificial intelligence. Now more than ever in age of AI and Big Data, it becomes critical that professionals develop creative thinking and communication skills to enable them to program the AI and handle strategic complexities, something that AI cannot.

1.5 The most important soft skills required for life success

We all want to develop our Personalities. But which aspect of Personality should we focus on? The answer lies in a holistic development covering the four pillars of Human development. These four pillars are:

1. Physical
2. Mental
3. Spiritual
4. Emotional

A good personality development program is a 360-degree learning program that helps an individual to become happy, confident, and eager to face the challenges of daily life with a Smile! Per...