How would you predict a stranger’s chance of success at work?
On his technical knowledge? And on the experience he gains as he moves onward?
You would be better off observing his soft skills to make the prediction.
According to research by Stanford and the Carnegie Foundation, 85% of the reason a person gets a job, will keep a job and move ahead in that job has to do with people skills and people knowledge.
In a similar vein, the Harvard Bureau of Vocational Guidance, in its survey of people who were fired from their jobs, found that for every one failure because of work skills, there were two failures in human relation skills.
If functional knowledge were to be the sole criterion for success at work, your success would be determined by your school and college grades. But real life proves to us every day that this logic doesn’t hold water.
It is soft skills that are proving to be the reliable weapon in your arsenal, complementing your occupational skills to determine your ability to get a job, get a promotion or a substantial pay hike. Long ignored in favor of the hard functional skills, today, academic institutions and organizations alike are focusing on soft skills.