Soft and hard skills essential for business success today

Business Skills and Tactics

In order to be successful in the business world one must have a broad range of up-to-date business skills. Project management, marketing and sales training are all traditional areas of skill development. Business writing, conflict management, negotiation and stress management are some of the many important soft skills or non-traditional skills that a person needs to be successful in today's marketplace (Online Business Courses, 2009). As more businesses become internationalized and cultural diversity becomes the norm, it will be imperative for businesses to make sure leaders, managers and employees are skilled in both traditional and nontraditional business skills in order to have a competitive advantage. This paper will review some of the literature that has been written surrounding this topic.

One may ace their metaphysics finals, but can they work on a team? Can they resolve complex problems? Can they communicate clearly in print and in person? These are just some of the skills that employers are increasingly demanding in today's workforce. According to Syracuse University public-affairs professor Bill Coplin, among the skills that will help keep workers marketable in the near-term are self-motivation, time management, strong oral and written communication, relationship building, salesmanship, problem solving, information evaluation, and leadership. In the future, there will be even more emphasis placed on skills that cannot be automated. These are what are known as hyper-human skills. These include caring, judgment, intuition, ethics, inspiration, friendliness, and imagination (Skills for Today and Tomorrow, 2004).

The most successful people in business all have certain attributes in common. Several personal qualities are important for success. These include a thirst for continuous education, personal drive and motivation, strong goals and ambition, clear vision, and always a great deal of passion. According to business school leaders, it is thought that there are certain business skills that are needed if one wants to get ahead in the business world. The first such skill is that of communication. Communications skills can take on many forms all of which are very important for success. Most people in the business world spend a lot of time communicating in writing. While the inter-office memo and the fax have been around forever, a good deal of a persons day can be spent dealing with their inbox. Reports, white papers, proposals and resumes are among some of the top things that one will need to master (21 Business Skills Needed to Succeed, 2009).

Social Networking skills are also seen as being very important. Not everyone is a social butterfly and many people struggle with making small talk. This is a very important skill to learn though, as it is often true that it is more about who you know than what you know. Speaking skills are also very important, as public speaking ranks high among the world's most popular fears. It might feel more comfortable working from the safety of a desk but at some point there is going to be a presentation to do. It is better to have some experience in public speaking than to get caught having to perform unprepared when it really counts (21 Business Skills Needed to Succeed, 2009).

In the view of business school leaders sales skills are not always what one might think that they are. People may not think that they need to sell, but everyone sells something everyday. In normal everyday life people sell by persuading other people to see their side of something. Persuasion skills can also be a very useful tool to have. Negotiation skills are also thought to be critical in doing business. A lot of the skills in the business world are all the same but you always find those certain people who have been in business for a while can drive a hard bargain. Being able to negotiate is critical and if one does not have these skills they will lose out each and every time.

Planning skills are thought to be crucial to being able to stay in the game. Strategic planning is valuable as a business that reels from one crisis to the next is not going to stay around very long. Having leaders that possess the ability to lay down strong strategic plans is vitally important. Project management is the new trend that works to make the life of the leaders and the team less stressful. Things get done on time and on budget when these skills are utilized. Financial planning is seen as one of the top reasons why businesses go under. Bad financial planning always spells doom. If all of the cash flows in the wrong direction there won't be a business for very long. Someone within the organization needs a firm grip on the numbers which makes this a very important skill to have. Risk management planning should also be done in order to assure success. If a person can imagine a risk then they can plan for it from the beginning and set up a plan to mitigate it long before it ever occurs (21 Business Skills Needed to Succeed, 2009).

Logistics planning is seen as important as every business has inputs and outputs. So having people in the right jobs with what they need when they need it to get their work done is important. Productivity skills are important in order to keep the flow of every day business moving. Time management helps to reduce stress and increases a person's respect. Being where you need to be on time is very important to having things run smoothly, especially for management level people. Meeting management is also important in order to respect other peoples time. Planning meetings that are productive and successful is an important skill to have. Most people hate to spend time in meetings. Unfortunately they are a common part of most people business day. So making the most of them is best that one can hope for (21 Business Skills Needed to Succeed, 2009).

Having good leadership skills is important so that one can get people to follow them and get things accomplished. If no one listens to anything that you say then an effective leader you are not. Also having effective systems brings about consistency and efficiency while reducing costs. Learning how to create and implement both human and automated systems can go a long way to being more productive and competitive. Personal productivity is a necessary skill for leaders as one can't lead other people until they work out how to get the best out of themselves. Part of being a good leader is leading by example, so knowing one's self is a very important step towards making this happen (21 Business Skills Needed to Succeed, 2009).

Creativity allows for changes to be made and processes to be improved within an organization. Many people disregard their creative side feeling that it is better to be all about the logic. In fact some of the most successful business people are also the most imaginative and creative. It is often said that if you can imagine it you can create it, and if you create it then you can make it work. People are often surprised how few mad inventors there really are, most products are invented in a marketing office while people are trying to solve the problems that they are faced with everyday (21 Business Skills Needed to Succeed, 2009).

Problem Solving is seen as a big part of surviving in the business world. One needs to know how to solve problems quickly and effectively. Employees' that are good at keeping their head in a crisis while fighting fires is a worthwhile asset to any business. People who have these skills are often sought after in the business world. People who can brainstorm great ideas will often be one step ahead of everyone else. Thinking on your feet is a great skill to master in the business world (21 Business Skills Needed to Succeed, 2009)

Traditional Business Skills and Tactics

Traditional business skills have been defined in many ways. They are usually referred to as the technical skills or knowledge competencies a person must master before it is possible to use them (Litecky, 2004). They tend to be very specific and teachable abilities. Technical skills deal with the ability to perform specialized tasks that are often acquired through education or experience. These are typically skills that are very teachable and are often learned by rote learning strategies.

In the views of Davis and Berdrow (2008), in order for a company to be successful it must be based on an approach that involves many of the traditional functional skills that have been around the organization forever, along with many new skills that are just hitting the business world today. Unfortunately, most business school curricula are based on the older traditional organizational structure that dominated businesses throughout most of the twentieth century. This structure typically consisted of vertically organized functions or silos, such as production, marketing, and finance, with each silo operating independently of the others. Similarly, business schools today are usually organized by functional departments-such as marketing, finance, accounting, and operations management and there is little interaction among them. Having this traditional silo-structured environment makes it very difficult to properly develop a curriculum surrounding service management. Because of this there is a significant gap that exists between the education received by business school graduates and the skills that they need to succeed in today's service heavy environment.

Conclusion

According to Raphel (2003), successful business people, no matter what industry they are in, have been found to share similar traits. They have a good combination of both traditional and non-traditional skill sets. They set higher goals than others. Successful business people are seen as mountain climbers who, having climbed one peak, look beyond to the next highest. They avoid comfort zones. In order to be successful people must get out of their comfort zones. People who stay in their comfort zones do what they did before because it's the way that it has always been done. Successful people are driven by accomplishments, not money. They feel a sense of pride because they have accomplished something, not just happy because they got paid for doing it. They solve the problems that they face rather than place blame. Sitting around trying to figure out who it to blame for what went wrong will get a person nowhere. Figuring out how to solve the problem and prevent it from ever happening again is the successful approach to take. Successful business people tend to look at the worst possible scenario in a situation. This helps them to eliminate solutions that would not work or that would make things worse and concentrate on those solutions that provide the most bang for their buck.

In the view of Ikonomou (n.d.), there are several reasons why people in business are seen as being successful. Successful people are always willing to learn. The greatest learners often become the best teachers. There is no right or wrong way of doing things. Each way provides a result that can be assessed and worked on from the learning that the outcome provides. Successful people often take action instead of just doing nothing. By default, doing something has to be a move forward in the right direction. Doing something means that the law of averages will ensure that success happens. Successful people often work to improve their time management by learning how time works and what it means.

Successful people often mix with the right people. One can mix with the right people or they can mix with wrong people the choice is up to the individual. Being in the right crowd often has its advantages, both personally and professionally. Successful people are great at networking. These people go out of their way and meet as many people as they can because they know that the more people they know, the more opportunities will come their way. Successful people always have a dream. These people have strong beliefs that one day they will achieve what seems impossible to most. They have the gumption to make things happen. They don't let others interfere with their dreams. The most dangerous people in a person's life can also be the people that they hold most near and dear. These can be some family members, friends, neighbors and business colleagues. It is recommended that people respect the opinions of those who are successful in their own right (Ikonomou, n.d.)

Successful people are seen as having great integrity. Once a person looses their integrity, it's over. People should practice the integrity that they wish other people to treat them with. Setting an example rather than stooping to the behavior and reactions that you are not impressed with is the best plan of attack. Successful people are often great communicators. The best skill to master is that of having great communication skills. Straight forward communication completely outweighs the fancy use of the language. Studying the way people process information leads to improved communication that will reap many rewards over and over with a win/win outcome in most cases (Ikonomou, n.d.)

Successful people are always willing to share their knowledge. The best way to remember the best parts of your success are to verbalize them or write them down. Share knowledge with those that ask is the best service that a person could do to their fellow colleagues. Knowledge is only powerful if it is shared. Successful people have a good balance in their lives. Working too hard in any one area can create an imbalance. People should work out what they like the most and bring that into their life as they go along. There are many tools available for people to assess their perfect self. These reasons are a combination of both traditional and non-traditional business skills that are being used to the best of persons ability (Ikonomou, n.d.)

What is apparent is that the skill sets that interweave the traditional with the non-traditional are just as important for leaders and managers as they are for employees. The new workforce is seeking people who are flexible and open-minded in what they do. As more businesses become global and cultural diversity becomes the norm, it becomes crucial to be represented by employees who have both of these skill sets. This will allow organizations to have a competitive advantage. When leaders combine the hard skills with the soft skills and select employees with values of honesty and integrity, then the business culture will flourish. More importantly, acquiring these skills is not just about succeeding in work or business it is about growing as a professional and as a person. The more skills that a person has the better off that they are in the business world and in today's business world there is no room left for the unskilled. With jobs being at a minimum it is more important than ever to have a good set of both traditional and untraditional skills as that might just make the difference in obtaining a job or not. There is no limit to the knowledge and skills that a person can have, and having as many as possible is a good thing, but only to a point. It is important as these skills are obtained to make sure that they are honed so that a person can use them most effectively.

Traditional skills are those that can be taught in a classroom setting as well as with on-the-job training. Soft sills are those skills that people bring to a job from outside experiences. It was once thought that that a person either had these skills or they didn't. There is a recent trend though that is supporting the idea that soft skills can indeed be taught, or at the least sharpened. Different techniques are being developed that include role playing out situations along with computer simulations. It just might be that that technology has finally taken over everything, including the personality of a person.

Finding the right combination of traditional and non-traditional business skills is sometimes a hard thing to accomplish. Traditional skills are taught by business schools around the world. Soft skills on the other hand are often skills that are acquired by a person through their everyday living. Exposing ones self to as much as they can, helps to increase these much needed skills so that business success can be obtained.