By: Bruce Tulgan
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Here's the deal - there's a soft skills gap in the marketplace, and it's not getting any better.
You'll find managers complaining that their new hires are unprofessional, have no self-awareness, and don't take personal responsibility for the results they generate through their work.
There are two responses to this problem.
First, you can complain about it. It's not your problem that these crazy kids didn't learn the basics about how to make it in the world as an adult. Right?
Second, you can do something about it. Like it or not, there's a problem, and the only way to solve it is to do something.
If you want to take the first approach, the rest of this summary is only going to turn up the dial on your frustration. So, put your device down now and slowly back away.
But if you actually want to solve the problem, the rest of this summary is going to focus on actual solutions you can implement to make your life at work easier, less stressful, and ultimately create the results you are looking for.
Let's get started.
Before we jump into the exact skills that are missing, let's cover how you should approach training the younger people on your team in general.
Younger people who are joining the workforce - for reasons we'll discuss in the following sections - want you to take the role of the "teaching style manager."
Broadly, this includes talking about what's going right and wrong each step of the way, reminding everybody of broad performance standards regularly, and turning best practices into standard operating procedures.
More specifically, when it comes to teaching them the soft-skills they are lacking, you should take the following approach, which is how the authors have been teaching these skills to young people for many years:
Now that we've set the stage, let's jump into the missing basics in today's workforce so you know exactly where to start the conversation.
You are probably wondering why today's young people don't hold themselves to a higher standard when it comes to good old fashioned professionalism.
It helps by understanding a few things about the world they grew up in.
First, most Gen Zers are coming to you straight from school, which the authors hilariously call a "very luxurious form of pretend adulthood." Basically, they are coming from an environment where they have been treated as a very important customer for the past few years.
Second, to get themselves ready for that gruelling experience they were raised by what the authors call helicopter parents, who have catered to their every whim and need while growing up.
Third, they've grown up in an environment where everything has been customized to each individual.
Fourth, they've grown up in a mobile first environment, where technology has been their main form of communication.
Lastly, what most older people would consider professionalism, younger people are more likely to view as a matter of personal style or preference - what they wear to work, for instance.
Here are the missing professionalism soft-skills, and how you can start the conversation with the younger members on your team.
Self-evaluation
Self-evaluation is regularly assessing one's own thoughts, words, and actions against clear meaningful standards and one's own performance against specific goals, timelines, guidelines, and parameters.
Start the conversation around this skill by reminding them that the key in all development - whether at your company or elsewhere - is to continuously evaluate yourself against external standards.
Personal responsibility
Staying focused on what one can control directly—principally one's self—and controlling one's responses in the face of factors outside one's own control
Start the conversation by reminding them to focus on what's in their control. This will help them focus their attention and energy on what they can control, and taking responsibility for that.
Positive attitude
Maintaining and conveying a positive, generous, enthusiastic demeanour in one's expressions, gestures, words, and tone
Start the conversation by reminding them that the ability to display a positive attitude - no matter what is going on around them or how they are feeling - is one of the most important skills they will ever learn, and that they can use it to get what they want in their career and life.
Good work habits
Good work habits cover a lot of ground.
Wellness: Maintaining a healthy body, mind, and spirit/mood.
Self-presentation: Controlling one's grooming, attire, and manners, given the social/cultural situation, so as to make a positive impression on others.
Timeliness: Arriving early, staying late, and taking short breaks. Meeting or beating schedules and deadlines.
Productivity: Working at a fast pace without significant interruptions.
Organization: Using proven systems for documentation and tracking such as note-taking, project plans, checklists, and filing.
Attention to detail: Following instructions, standard operating procedures, specifications, and staying focused and mindful in performing tasks and responsibilities.
Follow-through and consistency: Fulfilling one's commitments and finishing what one starts.
Initiative: Self-starting. Taking productive action without explicit direction. Going above and beyond; the extra mile.
Start the conversation around these skills by reminding them that although these things might seem like matters of style or preference, but in the work world they are not. How you present and conduct yourself matters a great deal to how you'll advance in your career and life.
People skills
Attentive listening, observing, and reading; perceiving and empathizing; effective use of words, tone, expressions and gestures—verbal, written, and otherwise—one-on-one and in groups, in-person and remotely.
Start the conversation by reminding them that there are proven best-practices for communicating in the workplace. If you don't follow those rules and norms, things are more likely to go wrong and cause unintended problems that can easily be avoided.
If not knowing how to act is a problem, not thinking critically is even worse.
Managers are finding that their younger team members just can't seem to think on their feet like they used to. They know a lot, but have a tough time implementing what they know.
The main problem is that they've never had to do that. Access to information has always been at their fingertips, and they have never been challenged to apply what they have learned outside of highly structured testing environments, which of course is nothing like the real world.
Here are the missing critical thinking soft-skills, and how you can start the conversation with the younger members on your team.
Proactive learning
Keeping an open mind, suspending judgment, questioning assumptions, and seeking out information, technique, and perspective, and studying, practicing, and contemplating in order to build one's stored knowledge base, skill set, and wisdom
Start the conversation by reminding them that their mind - the main tool they'll use throughout their career - is just like a muscle. It gets stronger or weaker depending on how often you use it. The more you learn, the stronger your tool becomes. It is the ultimate transferable skill.
Problem solving
Mastering established best-practices—proven repeatable solutions for dealing with regular recurring decisions—so as to avoid reinventing the wheel. Using repeatable solutions to improvise when addressing decisions that are new but similar.
Start the conversation by reminding them that most of the problems they will encounter at work have been encountered before, and more than likely somebody has created a reliable solution to that problem. If you can get get at learning the ready made solutions, and learning when to apply them, the vast majority of problems you face at work will disappear.
Also remind them that this will also make them excellent at solving unanticipated problems because most of those are variations of problems that have already been solved before.
Decision making
Identifying and considering multiple options, assessing the pros and cons of each, and choosing the course of action closest to the desired outcome
Start the conversation by reminding them that although decision making is a high-level skill that is hard to develop without years of experience, there are ways to accelerate the learning curve.
The key skill here is to be able to think ahead and play out the likely sequence of moves and countermoves in everything you do. For every action, there is a reaction. If you can look at each decision you make in that way, you'll be putting yourself on the fast-track to making the best possible decisions you can.
Finally, you are likely to encounter younger people on your team who have issues in valuing citizenship, service, and teamwork.
There are four reasons for this.
First, they have been trained all their lives to think like customers. This has led to them instinctually thinking about "what's it it for me."
Second, they are not accustomed to dealing with peers who are not all their same age, are not people they have "chosen" to be in their close circle, and not people they also engage with in parallel through social media.
Third, they have been brought up to view people in authority as people who serve them, rather than the other way around.
Lastly, these younger people are not planning on following the old-fashioned career path, and so they are probably just passing through your organization for a short time anyways.
So, all of that being said, here are the missing followership soft-skills, and how you can start the conversation with the younger members on your team.
Respect for context
Reading and adapting to the existing structure, rules, customs, and leadership in an unfamiliar situation.
Start the conversation by reminding them that understanding their role in any work context they find themselves in is critical. Sometimes that means taking on lowly, mundane or repetitive tasks that might seem small in relation to the ultimate goal of the organization.
Then, their role is to play that role to the best of their ability. Remind them that these things don't go unnoticed, and will ultimately lead to more responsibility and impact in the future roles they take on.
Citizenship
Accepting, embracing, and observing, not just the rights and rewards, but the duties of membership/belonging/participation in a defined group with its own structure, rules, customs, and leadership.
Start the conversation by reminding them that working at your company is a give and take type of scenario. The rewards are great, but so is the responsibility. There will be personal sacrifices that they must make in order to be considered a part of the organization, which leads to the rewards.
Service
Approaching relationships in terms of what you have to offer—respect, commitment, hard work, creativity, sacrifice—rather than what you need or want.
Start the conversation by reminding them that they are getting paid and are a part of the organization to take on one mindset - everybody is their customer.
The leaders of the company are their customers. Their manager is their customer. The organization's customers, are their customers. Even the partners and vendors are their customers. Everybody is their customer, except for themselves.
If they can take on that mindset, everything else about being a valued team member will become much easier.
Teamwork
Playing whatever role is needed to support the larger mission; coordinating, cooperating, and collaborating with others in pursuit of a shared goal; supporting and celebrating the success of others.
Start the conversation by reminding them that no matter what specific role their are playing in the organization, they will ultimately rely on other people to get things done.
There are a lot of interpersonal relationships that need to be navigated, and helping other people get what they want is the fast track to getting what you want.
Ultimately, it's not your fault that today's younger workers are graduating without the soft-skills they need in order to succeed.
But it is your responsibility to fix it, if you care at all about the results your team generates.
Let this book be your guide, and if you are looking for specific exercises and lessons you can use to teach these skills to your team, get on out there and buy the book.