8 Critical

Soft Skills for

Workplace
Readiness
Table of Contents
Introduction [1]

Top 8 Soft Skills of Highly Successful

People [3]
How Abraham Lincoln Succeeded
with Soft Skills [8]

How Martin Luther King, Jr. Succeeded

with Soft Skills [11]

How Michael Jordan Succeeded with

Soft Skills [14]

How J.K. Rowling Succeeded with

Soft Skills [16]

How Elon Musk Succeeded with

Soft Skills [18]

Next Steps [22]

 Introduction

Statistics show that most employees are hired because of their technical skills, however,
many of them are let go (or quit) because of their lack of soft skills. Research shows that as
much as 85% of success in the workplace is dependent on soft skills and only 15% is due
to technical skills. Workplace readiness, therefore, is dependent on how well individuals
understand and develop their soft skills.

Employers who have implemented an effective soft skills and emotional intelligence
assessment process have a much better chance of hiring the right person and of that
person staying with the company long-term. This creates a win-win situation as decreased
turnover leads to increased happiness for the individual and a substantial cost savings for
the organization. For example:

At L’oreal, sales agents selected on emotional competence outsold salespeople

selected using old procedures on an annual sales basis of $91,370 (and there was
63% less turnover).

In a large beverage firm, 50% of division presidents left after two years. When they
used emotional competencies to hire, only 6% left in two years. (They also consis-
tently outperformed their targets by 15-20%.)

At a national furniture retailer, hiring sales people hired based on emotional compe-
tence cut the dropout rate during their first year in half.

The United States Air Force used emotional intelligence criteria to hire their recruit-
ers and it’s estimated they saved $3 million.

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 This chart summarizes these findings in what is known as “The Turnover Process”:

Most companies hire for reasons 1 and 2 (superficial, knowledge and experience), but they
will lose people because of reason 3 - they lack these social/emotional or soft skills. This
ends up being very expensive for an organization. You invest time & money to hire peo-
ple and get them trained to do the job you hired them for, but, when it doesn’t work out,
you have start all over. Employers are recognizing this and are looking for a better way to
screen applicants so they can identify which ones will work out and which ones won’t, as
well as to improve the effectiveness of the workforce they already have.

But in order to do this, you need to know what to look for. In the next section, we’ll break
down the top eight soft skills for workplace readiness.

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 Top 8 Soft Skills
of Highly Successful People

There has been a lot of debate regarding soft skills and which ones are important. After
much research and many interviews with industry leaders, we’ve identified a condensed
list of eight essential soft skills:

Attitude Interpersonal Skills

Communication Teamwork

Planning & Organizing Professionalism

Critical Thinking Media Rules

Let’s break these down one by one:

Attitude
This is where it all starts - your attitude. The ability to respond to guidance, to control your
emotions, and to keep your focus is so important in today’s workplace. The importance of
a positive attitude cannot be overlooked.

What is unique about attitude is that you are completely in control of your own attitude at
any given point. You cannot always control what happens to you in life, but you can control

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 how you respond to it. Just because something negative happens doesn’t mean you have
to be negative.

It’s been said that your attitude determines the altitude of your life, or the level at which
you are going to live. You can set your own course simply by determining to have a posi-
tive attitude.

Communication
Communication skills are something we often take for granted, but lack of communication
is one of the biggest reasons projects fail. It’s important to know what to say and how to
say it to get your point across. Communication is a vital aspect of any team. If you can’t
communicate with your teammates or coworkers, you won’t get very far.

Communication is also multi-faceted. It is not always what you say but how you say it that’s
important. You need to have good oral and written communication skills to make your
point effectively. So many methods of communication today are text-based. These often
strip out the other aspects of communication, so it’s important to know how to state your
intentions via the communication methods that are common today (like text messages,
instant messages, and email).

Listening is also a very important part of communication. Many people listen in order to
respond, but they don’t actually hear what the other person is saying. You have two ears
and one mouth, you should use them proportionally.

Planning & Organizing

Major accomplishments don’t just happen. They require careful planning to make sure
nothing is overlooked and mistakes aren’t made. Prioritization, time management, and
system creation skills are important skills you need in order to finish your projects.

You can’t just strike out with a desire to do something big. You have to have a plan and
you have to manage your limited resources to make sure that you can get there. Benjamin
Franklin once said that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Set yourself up for success by
developing planning and organizing skills.

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 When you have a plan your team will be organized and you will be able to move together
toward your goals.

Critical Thinking
Now more than ever before the ability to think critically about a problem and identify a
solution is extremely important. Employers are looking for people who can think outside
the box and solve complex problems.

When you have the ability to look at and solve difficult problems you won’t make rash
emotional decisions and your results will improve. When you have the ability to gather
and process the information before hand you can make data-driven decisions that provide
increased benefit for your entire team or organization.

In the past these skills have been sought after in management-level or C-level employees
but the majority of the workforce was ignored. This had unintended negative conse-
quences though, as the employees who lack critical thinking skills are often the ones who
are making poor health choices that affect their job performance (and ultimately the entire
team).

Interpersonal Skills
Interpersonal skills, like empathy or responding to conflict, are extremely important in any
people-based service business (such as customer service or IT). You need to know how
to present yourself in an acceptable manner. For example, most people are not thrilled
when something goes wrong with their computer or cable service because they don’t
want to talk to a customer support person who doesn’t seem to care. You don’t expect the
representatives to be helpful and courteous. Companies that do offer a positive customer
service experience stand out as exceptional, illustrating the general lack of interpersonal
skills in other companies.

Interpersonal or social skills are important no matter where you work. No one works entire-
ly in a vacuum. Even if you work on a remote team, you still have to be able to get along
and work with your team members to accomplish a common goal.

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 Teamwork
Many people think of sports when they think of teamwork, but the truth is teamwork is just
as important in the workplace as it is on any sports field. You need to know how to work
with others to achieve a common goal. If you can’t respect and trust your teammates, or if
they cant trust you, you will never be an effective team.

A great example of teamwork is the active listening exercise in which you repeat what
you just heard so that you can make sure that you got it right and move forward from
there. For example, let’s eavesdrop on a conversation between Mike and Art:

Mike: So what you’re telling me, Art, is that because you have to wait for feedback
from HR, the Tuesday morning deadline doesn’t give you enough time to attach all
the cover sheets to your TPS reports. Is that correct?

Art: Yeah, I don’t get them until Monday night and I can’t turn them around that
quickly.

Mike: Ok, we can push back that deadline. I do expect you to have the cover
sheets attached to all of your TPS reports by the team meeting on Thursday,
though. Is that doable?

Art: Yeah, no problem.

Mike: Excellent.

Professionalism
Most businesses hold their employees to high standards of professionalism, and it’s up to
each employee to know and live up to those standards. There are some things you just
can’t do in the workplace, and you are responsible to know the expectations where you
work.

These rules (either written or unwritten) can apply to:

Dress code
Mannerisms

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 Code of conduct
Communication expectations
Social media and computer use
and others

If your workplace doesn’t allow jeans because it is a professional environment where you
meet with clients regularly, you can’t show up in your Lee Dungarees. It’s up to you to find
out what those regulations are and follow them. “I didn’t know,” is not an acceptable
excuse.

Media Rules
Technology has made it easy to communicate, but there are right and and wrong ways to
do this in the workplace. You need to make sure to respect technology-based guidelines
and restrictions in the workplace.

The popularity of social media has made this issue even more important in recent years.
When you are at work, you are expected to be engaged in your work. You are being paid
to work, not check Facebook. It might be best if you leave your cell phone in a desk draw-
er so that you aren’t tempted to check it all the time.

One thing you should absolutely do at work is turn off your notifications. The buzzes and
dings steal your attention and focus away from your work. This adds up to you not doing
the job your employer is paying you to do.

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 How Abraham Lincoln
Succeeded with Soft Skills

KNOWN FOR
16th President of the United States, Ending Slavery

PRIMARY Empathy, Communication Skills, Attitude, Resiliency,
SOFT SKILLS
Critical Thinking

“I walk slowly, but I never

walk backward.”
(Abraham Lincoln)

How did a man born in the woods of Kentucky with less than 18 months of formal educa-
tion become one of America’s most beloved presidents? Abraham Lincoln is renowned
as an incredible leader. Strategic, thoughtful, and just, he led the United States through its
most difficult era. Lincoln had the strategy, technique, and experience to lead this country
through its Civil War.

His success can be attributed to his incredible array of soft skills. Scholars and historians
still study his leadership today.

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 HIS SOFT SKILLS

Empathy
Lincoln always encouraged a healthy debate. He was a very patient man and there are
many accounts of him listening to an angry citizen or to the views of an opposing politician
before calmly replying.

Even during the Civil War Lincoln continued to be sympathetic and caring toward all in-
volved in the war and, of course, slavery, which he ended with the Emancipation Proclama-
tion.

Communication Skills
Lincoln’s storytelling ability is legendary. If you Google “stories told by Abe Lincoln,” pages
of articles come up. He had the ability to relate to almost everyone through his stories and
quips. Besides storytelling, he was able to connect with his audience. He chose his words
carefully and routinely boosted morale with his honest way of speaking to everyone.

The Gutenberg Project has a great story about Lincoln’s communication:

Lincoln was a strong believer in the virtue of dealing honestly with the people.
“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens,” he said to a caller at the
White House, “you can never regain their respect and esteem.”
“It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool
some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.”

Critical Thinking
Throughout his career as a lawyer and a politician, Lincoln developed incredible critical
thinking skills. He was able to see an issue from both sides before deciding on a
conclusion.

He had a deep ability to think outside the box and to see through other’s perspective. He
was able to bring together groups of people with opposing political views and he could
lead them to work together to solve the toughest issues.

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 Attitude & Resiliency
Lincoln worked as a farmer, postmaster, general store clerk, ferryboat crew, lawyer, and
politician. At 23, he ran for the Illinois House of Representatives and lost. He did not give
up, but continued learning and trying. Lincoln was hardworking and never gave up on
achieving his goals.

He ran again in the following election and won his seat. From there he built his political
career and, twenty-six years later, won the presidential election.

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM LINCOLN

There’s a lot to be learned from Lincoln. His rise to presidency has continued to fascinate
and educate scholars and historians. How did a boy born in a log cabin in the woods of
Kentucky grow up to be one of the greatest presidents of the United States of America?

Lincoln shows us that, by utilizing our soft and technical skills, and with the perseverance
to never give up we can achieve our desired results.

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 How Martin Luther King, Jr.
Succeeded with Soft Skills

Minister, Humanitarian, Activist, and Leader of the

KNOWN FOR
Civil Rights Movement

PRIMARY Empathy, Resiliency, Communication Skills, Attitude,
SOFT SKILLS
Drive Strength/Motivation

“The
“Theultimate
ultimatemeasure
measure of
of a man is
isnot
notwhere
wherehehe stands
stands in in
moments
moments of
comfort and convenience,
of comfort and convenience, but wherebut
he stands
where at times
he stands of challenge
at times of and
controversy.”
challenge
and controversy.”
(Martin Luther King, Jr.)
(Martin Luther King Jr.)

Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) was a Baptist minister and civil-rights activist. He was an im-
portant leader of the Civil Rights Movement during the mid-1950s and 1960s. In 1964, MLK
received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work for equality in the United States.

MLK’s success was greatly impacted by his many soft skills. He was an incredible orator and
motivator, leading 200,000 people to march on Washington in 1963 where he delivered his
famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

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 HIS SOFT SKILLS

Empathy
MLK had great empathy for his fellow African-Americans in the United States. He believed
all citizens should be granted the same rights. He pushed for desegregation and the ban-
ning of Jim Crow laws. He was empathic toward all people and believed everyone should
be treated equally.

Resiliency
MLK was arrested 30 times during the 12 years he led the Civil Rights Movement. From
jail, he continued to write and speak for the movement he represented. He even received
pushback from other Civil Rights leaders. After a peaceful protest turned violent, he was
criticized for allowing children and families to be in harm’s way. He was also criticized by
other African-American groups who believed his non-violent approach was weak.

Even with all these setbacks, he still continued to move forward. In 1964, MLK was award-
ed the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.

Communication Skills
MLK was an incredible orator and writer. He wrote five books during his lifetime, and half a
dozen more collections of his writings and speeches published after his death. His famous
“I Have a Dream” speech was heard by 200,000 people in 1963 and is still studied today.

Attitude
For all he had to endure, MLK kept a positive attitude throughout his work for civil rights.
He never gave up on his dream that all races in the United States would receive equal
treatment and rights underthe law. During his time in jail, he continued to write and pro-
mote equal rights for all.

Drive Strength/Motivation
MLK had incredible drive strength and motivation. His was passionate about his goal of
achieving equal rights and he never gave up. His drive strength encouraged and inspired
others to continue the movement long after he was assassinated.

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 WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM MLK

There are many things we can learn from MLK. He was someone who was passionate
about achieving a goal and who never gave up. From him we can learn how to impact
change in a peaceful way through the power of soft skills.

His empathy, resiliency, communication skills, attitude, drive strength/motivation are what
led him to become one of the more influential people in all of United States’ history.

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 How Michael Jordan
Succeeded with Soft Skills

KNOWN FOR
Athlete, Entrepreneur, Team Owner, Billionaire, GOAT

PRIMARY
Goal Setting, Resiliency, Drive Strength / Motivation
SOFT SKILLS

Even if you’ve never watched basketball, you’ve heard of Michael Jordan. You can see
him driving to the basket, leaping in the air with his tongue hanging out, and dunking the
ball over opponents. He revolutionized basketball and became a household name.

Hard skills, like knowing how to play the game, only account for 15% of success in life.
However, it was Jordan’s soft skills that truly turned a kid with raw talent into probably the
Greatest Of All Time to play his game. Since it can be tough to identify soft skills in your-
self, let’s look at how Michael Jordan’s soft skills helped him succeed.

HIS SOFT SKILLS

Goal Setting
To succeed, Jordan developed a goal-setting system that he applied from high school,
through the NBA, and even today as the first athlete-turned-billionaire. He explains his pro-
cess in his book, “I Can’t Accept Not Trying: Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence”:

“I had always set short-term goals. As I look back, each one of the steps or suc-
cesses led to the next one. When I got cut from the varsity team as a sophomore in
high school…I set a goal of becoming a starter on the varsity. That’s what I focused

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 on all summer. When it happened, I set another goal, a reasonable, manageable
goal that I could realistically achieve if I worked hard enough. I knew exactly where
I wanted to go, and I focused on getting there.”

Resiliency
The Bulls desperately needed their leader for Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals, but Jordan
was lying in a fetal position in his hotel bed, drenched in sweat. He could barely sit up be-
cause of the stomach virus wracking his system. The team doctor said there was no way he
could play.

He had every excuse (even a doctor’s note) to stay in bed. However, though weak and pale,
he showed up and played, making a 3-point shot with 25 seconds left to lead his team to
victory.

Drive Strength / Motivation

Arguably the best basketball player of all time, Jordan was cut from his varsity team in high
school. But that didn’t stop him. He worked harder to not only get back on the team, but also
to start.

When he was drafted into the NBA in 1984, he wasn’t a very good shooter. To get better, he
spent his off-season shooting hundreds of shots a day to become a reliable and intimidating
3-point shooter. To become a standout defensive player, he spent countless hours studying
his opponents. He committed their moves to memory to hone his defensive instinct.

Taking nothing for granted, he applied himself to every part of his game to steadily get better
and better until he was the best.

BE LIKE MIKE

Success didn’t fall into Jordan’s lap. He created a system to drive himself to accomplish his
goals and held on to his dream no matter what. That’s encouraging because it means anyone
can succeed if they develop similar soft skills. You, too, can be like Mike!

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 How J.K. Rowling
Succeeded with Soft Skills

KNOWN FOR
Writing the Harry Potter book series

PRIMARY
Resiliency, Drive Strength / Motivation
SOFT SKILLS

“It is impossible to live without

failing
“It is impossible to live at something,
without failing unless you live
at something,
so cautiously
unless you live so cautiously thatyou
that you might
might as
aswell
well
not have lived at all—in
not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by de-which case,
fault.” (J.K. Rowling) you fail by default.”
(J.K. Rowling)

The creator of Harry Potter didn’t even have a computer when she wrote her first book.
She tapped it out on a manual typewriter. Times then were tough for Rowling who was
recently divorced, poor, and raising a child alone.

Yet, despite those odds, she finished her magical book! And...it was rejected. She
submitted it to another publisher and...it was rejected again. Twelve publishers would re-
ject one of the most popular book series of all time before the thirteenth said yes.

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 HER SOFT SKILLS

Resiliency
Rowling showed great resiliency. She was a single parent raising a child on state benefits.
Yet, she still completed her book. Even after she finished the first book, it wasn’t over. Her
book was rejected twelve times, but she didn’t give up. During these dark times, Rowling
faced clinical depression and even thought of suicide. She later funneled this into the de-
mentors - the soul sucking creatures in the Harry Potter books.

Finally, the thirteenth publisher, Bloomsbury, agreed to publish “Harry Potter and the Sor-
cerer’s Stone.” She became a multimillionaire in five years.

Drive Strength/Motivation
Writing a book take lots of hard work. Rowling had many factors working against her yet
she completed her first novel. She had a child dependent on her, she was living on state
benefits, divorced, and suffered from depression. Somehow, she found the motivation to
keep writing and to finish her first book.

Her agent actually told her to keep her day job because he didn’t think she would be able
to make a lot of money from children’s books. (Her current net worth is $1 billion.)

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM J.K. ROWLING

Rowling’s rags to riches story inspires everyone. She had a dream of publishing a book
about a young wizard named Harry Potter. “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” has 450
million copies printed and has been translated into 68 languages.

She has great technical skill as a writer, but her soft skills - resiliency and drive strength -
are what propelled her into literary history. Never give up!

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 How Elon Musk
Succeeded with Soft Skills

Entrepreneur, Innovator, Humanitarian, Futurist,

KNOWN FOR
Founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors

PRIMARY
Critical Thinking, Goal Setting, Resiliency
SOFT SKILLS

“Failure
“Failure is is an
an option
option here.
here.
IfIf things
things are not failing, you
are not failing, you
are not innovating enough.”
are not innovating enough.”
(Elon
Musk)
(Elon Musk)

It’s easy to believe that the age of grand invention has passed. Modern innovations seem
to be limited to incremental improvements over technology in which the foundation hasn’t
truly been revolutionary for 20 to 30 years.

Elon Musk has spent his life changing that image, however. As the founder of SpaceX, and
co-founder of Paypal, Tesla Motors and Zip2, Elon Musk’s contribution to the world of tech-
nology goes beyond app development. Driven by humanitarian desires, this real life Tony
Stark is not so much redefining innovation as he is reviving it.

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 HIS SOFT SKILLS

Critical Thinking
Musk’s willingness to see common objects and technologies as worthy of critique has
allowed him to innovate in areas that few have imagined...like the car you drive, for
instance. While electric cars have been around since the 1970s, Musk’s pioneering work
has turned them from tiny niche vehicles with limited driving range into Tesla Motors’ sleek,
futuristic sports cars that get 200-300 miles out of a single charge.

How about your home power grid? Tesla is also responsible for the 2014 Power Wall, a
large battery that can store and more efficiently provide power to your house during peak
energy usage times. It is probably not too much of a surprise that the Power Wall also
works swimmingly with solar technology. The Power Wall’s 92% DC power efficiency is just
another example of the type of innovation that drive both Musk and Tesla.

Even our home planet of Earth is not safe from Musk’s self-critique. His company SpaceX
lists, on their website, their goal:

“SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The
company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal
of enabling people to live on other planets.”

Musk knows that at the heart of innovation is a willingness to question the way things have
always been done and ask if there is a better, smarter and more mutually beneficial way to
accomplish these tasks. In his own words:

“Constantly think about how you could be doing things better, and keep
questioning yourself.”

Goal Setting
Speaking of lofty goals, Elon Musk perfectly demonstrates the important skill of setting
goals in the mission of every venture he leads. If you were to interview 5,000 CEOs about
their goals for their businesses, 4,998 would tell you it was to increase profit. One wouldn’t
return your phone call, and one would be Elon Musk who has said in a quarterly letter to
investors that, “Profits are not our primary goal…”

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 To many companies, this message may be unpalatable, but for Elon Musk, it signifies high-
er goals. His goals of interplanetary exploration, moving humanity away from dependence
on oil and fossil fuels, and the opportunity for every human being to contribute to our
collective knowledge, go beyond mere profits.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, Tesla’s stock went up in value following Musk’s
bold and transcendent declaration of goals, the same goals that keep him from being
weighed down by failure. Which leads us to...

Resiliency
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” is a cliche that doesn’t always make a lot of
sense. When Musk’s SpaceX company tried to launch its first rocket, it did not succeed.
Musk paid heed to this idiomatic wisdom and tried, tried again. Two more times the rocket
didn’t launch. On the brink of losing all investment, Musk finally succeeded in launching a
rocket and subsequently, the SpaceX name.

Does failure weigh on Musk? It seems to, but not in the same way that it does with many
people who give up when they’ve failed. He puts it this way:

“If something is important enough you should try, even if the probable outcome is
failure.”

So even though Musk has had his run-ins with failure (SpaceX rocket launches, Paypal’s
undervalued sale to eBay, etc.), he has always continued to try to innovate, allowing his
vision for a world of cleaner electricity, equal opportunities and space exploration to keep
that failure from knocking him down.

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM ELON MUSK

Perhaps the biggest and most apparent thing we can learn from Elon Musk is to value and
incorporate the same skills that have placed him at the helm of innovation and technologi-
cal progress into our own lives and lines of work.

We learn to question the processes and statuses of our own day-to-day routines. We learn

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 to set goals that are bigger than the goals we had yesterday, and maybe even so big that
the people around us think they are outrageous and impossible.

Finally, when our critique of the status quo mixes with our goal to change things for the
better, we learn to be resilient and not back down from this new vision in the face of fail-
ure. Like Elon Musk, we learn to embrace failure as a symptom of innovation, and run
toward the kind of ideas that define the future.

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 Next Steps

Now that you have learned more about crucial soft skills and some famous people who
have used them to become successful, find out how you can learn how to improve your
soft skills!

The Conover Company has over 30 years of experience in soft skill and emotional intel-
ligence training. Our research-based assessment and skill building tools have been used
successfully in small and large organizations in both the public and private sector.

If you are interested in learning how these evidence-based assessment tools can be used
in your organization to prepare individuals for success in the workplace, we offer a FREE
one-hour workshop titled “Soft Skills 101: How to Effectively Identify, Assess & Teach
the Top 8 Soft Skills for Workplace Readiness”. In the webinar, we cover:

The top eight soft skills employers are clamoring for in today’s workplace

How soft skills and emotional intelligence actually account for up to 85 % of an

individual’s success

How to improve productivity and decrease turnover by focusing on the right criteria

Best practices and suggestions for evidence-based tools to assess and teach
these critical soft skills

Space is limited and these webinars always fill up fast, so make sure that you claim your
spot by going to conovercompany.com/softskills.

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Sign up for the
Soft Skills 101
webinar today!
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