3 soft skills that will make you better at work and beyond

Soft skills are the future. Even a nuclear physicist who develops his communication skills will achieve more than his reclusive counterpart. Moreover, success in life is measured not only by career achievements, but also by accumulated social connections.

The latter largely determine how happy a person is: good communication with loved ones, colleagues, partners improves the quality of life, helps to solve problems more quickly, develop faster in professions.

In my telegram channelScriabin's heresy» I talked about three basic soft skills that are worth pumping. Here they are.

1. Negotiation skill

To the question “Which soft skill is the most important?” I have a verified answer: negotiation skill. Our whole life is made up of them. Every step in working with a team, in communicating with family, with loved ones and others - everywhere you need to be an effective communicator.

If there are dissatisfied people around with whom you cannot find a common language, most likely you have problems.

At work, negotiations are especially valuable. You can be able to do everything and be a top specialist in your field. But if you do not know how to negotiate, then most likely you devalue absolutely all your professional skills.

Between two people - a super-professional who is absolutely incapable of negotiating, and Junewho wants to grow and knows how to negotiate - I will always choose the second one. In the long run, this person will bring much more benefit to the company and will not harm team.

The ability to negotiate is a must-have. If you want to get along with other people, cost more as a specialist, and be of value to employers, download this skill.

For myself, I formulated four rules of communication.

1. Be honest. Communication always falls apart in places where there is manipulation and untruth. Any question from the interlocutor that highlights these shortcomings will destroy the entire line of negotiations. Therefore, it is important to tell the truth, not to embellish and not to promise the impossible.

2. Understand yourself and your opponent. Leave competition and achievement at the door. You will win in communication if you understand yourself and your opponent as much as possible and find ways to make the two of you feel good.

Ask yourself as many questions as possible: “What is my goal?”, “What do I want to achieve?”, “What is my role in the negotiations?”. Actively ask about the expectations, interests and tasks of the interlocutor. Listen carefully, consider what you hear, and come up with scenarios to please both parties.

3. Be "not ok". We all struggle for social dominance. This is an important evolutionary thing, only it is harmful to negotiations. While you measure coolness, the location to each other is lost.

If the interlocutor is trying to prove that he is more significant, immediately give up.

Or relax it from the very beginning, show that you are “not OK”: drop the pen, drip coffee on your shirt, squint, ask for a larger font. The interlocutor will understand who is in charge here, the competition for dominance will end, and you will move on to the constructive part.

4. Think of all possible scenarios. For example, what would happen if all agree with you? And if the interlocutors refuse all offers? What way out can please everyone, what offers from the opponent will be deadly for you and what else bad can happen - unfold all scenarios and select abstracts for all and counter-theses.

Practice negotiating under any circumstances. Here is what you can read to develop the skill of negotiation:

• «Say no first. Secrets of Professional Negotiators, Jim Camp.
• «I hear right through you", Mark Goulston.
• «Psychology of influence", Robert Cialdini.
• Adviсe Ilya Sinelnikov.

2. Networking

This skill increases your value in the market: the more contacts, the more more expensive specialist. Networking provides opportunities for development, the practice of communicating with colleagues in the workshop, an understanding of what, where and how it works, the option of emergency answers to questions.

It's always nicer to talk to a real person.

Imagine: your service is down. You can call support or chat with a helper bot. Or you can dial the number of a specialist of this service, whom you met recently. He will most likely explain how to solve the problem, without unnecessary expectations and formulaic advice.

Networking requires a systematic approach. There are a lot of sources of acquaintances: niche events, special services like Random-coffee, communities of interest or targeted meetings by invitation in social networks.

Get into the habit of organizing one acquaintance a week in different ways, fix contacts and introductory information about a person, keep in touch with him. If you do this, then in a year you will receive at least 50+ useful contacts.

3. The ability to say no

This skill has many layers.

• Meta level - say no to social constructs, stereotypes, other people's ideas of "how to" and "how to do it right." The rejection of these guidelines returns a person the freedom of choice.
• The next level is to say no to everything that eats up strength, time. This returns control over valuable resources, allows you to live your own life, and not serve someone else's.
• Say no to stop trespassing. It is important to protect your self from emotional harm. The accumulation of such discomfort and guilt for having endured inappropriate interference worsen mental health. Take care of it, don't let it undermine your resilience.
• And the last thing: say no to other people's lack of independence, attempts to shift their responsibility onto you, their refusal to delve into, think and solve problems. Encourage, encourage, guide, push for action, but do not do their work for others.

Be sensitive to oneself and others, formulate rules for effective communication, learn to listen actively, and be genuinely interested in people. So we will win.