To Be Successful in P R Keep Polishing Your SOFT Skills

Friends, Thank you very much for taking out time to read my blog(s) from your very busy schedule. I really feel encouraged after reading your feedback in the comments column. 

Friends, presenting my 55^th blog titled “To Be Successful in P R Keep Polishing Your SOFT skills”. I strongly believe that “Success will definitely come to us when we focus on developing ourselves”.

Friends, the boom in artificial intelligence and automation will, according to different estimates, wipe out swathes of jobs across the global economy. So, of the jobs that are left, what should people do to prepare for them? What skills will they need?

 

This is the question LinkedIn posed to 4,000 talent professionals and business leaders around the world in an extensive survey that examined the "hard" and "soft" skills that companies are seeking most today. Cloud computing and artificial intelligence landed at the top of their list of 25 hard skills, following by skills ranging from analytical reasoning to social media management to game development. But companies don't just hire for hard skills. Soft skills matter just as much or even more for certain roles, a fact underscored by LinkedIn's survey which showed that 57 percent of senior leaders value such skills even more than hard skills.

 

Of the talent professionals-the HR managers and other folks responsible for hiring and training people -who participated in the survey, 92 percent said that soft skills matter as much or more than hard skills when they hire, while 80 percent said they are increasingly important to company success.

 

As per a study by Stanford Research Institute and Carnegie-Mellon 75% of long-term job success depends on people skills (interpersonal skills), while only 25% on technical knowledge.  As per a study done by Harvard University 85% of job success comes from having well-developed soft skills and people skills.

It will take a combination of hard skills i.e. knowledge and expertise on a particular subject combined with soft skills to get the work accomplished in the very best possible way.  Hard skills and soft skills aren’t the opposite of one another. When used together, they complement each other to help people to move their career forward.

What are Skills?

Skills are things that we learn in the school of life. We might pick them up while playing with our friends, observing our immediate family members, studying in a class room at school or college level or through the activities we perform during our leisure time. And when we're able to recognize our skills we find it easier to choose the kind of vocation we want to pursue in life.  Skills make us confident and independent in life and are essential for success. Remember that almost every skill can be learned but it requires firm determination and continuous practice to improve those skills. And, in order to be successful in life we must first organize ourselves, have realistic expectations and goals, get set to learning and polishing our skills to achieve our desired goals.  

Some definitions of Skill

A skill is the ability to perform an action with determined results often within a given amount of time, energy, or both - Wikipedia

An ability to do an activity or job well, especially because you have practiced it. – Cambridge Dictionary

The ability to use one's knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance, learned power of doing something competently, Developed aptitude or ability. – Merriam Webster Dictionary

What is Soft Skill?

Believing that leaders are born, not made is like believing Serena Williams came out of the womb hitting a tennis ball, ready to win 23 Grand Slam Tournaments.  Great leaders, like great athletes, become the best they can be by first learning the skills they need for success and then by relentlessly practicing them. Soft skills get little respect but can make or break one’s career. - Peggy Klaus (author, communication & leadership coach).

Most of the people might not know the history of the term ‘soft skills’. ‘Soft Skills’ can be traced back to the US Military between 1968 and 1972. The military had excelled at training troops on how to use machines to do their job. But they were noticing that a lot of what made a group of soldiers victorious was how the group was led. This bothered the military as they weren’t training for that. So they went about creating a method to capture how this knowledge was being acquired.

US Military invented the term ‘soft skills’ to contrast with ‘hard skills’ that involved working with machines. But they weren’t trying to be derogatory towards these skills. They wanted to create a technological way of training and measuring how well their troops were performing. The expression ‘Soft skills’ were taken seriously.

Soft skills is a term often associated with a person's Emotional Intelligence Quotient, the cluster of personality traits, social graces, communication, language, personal habits, friendliness, managing people, leadership, etc. that characterize relationships with other people. Soft skills, also known as people skills, complement hard skills to enhance an individual's relationships, job performance and career prospects. It's often said that hard skills will get you an interview but you need soft skills to get and keep the job.

In everyday life, the development of soft skills helps us to: 1. Find new ways of thinking and problem solving. 2. Recognize the impact of our actions 3. Teaches us to take responsibility of what we do rather than blame others. 4. Build confidence both in spoken skills and for group collaboration and cooperation.

Soft skills are character traits, personal attributes, and other non-technical abilities that help us to work and communicate with other people. Identifying our soft skills isn’t necessarily something we can do alone. We need to ask our close family and friends what soft skills come to their mind when they think of us and by doing this we might even discover things about ourselves that we even didn’t know earlier.

Soft skills are arguably more challenging to develop, since they have little to do with knowledge or expertise, but are instead closely linked with a person’s character. It requires a commitment to self-development and ongoing learning and practice to improve one’s soft skills. In comparison, hard skills are more learned, technical and knowledge-based skills that one can develop through desired level of higher education. While building the right educational foundation and earning appropriate qualification is important, but they’re not enough to determine success in today’s world. The most widely accepted holistic mantra for success in 21st century is developing and willingness to practice and polish the soft skills. 

Soft skills are very important in giving an edge in an increasingly competitive job market. The majority of employers today are looking to hire, retain, and promote individuals who are resourceful, ethical, dependable and self-motivated. Having effective communication, a willingness to work and learn, and having a positive attitude go a long way in the today’s workplace.  If we become more confident in the way we interact with others, lead, and work in teams, good opportunities will arise in both, our personal and professional life. Soft skills have become so very important today that they are often the reason employers decide whether to keep or promote an employee.

There is no definitive list of soft skills because the term covers a wide spectrum of character traits and interpersonal skills that, generally, reflect how we interact with people. Some of the soft skills, that we definitely need to learn to be successful in personal as well as professional life, are………

1.      Oral communication

2.      Written communication

3.      Good listener

4.      Good manners & etiquette

5.      Adaptable to change

6.      Takes initiative

7.      Creative & innovative

8.      Truthful

9.      Meticulous & disciplined

10. Ethical & strives to do right things

11. Positive in approach

12. Reliable

13. Resourceful

14. Helpful & of supportive nature

15. Common sense

According to a LinkedIn research, the five most sought-after soft skills in today’s workplace are creativity, persuasion, collaboration, adaptability, and time management. 

What is Public Relation?

Some important PR definitions that indicates towards certain soft skills.

Edward L. Bernays - the father of PR

PR is an attempt by information, persuasion, and adjustment to engineer public support for an activity, cause, movement or institution.

Paul Garret – PR professional and author

PR is a fundamental attitude of mind, philosophy of management which deliberately places the broad interests of the public at first in every decision attracting the operation of a business.

Sam Black – PR professional and author

The fundamental purpose of PR is to establish a two way of mutual understanding based on Truth, Knowledge, and full information.

Frank Jefkins – PR professional and author

PR consists of all forms of planned communication, outwards and inwards, between an organisation and its publics for the purpose of achieving specific objectives concerning mutual understanding.

Suresh Gaur P R Guru

Public Relations is a practice in which all the attributes of LOVE  i.e. AFFECTION, APPRECIATION, CARE, COMMITMENT, COMMUNICATION, DESIRE, EMOTIONS, HONESTY, IMAGINATION, KINDNESS, LOYALTY, MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING, NEED, PASSION, RESPECT, TRUST, and TRUTHFULNESS plays strategic role in establishing favorable image and strong long - term relationships of an individual or organization with their internal and external publics.

Public Relation is all about convincing the target audience about an idea, product or service, recognize accomplishments by the client or organisation they represent, and the people practicing P R are called ‘storytellers’; as they create narratives to advance the agendas of their clients.

The most desirable skills, popularly known as 10Cs of public relations are……..

1.   Clarity

2.   Commitment

3.   Communication

4.   Creativity

5.   Concise

6.   Continuity

7.   Commonsense

8.   Courtesy

9.   Credibility

10.Computer literate

To conclude;

Public relations functions are evolving since the beginning of 21^st century, so are the PR skills that are required for a successful career in corporate world. While creative content writing, relationship-building, and industry & media research will remain fundamental PR skills, but now we require other abilities and skills as well, as social and digital media have changed the entire communication scenario i.e. how publicists pitch to the media, how journalists find story ideas, and how the public consumes news. 

Digital and social media has redefined the ways and means of communication. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to learn and understand the advertising and marketing tools of social media platforms e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest and other social and digital networks, where we can connect or reach out our target audiences based on a range of demographic factors, interests and other factors to effectively communicate and manage our brand personality, brand image and brand voice.  

 

Thank you for reading the blog. 

 

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