Soft Skills - Ask a Wharton MBA
Develop Soft Skills – Work Smart & Live More
We often hear about the skills we should develop when we transition from team member to manager. What we seldom hear is that we need to UNLEARN some behaviors in order to transition into effective managers. Some of the things that made us excel as a team member can be the kiss of death to our performance as a manager. Here are five behaviors to avoid as a Manager: ...
It may sound counter-intuitive for me to recommend that you shouldn’t care too much at work. However, after reading this story, hopefully you can understand and appreciate why you should not care too much, if you want to accelerate your career success.
On Monday, I had a morning phone meeting with one of the data team leaders who was doing some reporting for our enterprise level initiative. I was not looking forward to it, as the lead person is one of those less-than-competent folks I mentioned in my recent article, How to Deal with Others’ Incompetence.
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It took me about six years to learn how not to make this mistake at work. In some ways, I am still learning how to avoid it, as my instinct as an engineer and an overachiever is to tell people that I am right when I feel that I am right.
You may say, “if you are right, why can’t you tell people so?” Well, I can tell you right now, even when you know you are right, it’s better not to lead with it unless you don’t care about breaking relationships. Guess what? No one wants to be told that they are wrong, especially in front of other people. ...
If you want to advance in your career, advancement to people management is an important milestone to achieve. It takes 5-10 years to get promoted to manager. That’s like the initial climb into a Roller Coaster ride. The top looks wonderful and it’s thrilling to keep climbing up and up the team member ladder until eventually you reach the day where you are promoted. ...
My team recently submitted a proposal of which I prepared more than 75%. In fact, of the 25% my analyst (who is junior to me) prepared, I had to revise significantly. The final paper was jointly signed by both of us. Our Chief Risk Officer reached out to my analyst commending his great paper, cc:ing my boss. My boss then congratulated the analyst on his great work as well. ...
What do you think is the #1 secret to career success is? You may say good communication skills, people skills, or a pedigree education. Well, I would argue that there is another skill that is critical to your career success above all else: a self-management skill called Resilience – the ability and courage to recover quickly from unexpected situations and adversity. ...
