Soft Skills - Ask a Wharton MBA
Develop Soft Skills – Work Smart & Live More
Negative feedback is a fact of life. Sometimes it’s fair, constructive, and expected, but sometimes it can be completely out of the blue. You cannot easily change your boss’s perceptions or motives for giving you negative feedback. What you can control, however, is how you respond to it. So learn how to handle negative feedback early in your career. ...
When I worked at Deloitte, I had to write a lot of proposals (documents to sell consulting work). I remember one time my team and I worked hard for a week to pull together a kick-a** proposal for a high tech company. We worked late and came in early to create a good draft. On Thursday evening, I finally had a chance to review the proposal with the Partner and Senior Manager. ...
On Sunday, I was hanging out with some friends, and one of them complimented me: “Wow, Lei, you have lost a lot of weight. You look amazing…” I felt pretty good, since I had been trying to lose the weight I gained from having a second child. However, I immediately replied, “Thanks, but I still have about 10 lbs. to go. It’s been a process, and this last 10 lbs. has been quite stubborn.” Afterwards, I thought, “Why did I say that? Instead of continuing to feel good, I immediately started focusing on what was not working for me, and re-directed the conversation to something less positive.” ...
Communication skills are some of the most critical soft skills for achieving career success during a job search or in the workplace. Improving your communication skills is a huge task, since business communication encompasses verbal and written exchanges, formal and informal styles of communication, along with one-on-one discussions and group talks. Obviously, then, this article is just a starting point. ...
Do you know when it’s time to change jobs? I find this topic interesting because when and how often you decide to change jobs can determine how fast you can progress in your career. Those who stay at a job too long can stignant their own career progression without knowing it as opposed to those who are in tune with the overall job market and their market value. It’s important to realize when to change jobs so you can giving yourself the best chance for upward progression. For this question of when to change jobs, I have two answers. ...
In a separate article, I talked about a famous Harvard Business Review (HBR) article, “Who’s Got the Monkey?”, and why an effective manager must let his team take care of the “Monkeys” (problems discovered during their work). Today, I want to shift focus and talk about tips for the team members — How can you excel as an individual contributor and demonstrate that you are ready for a management position? ...
How to give constructive feedback is a great question to ask and an important soft skill to develop especially if you are now managing a team. The abiliity for coach and mentor well each of your team members is essentially to your and your team’s success. To be a great team leader, you need to be able to provide constructive feedback that meets two objectives ...