Soft Skills - Ask a Wharton MBA
Develop Soft Skills – Work Smart & Live More
Being laid off is inevitable. Almost everyone will experience it once in their career. It is how you handle the layoff that will determine your career progression afterwards. This is why it is so important to listen to this candid conversation I had with one of our Executive Authors, Nadia Drew. ...
Not getting the promotion we were expecting can be devastating to our self-image. I am here to tell you that you are not alone. In fact, not getting promoted can happen to the best of us. What is important is how you handle this unexpected news and what you do next to keep advancing in your career. ...
It is New Year’s Eve day. I am supposed to be happy and excited. Instead I wake up very agitated. My mind is teeming with negative thoughts. I have been sick for two weeks. I feel behind. I feel unaccomplished. I feel tired even though I just got a full night’s sleep.
Then I catch myself. I realize that, because I have not done much for my soft skills blog lately, the voice in my head is scolding me. Negative thoughts fill my mind. I feel deflated. These feelings had been building up for a few days already. I knew I had to do something to break this pattern. Instead of letting my negative thoughts control me, I decided to go for a run and de-stress a little. ...
How to stand up for yourself is an important topic for us to discuss if you want to succeed like an executive. As we discussed before, success is about working smarter not harder. You have to subtly self promote to build your reputation.
As part of self promotion, it’s critical that you stand up for yourself when others are talking about your work in a way that can negatively affect your reputation. For example, not everyone plays fair office politics: a person may falsely accuse you of some wrong, or take credit for your work. It is also possible that a misunderstanding or miscommunication resulted in someone pointing fingers at you. It’s unfair, but this is the reality of the corporate world. ...
Albert Einstein once said,
“Three rules of work:
My husband shared this quote with me this morning. While it seems so simple, there is so much wisdom in it. Here is what each rule means to me:
Rule #1: Out of clutter find simplicity
This quote reminds me of my volunteer experience with Dr. Pete at his Zone Healing Center. I have volunteered there for 4 years now as his office manager, working only 1-2 hour per week. ...
Whether you are searching for a job or working in a job, at some point you will need to ask for help if you don’t want to hinder your progress. No man or woman should be an island in their life or work. It’s unrealistic to expect yourself to know it all or do it alone.
This is why the ability to ask for help is one of the most critical soft skills to develop in order to achieve excellence in your career. Tom Peters, the author of the famous management book, “In Search of Excellence,” agrees. Assuming that you also agree, let’s talk about how to best ask for help, since the approach matters. Here are 7 tips on how to ask for help effectively: ...
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. ...