Soft Skills - Ask a Wharton MBA
Develop Soft Skills – Work Smart & Live More
I had an important meeting to lead yesterday. After six months of managing this project, I was hoping this meeting would be the final one needed to get there necessary agreement from all the key business stakeholders. Everything was looking good — we already went through 4 rounds of feedback, and addressed all the concerns voiced over emails or on previous calls. Some of the key stakeholders that I thought would have serious objections were now big supporters of our reject output. This last meeting was just going to be a formality to put the bow on the final product. ...
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. ...
Recently, I wrote about Sarah, who were back-stabbed at work and asked you what you would do if you were her. Thanks for all who voted! It was great to see many of you knew the best way to handle this unfortunate situation and protect yourself and your work reputation. Here is what Sarah actually did. All the quoted dialogue are paraphrased ...
I have been struggling with an issue at work: We are doing a project that I know is the right thing to do for the company and the line of business involved. With that said, I still need to figure out the best way to inform the partners in that line of business about the project, get their “buy in,” as well as their help to ensure that it is getting done correctly. ...
One of the best skills you could possibly have to ensure a successful career is knowing how and when to ask for help at work. So many people are afraid of failure or being seen as incompetent that they often attempt projects or tasks just trying to improvise instead of asking for help. In a truly professional work environment, asking for help doesn’t necessarily mean you are dumb or hopeless, it just means you care about the quality of your work and how you represent your company. ...
As much as we would like to think that the business world is far, it’s not. The reality is that we can all get back-stabbed at work. The important thing is how we deal with it if and when it happens.
This is a true story that happened to a colleague of mine. What would you do if this happened to you at work? ...
While most of us are willing to stand up for ourselves regarding personal matters, when it comes to voicing a dissenting opinion to our superiors (e.g., standing up to our boss) at work, we tend to shy away from any confrontation and go along with what we are told to do, whether or not we agree with it. ...