Soft skills

Managing Interns: Tips and Advice

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I saw a set of questions online about how to manage and mentor marketing interns.  As I used to manage and mentor lots of consultants including interns when I worked for Deloitte, I wanted to share my 2 cents.   The questions didn’t specify whether these were high school, college, or MBA interns, so I will assume these are college interns ...  read more

How to Improve Your Soft Skills?

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NEW SOFT SKILLS GUIDE + NEWSLETTER

How to improve your soft skills is an important question to answer for your career success.  It is also a tough question to answer in general as soft skills encompass many different skills in two general categories.

  • self management skills– those we use to manage our emotions, self-perception, and reactions to unexpected situations. Examples of these soft skills include stress management, self-confidence, emotion control, etc…
  • people skills – those we use to influence how others perceive / receive us, our work, our ideas. Examples of these soft skills include communication skills, leadership skills, teamwork skills, ability to deal with difficult personalities.

Any one of these soft skills will take time to improve. At a high level, here are five tips I recommend to start improving your soft skills today. ...  read more

What are Soft Skills?

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I must admit I had no idea what are soft skills when I graduated from college.   I quickly realized on my first job at McKinsey how my lack of some soft skills were affecting my performance reviews.  Here are some of the soft skills I lacked at that time.

  • Stress Management and People Management Skills – At 22 years old, I was assigned an assistant at McKinsey.  I treated her horribly when I was stressed out and I was immature to think I have the right to since she worked for me.   Needless to say, she was NOT jumping to help me all the time.
  • Confidence and Communication Skills – I was book smart and had great ideas on projects, but sometimes I was afraid to speak up when there were senior people in the room.  I had no idea how to structure my comments and I didn’t have the confidence to think they would care what I think.  McKinsey expects Analysts to voice their opinions.
  • Resilience / Office politics skills – I was blamed for something I didn’t do on a project.  It took me a few years to move on from this one.  My manager succeeded in blaming me because he knew how to play office politics better than me.  I had no close support from any partners.

After working 15 years in consulting with 20+ Fortune 500 companies dealing with all kinds of people, personalities, and unexpected situations, I have a much greater appreciation for how important soft skills are to achieve business success.   So I would like to offer my own definition of “what are soft skills” in practical terms (see below). ...  read more

Forgive and Forget – Key to Career Success

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I had a real scare yesterday. My 3 year old daughter, Isabel, lost her balance and fell from an 8-feet-high rope ladder, head first. I screamed, and although I was a few steps away, I couldn’t reach her in time. She hit the dirt on the side of her head and right cheek. Luckily, her head does not seem to be injured. Besides a shiner on her cheek, she was just super scared. ...  read more

Office Politics – Should I leverage it to further my career?

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leverage office politics

Early in my career, I have been burnt by office politics but not in the way you think.  I didn’t feel burnt because someone else sabotaged my job.  On the contrary, I concluded, I burnt myself because I didn’t understand or appreciate office politics and the importance of using it fairly and skillfully to protect and build my career advantage. ...  read more

Mentoring Model – Mutual Mentorship or Paying it Forward?

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Yesterday, one of my friend sent me this article written by Steve Blank about  Mentors, Teachers, and Coaches.   I wanted to shared it with you to get your perspective.  Steve makes great distinctions about the difference between mentors vs. teachers vs. coaches.   I completely agree with this.  He says

  • Teachers, coaches and mentors are each something different.
  • If you want to learn a specific subject find a teacher.
  • If you want to hone specific skills or reach an exact goal hire a coach.
  • If you want to get smarter and better over your career find someone who cares about you enough to be a mentor.

    •  ...  read more

    How to Answer – What is Your Salary Requirement?

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    The “what is your salary requirement” question is always a tricky and awkward one to answer.  The best way is to avoid answering it tactfully for as long as possible.   I recommend the following strategies in address the salary requirement question.

    1. Try your best to not provide any numbers – because you want to avoid either being too high or underselling yourself. Most recruiter friends always tell me “don’t be the first to draw blood”
    2. Re-focus the discussion on how the company reward above average performers, whether this company is the best fit, etc…This signals to the company that you believe you will be a top performer and that you can more about this role than just compensation
    3. Re-direct the question back to find out what the salary range is for this position? Therefore, making them show their cards first.   This is always a great way to deflect this question as well as find out if what they had in mind fits within what you expected.  If it does, you can respond vaguely and say “let’s focus on whether I am a good fit first and then hopefully we can talk about the right compensation based on my experience and skillsets”
    4. Tell them you are excited about the company – this subtly negotiates on your behalf, and if the company likes you and they don’t know your salary requirement, they may make you a salary offer on the higher end to make sure they can secure a positive response from you.

    Here are some examples of salary requirement answers that have worked for me or my clients.

  • “Salary is only part of the picture. My number priority is finding the best fit for my career. I am very excited about this opportunity. I think I can be a valuable addition to this company. What is the salary range that the company is looking at for this position?”
  • “San Francisco is an expensive city to live in so starting salary is important, but what is also important to me is how this company rewards high performers. What is the bonus structure? How will compensation progress in a year or two?”
  • If pressed to provide a number, then try this “I hate to overshoot and be disqualified for this position, but if you need to know then the minimum I would accept for an ideal position is … ”

    •  ...  read more