Organizations often struggle with the effectiveness of their soft skills programs. While skills like self-confidence, proactivity, empathy, and communication are crucial for business success, the tangible outcomes of these programs often fall short.
The issue lies in the gap between learning and mastery. Employees may attend workshops or complete online courses, but they rarely continue the journey towards mastering these skills. Mastery is where the real business value is generated, and it’s often neglected.
Real organizational impact occurs when employees are guided through the process of mastering a soft skill. This involves providing clarity on how to self-direct their learning and how to break existing behavioral patterns that hinder growth.
In this article, I’ll outline the obstacles that hinder the ROI of soft skills training, based on my decade-long experience in the field. By addressing these barriers, you can significantly improve your ROI.
Challenges in Soft Skills Mastery
- The Power of Purpose: A lack of clear career purpose can severely limit an employee’s motivation to learn and master a skill. Clarity in purpose boosts motivation, discipline, and energy.
- Breaking Habitual Patterns: Deep-rooted behaviors like overthinking or people-pleasing can sabotage the learning process. These patterns dictate actions and drain energy, often leaving individuals stuck. An example is the unbalanced centres of intelligence.
- Identifying the Right Skill: Sometimes, employees focus on the wrong skill. For instance, someone might think they need to improve communication when the real issue is overthinking, which affects self-confidence and risk-taking.
- The Gap Between Knowledge and Application: While learning in a group setting can be motivating, the challenge lies in maintaining the discipline to apply these skills in the workplace.
Advanced Challenges in Soft Skills Mastery
- Aligning Talent with Business Value: Traditional programs often fail to make the connection between a soft skill and its business value. For example, assertiveness can be a valuable asset in stakeholder management, but this link is often not made clear.
- The Incomplete Learning Loop: Effective growth requires a complete reflection loop, which includes reflecting on actions, drawing deeper conclusions, and setting new goals. This loop is often incomplete, leaving potential gains unrealized.
Master of Talent Development
The field of soft skills training is ripe for transformation. Our program, the Master of Talent Development, aims to redefine soft skills mastery by turning talents into mastered skills, much like accomplished athletes and performers do.