Since a long time, education is emphasizing the role of technical skills in one’s success. In this globalized world, professional excellence is not just built by technical skills. When it comes to workplace, soft skills can put you in the driver’s seat. However, the essence of the book should not be judged by its cover alone. There is a growing realization that a successful professional requires two wings to fly high: a perfect blend of soft skills and technical skills. One without the other cannot guarantee personal effectiveness, managerial mastery and professional fulfillment. Hence, a shift from a skeptical mindset of “Why or what is soft skills?” to “Why not soft skills?” has become the new mantra for success today. The first paper, “A Holistic Approach to Soft Skills Training”, by A Anju, gives the blue print to enhance soft skills to emerge triumphant in professional endeavors.

Assertiveness at workplace has been drawing the attention of managers. Assertiveness is about expressing and respecting not only one’s own feelings, opinions, needs and rights but also about others. Unassertiveness fuels confusion, frustration, anger and resentment whereas assertiveness promotes understanding, acceptance, freedom and respect resulting in high performance. The paper, “Importance of Assertiveness at the Workplace: A Case Study”, by Manishankar Chakraborty, explains that the successful organizations across the globe have understood the relevance of assertive behavior and therefore encourage their stakeholders to embrace the same for indelible success.

“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens” (Kahlil Gibran). It is amazing that how the right attitude or frame of mind dramatically turned the world in favor of them and made possible whatever once they thought was impossible. The paper, “Right Attitude: Grab it!”, by S Mercia Selva Malar, conveys that right attitude is like a blazing light that illuminates the path and spurs the potential to achieve goals.

The bait “What’s the best thing you could be working on, and why aren’t you?” may hook the fish badly as many tend to procrastinate but procrastination does not go with right attitude and is a true enemy of efficiency. The paper, “Tomorrow Never Comes”, by Queenie M Kannan, gives the practical tips to those whose capacities are chained and crippled by the habit of procrastination.

Employers prefer and appreciate those endowed with good interpersonal skills and without exception acknowledge that it is one of the most critical components of success. In this world of virtual environment and teleconferences, the paper, “Interpersonal Communication: Lifeblood of an Organization”, by Deepa Sethi and Manisha Seth, emphasizes the importance of interpersonal communication to nourish the relationships at work. In this world of technology, there are numerous communication systems and with them also grew interpersonal barriers which make it imperative to value interpersonal communication across all levels. No matter how brilliant ideas you may have, but if you are disconnected from others at workplace, the efficiency bounds to suffer.

“There is a language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, nay, her foot speaks”—When we communicate, it is the body that broadcasts the message louder than the speech based on the way we use the body to say what we exactly mean. The paper, “Body Language: Inside Out”, by Sangeeta Shukla, shows how language is too smaller a vessel to contain the emotions of the mind and body.

There is an increasing emphasis on accent at workplace as those with poor accent feel inefficient, found to be less effective and thus frustrated. The paper, “Accent Neutralization for Effective Communication”, by V Rajini, traces the importance of accent and explains the way in which one can enhance accent through better training and effort.

How good are your Java skills or manufacturing skills if you are perceived to be unfriendly and inaccessible or even a difficult person? The paper, “A Comparative Study of Soft Skills Among Engineers”, by K V A Balaji and P Somashekar, emphasizes the role of soft skills to make effective engineers, and explores the difference between soft skills among the rural and urban engineering students.

Entrepreneurs are treated as the lifeblood of economy and imparting effective training to the students studying entrepreneurship. The paper, “Training for Entrepreneurship: An Exploratory Study in Bangladesh”, by Dewan Mahboob Hossain and Mohammad Badrul Haider, highlights the importance of entrepreneurship and presents the insights of the study. Performance is the key to organizational excellence, and training is the gateway to employee performance.

Training is an antidote to the performance deficiencies identified during appraisal. The paper, “Role of Training in Improving Performance”, by K V L Manasa and Nivedita Reddy, highlights the importance of training to enhance performance. Effectiveness of training is best measured by employee performance.

Organizations are resorting to strategic approach to training that emphasizes on investments in training. The paper, “Marketable Human Capital Investments: An Empirical Study of Employer-Sponsored Training”, by Bo M Hansson outlines that the employer is not only financing but also extracting the benefits of training based on the research studies.

-- M Showry
Consulting Editor