Plays of the Month: A little help with a professional-growth goal that’s probably not on your radar

[Kristen Roth]

It’s that time of year again! Time for us to take a look back and reflect upon how things have gone in 2021 and put some thought into what we’d like to focus on in the year ahead. If we had to take a wild guess, we’d bet that leveling up your teamwork game isn’t at the very top of your New Year’s resolutions list. But we hope to convince you that it should be, and give you a few useful tips for kicking it up a notch or two.

Successful teamwork starts with ensuring your team has mastered seven essential teamwork skills. These soft skills can amp up your career development by giving you the tools to create positive interpersonal relationships in your professional life.

Here’s how a few of our Plays can help you hone those sought-after soft skills:

• Improve team communication by creating My User Manuals. You and your team will be better equipped to exchange info and ideas if you know each others' communication preferences.

• Collaborate better with Dependency Mapping. Collaboration can fall apart when people don’t realize how each piece of the project fits together.

• Help your team solve problems with Problem Framing. This will allow you to step back and understand the who, what, why, and where of a problem before jumping into solutions.

Which soft skills do you think are most important at work? Which ones do you think are the most underrated? We'd love to hear your thoughts! 

[Elizabeth Barr]

I cannot stress enough how important communication preferences are! So crucial for making conversation as frictionless as possible.

[Wouter Bruinings]

The user manuals seem cool especially for new teams, or when communication is below par and the vibe is tense. Will try definitely. 

[Brittany Wispell]

This post needs more loooovvveee. 

Communication is the most important tool across organizations and well just being human. 

I feel all soft skills are of equal importance as just like using a certain percentage of our brain at one time, we may only need to use a few soft skills at one time. I can see where a few soft skills would work well in tandem depending on the situation. 

For example, open-mindedness, teamwork and adaptability might all need to be used at one time in order to have effective communication. Of course, everyone has their own style or personality when it comes to how those soft skills are exhibited. 

I've been in a support role for some time now, and unfortunately, I'd have to say that I feel critical thinking is the most underrated soft skill we have now a days. I feel as though there has been a loss of curiosity and exploration (Or maybe it's time?!). I really enjoy helping people, but there comes a time when I've thought "Well, a quick google search on your end could have saved me 5 mins", I know, 5 mins NBD right, wrong. Being distracted for even 5 mins can derail progress and might take someone 15mins to get back on track with what they were doing or thinking before the interruption. Effective communication on ways of working, or preferred working style could be helpful for this situation as well. Working agreements playbook might be good for something like that. 

On a more positive note, when I've done interviews in the past the candidates that stand out most to me are the ones that show a willingness to learn. With a willingness to learn, I think the sub-set of soft skills that come along with that are critical thinking, and creativity. 

I'm not sure how to end my comment here, I hope this spurs some more conversations. :) 

Thanks,
Brittany 

[Summer.Hogan]

I know this is an old article, but I love the idea of the Problem Framing! I could really use something like this so thanks @Kristen Roth

[Craig Nodwell]

Love the idea of dependency mapping.

[Sayed Bares]

I would say My User Manuals is really important, it is essential for building teams. This way everyone can communicate and build a healthy work relationship.