The 12 skills every employee should have

I’ve learned lots across my almost 40 years of work. Not just from structured training programs, but also from mentors, managers I’ve enjoyed working for and managers that I haven’t!

I recently started work on a Management Mastery program with a client. We are co-designing an experiential learning program (i.e. one that people will enjoy doing and tell people about!) and we started the process by listing all of the skills that we believed people needed, in order to be successful at work.

This is the list that we came up with. We started and ended with what we considered to be the most important. 

The ability to build relationships is critical to the success of any team or organisation, so this has to be first and whilst I know that it’s counterintuitive to save the most important piece of learning until last, we want this to be the thing that remain uppermost in people’s mind when they ‘get to work’.

1. How to build respectful, empathetic relationships 
2. How to communicate to be understood
3. How to listen to understand
4. How to give feedback so that it’s welcomed
5. How to set expectations to encourage commitment
6. How to have courageous conversations
7. How to build a team that knows how to get the job done (together)
8. How to prioritise what’s important
9. How to navigate change and bounce back from adversity
10. How to think critically and solve problems
11. How to use technology productively
12. How to look after your mental and physical health

The great news is - and the results organisations get from my programs are testament to this - It’s possible to learn all of these things, regardless of age, role or the industry you work in. 

Recently, I witnessed how a team transformed from dysfunctional to high-performing simply by focusing on these core capabilities. The senior leader of the department had mastered the art of giving feedback that people actually welcomed, and it changed everything about how they worked together.

All that’s required is a growth mindset from leaders and managers, a commitment of time and money, a willingness to try (and possibly fail) and a way of measuring how you’re doing. The rest is up to the individual.

Imagine how different your working life could be if there was an investment in these 12 skills. Which ones do you have and which are you missing? And more importantly, what impact would mastering the missing ones have on your team's performance?

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If you’re interested in working with me to transform the skills of your managers and subsequently the culture of your organisation, drop me an email at colin@colindellis.com. You can read the reviews of the programs and the difference they make at www.colindellis.com/workshops