Why Engineers Say
"Soft Skills Are HARD!"
By Susan de la Vergne
"Soft skills." The phrase gets the cold shoulder from those who believe there can't be any real business value in something "soft."
"There's nothing 'soft' about my job, no sir! We only do hard stuff around here!"
We calculate! We code! We test performance! We measure, quantify, determine, and produce! Nothing soft about any of that.
Yet soft skills continue to get a lot of attention. Self-discipline, self-confidence, the drive to succeed, taking initiative, speaking and writing well, empathy, political savvy, influence, optimism, adaptability, conflict management--all these and more comprise what has come to be called the "soft skills."
They may be soft, but they're certainly not easy. People who study job performance (psychologists among them) say the difference between outstanding performance on the job and average performance is often... Read more.
|
|
Our "Go-To" Guy: John Church
It's not often you meet someone who tells you that his first job--as a bagger at Safeway when he was 15--set his career course. But that's exactly what Auxilium's John Church said.
"I realized even back then that I love interactions with people! I love being in the role of customer service!"
John is Auxilium's go-to guy, working directly with our clients in a number of ways--helping them get registered if help is needed, answering inquiries about Auxilium services, confirming enrollments and group event details, and more.
"My goal is to make it an enjoyable experience for them. I like to think of it this way: What if it were me? What if I were an Auxilium customer? And then to provide the kind of service I would want."
John started out as a Communication/Broadcast Journalism major at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, then moved back to Portland after graduating from college. He's been with Auxilium since 2008.
|
Risky Business Book Review: Risk Intelligence by Dylan Evans
"How can we reduce and avoid risk?" It's a common management refrain. But is it the right question? Organizations and projects that thrive, that compete and win, take risk. In other words, there's an upside to risk. It's not always the purveyor of doom and loss.
So says Dylan Evans's in his new book Risk Intelligence (2012, Free Press).The title refers to our ability as human beings "to estimate probabilities accurately." This seems to describe an exclusive group, people who can predict risk reliably. If this were a general skill we all had to varying degrees, risk wouldn't be such a dangerous matter. But we don't, and it is.
The "risk intelligent," in Evans's assessment, are those who have "the right amount of certainty." Those who proclaim absolute certainty about a range of subjects aren't risk-intelligent. Read more. |
|
|
|
| Stretch Your Training Budget This Summer!
We know that many companies have limited training budgets in this sluggish economy, so we're offering an outstanding discount to help stretch training dollars:
Seats in each of the courses listed in this newsletter are available at two for the price of one.
Only a limited number of seats in each course are offered at this price, so take advantage of this exceptional value now.
At Auxilium, we don't scale back during the summer. We're as busy as we ever are. So if you're looking to devote some of your summer hours to improving your leadership abilities or becoming a better communicator, we're here to help.
Gary C. Hinkle
President and CEO
Auxilium, Inc.
503-293-3557
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/garyhinkle
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/GaryHinkle |
|
|
|
2-for-1 Offer!
Register yourself, and another person from your company attends with
you--for free!
It's first-come-first-served,
and there are only a few seats in every class eligible for this offer, so don't delay.
(Note: To register, create one registration, add it to the shopping cart, and then put the names of both participants in the "Ordering Instructions.")
Engineering Project Planning and Estimating
Ft.Lauderdale 6/13/12
Austin, TX 6/20/12
Dayton, OH 7/11/12
Leading Engieering Projects and Teams
Ft. Lauderdale 6/14/12
Austin, TX 6/21/12
Dayton, OH 7/12/12
Essential Skills for Engineering Project Success
Portland, OR 6/27-28/12
San Diego 7/30-31/12
Technical Presentations Workshop
Portland, OR 6/21/12
Anaheim 7/10/12
San Diego 7/12/12
Slides for Technical Presentations
San Diego 8/2/12
(two half-day sessions)
Fundamentals of Engineering Project Management
Portland, OR 6/25-26/12
Dayton, OH 7/9-10/12
San Diego 8/2-3/12
|
|
