Why Soft Skills?



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The industrial age is over. Organizations still stuck in the industrial age business models are going out of business very fast. Technology is only as good as the people using it. That is the clear message of the new millennium. The knowledge era is supported by tapping into the immense power of the humans to think creatively, find unconventional solutions to add value, improve productivity, and find answers which will make life and work more valuable to the society.

The straight jacketed systems thinking, assembly line techniques adapted to human endeavor has failed to provide the required results. Not that they are not required. But humans cannot be automated. Automation is good only as far as inanimate objects are involved. While discipline is important, systems cannot be the end all to derive the best value out of individuals. Human capital is best exploited when self actualization needs are met.

There is lot more to human beings than repetitive, mechanical operations. Value is derived from out of the box thinking. Values are derived from the best possible team work, communication skills, empathy, intuitiveness, and self management needs of the people.

This realization has resulted in the west embracing soft skills in a big way at considerable expense. The needs of different work environment, industries and business organizations are unique. The same systems applied in different environments will produce different results. The knowledge era demands certain freedom to apply skills specifically suited to the particular set of situation and circumstances.

Soft skills are the key to providing workers with the core skills in communication, team work, leadership; personal effectiveness skills required to leverage one’s individual strengths. With better quality of people the organization will produce higher customer satisfaction and achieve market leaderships.

The soft skills initiative needs to be planned very carefully by organizations. They need to be tailored to the set of circumstances to connect the acquired skills to the workplace.

World’s topmost names in training today-Anthony Robbins, Stephen Covey, Tom Peters, Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy and Edward De Bono are all advocating and emphasizing on a total shift in training to self awareness, core values, mental and creative management skills-indispensable to personal success. Some of these names mentioned above are not even from the management discipline and they are the buzzwords in fortune 500 companies.

What then must a CEO and the HR focus on?

The answer might sound simplistic. Forget the organizational success models. Focus on success of each individual working for the organization. Make him succeed. Be it in work, personal lives or relationships. Make him a better contributor to the society. Take your people's self esteem to a very high level. And they will take your organization to the next level.

Though it may sound dramatic forget the outdated management models and training models. Focus on core human values. The important element is not look into immediate cost benefit analysis which cannot be applied to soft skills training. While you can measure the effective transfer of knowledge you cannot measure the change in behavior in the short term. The process must be defined in the longer term benefits of upping the total value concept of the organizations by improving the human potential and thereby create a much higher market value in all areas of corporate activity.

Look closely and prepare a soft skills inventory required by your organization. Not with the standard training products available. Ensure the training to be tailored to your unique requirement. Start on a strategic plan to improve such skills across the organization. Improve the skills and you automatically improve the bottom line and your market leadership.

10 questions to help you plan your Windows deployment

XPThe final support date for Windows XP is just 840 days away and while that might seem like a long time, you and I both know that April 8, 2014 will come all too soon for some companies who are still reluctant to make the move.

If you’re still on Windows XP and are planning to rollout Windows 7, here are 10 questions you’ll want to ask yourself while planning out your deployment:

  1. Do we need to invest in test hardware, personnel and infrastructure? Notice it doesn’t say IF testing should be done. That’s a given. But can you set up a lab – either physical or virtual – where the deployment process and end configuration can be tried out? Who will do the testing? How will it be done?
  2. What hardware do we need to replace? Make sure you know the minimum requirements are for Windows 7 and which of your computers will need to be upgraded or replaced. The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit is a free tool that can help you collect detailed information on your current infrastructure for an analysis of your hardware and device compatibility and give recommendations.
  3. Do we need to build and maintain a desktop image? If your organization tends to get a lot of new machines coming in or computers that get handed from one person to another and this is taking up a lot of IT cycles, you probably want to look at building a desktop image if you don’t already. A well built image can reduce your deployment time substantially and advancements in imaging technology mean that it’s no longer necessary to spend hours saving user data off an old computer, cloning the hard drive of a reference computer and then restoring the data you saved. Having only one image to maintain even if your organization uses diverse hardware is more of a reality than ever.
  4. Are our corporate applications going to work? The Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) is a free download that can help you evaluate and mitigate application compatibility issues. Applications that can’t be upgraded may be able to be shimmed or run in Windows XP mode.
  5. How will employees’ files be moved? Knowing where employees are storing their files is critically important. How many times have you heard: “I didn’t put that file in the System32 directory – the computer did it!”. Once you know where files actually are, a plan is needed to ensure that user files and user settings are migrated. Bob won’t care if the rollout is a complete resounding success if his desktop wallpaper isn’t as he left it!
  6. Will Office 2010 or IE 9 be rolled out at the same time? Often this is the perfect time to make other adjustments and upgrades to the desktop infrastructure along with Windows 7. There is all sorts of information on deploying Microsoft Office 2010 and Internet Explorer 9 that can be used in the planning. If the Microsoft Desktop Toolkit (MDT) is being used for the deployment, Office 2010 can be added to the MDT environment.
  7. Is this a good time to assess and update policies and security? As in #6, deployment projects present good opportunities to revisit and revise other areas of the desktop infrastructure. What policies are in place and what can be improved? Are there group policies that we could benefit from to better manage and streamline our desktop environment? Are there security enhancements that we can take advantage of?
  8. How will remote users get updated? Instead of remote employees like the sales teams shipping their notebooks in to get upgraded and incurring downtime, consider swapping out old hardware for newly configured machines or sending them a bootable USB with the Windows 7 image on it to do the upgrade themselves.
  9. What’s the impact going to be to users and the helpdesk? Will there be any planned downtime and how will this be communicated to users? As with any change, there will likely be a short term increase in calls to the helpdesk. Is the helpdesk appropriately staffed and equipped to handle questions? Using tools such as the Windows Troubleshooting Platform and the Problem Steps Recorder can help resolve issues quickly and diminish ongoing helpdesk calls.
  10. What’s the ongoing maintenance of the desktop infrastructure going to look like? Taking control of the desktop environment is a huge step in streamlining staff productivity, improving processes and freeing up IT time to devote to developing new ways to use technology and IT know-how to business needs. Tools like those found in the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) and practical guidance found in the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) can help.

I’ve included a lot of information in the above 10 questions and each one could be a separate article on it’s own. That’s why the conversation doesn’t end here.

On the next AlignIT Manager Tech Talk, Jonathan and I will be discussing how to de-risk your Windows 7 deployment with Dave Kawula, a Senior Consultant with 1E and a guy who has more knowledge of desktop deployments in his pinkie finger than most people have in their whole heads. Join us LIVE on Thursday, January 12 from 12-12:30pm ET for De-Risking Your Windows 7 Deployment.
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