A-Z of Soft Skills: Z is for Zest

It's Z day already! I'm going to miss the discipline of thinking and writing this series.

Z is for Zest, a word that epitomises enthusiasm and energy in doing something. It is such a positive word, active and hopeful and happy--a good way to end the series, don't you think?

Like the other meaning of "zest," (remember, orange or lemon zest? the peel part of citrus when shaved or grated and added to food?), the positive kinetics this word represents adds an edge, a tang, a something special when it is added to your thoughts and activities.

Those who achieve greatness are reputed to have an inexhaustible supply of zest for life or, as the French say, joie de vivre.

Add some zest to everything you do. Think, feel and behave zestfully every day. It will change you.

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: Y is for being a "Yes! Sayer"

image credit: nasongroup.co

Do note the exclamation after the word "Yes" and before the word "Sayer." That's not a typographical error. It is exactly what I want to say.

Be a Yes! sayer.

Many soft skills trainers and consultants want to teach you to say "No." I agree that it's an important skill to learn. It is, however, easy to get the hang of saying "no" to things.

We humans are basically lazy and selfish beings and "no" suits us wonderfully once we learn to get rid of the guilt and the desire to be "good" to people so our image doesn't tarnish.

I say unless you have a really good reason for saying no, say "Yes!"

Affirm life. Affirm life emphatically. Say Yes!
Accept what your life brings you. Accept it gratefully. Yes! 
Embrace new ideas. Don't let your knee-jerk "No" moment win. Say Yes! 
Surrender to the happiness of making someone's wishes come true. Say Yes! 
Feel the surge of power you when you try the undone. Say Yes! 
See insecurity and uncertainty disappear when you accept a challenge with a heartfelt Yes!

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: X is for Xenophilia

The word xenophilia is a combination of the Greek "xenos" (ξένος)  meaning unknown or foreign and "philia" (φιλία) meaning love or attraction. It thus means affection for the foreign or unknown.

Xenophilia is the opposite of xenophobia, which is the fear or dislike of unknown or foreign people and objects (Indians steal American jobs; the Chinese make inferior products; Mexicans commit crimes)

It is easy to be afraid of the unknown or the foreign. It is normal to feel insecure around that which is not us or within the ambit of our experience and knowledge. Xenophobia is natural, normal, common. It adheres to the status quo--that which is as it is. 

It is a rarer feat to be the brave, open-minded and secure human being who is xenophilic--who welcomes the foreign with open arms, who is free from the fear of the unknown, who invites change, who accepts the otherness of the new-found foreign object or person. 

Of course, all attraction to that which is foreign, especially to foreign peoples, manners, or cultures need not always be a good thing. Just as a phobia is an irrational fear or hatred without any solid foundation and thus not desirable, a philia, too may be equally undesirable especially if it is blind and abnormal and irrational.

However, in this world that is more globalized, where our national boundaries are blurring slowly into oblivion given that physical space can no longer hold us in one place, loving the other is sure to serve us better in life than hating all that is not-us.

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: W is for Wonder, Wondering and Wonderment...

"Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are.."

To wonder is to feel surprised amazement; to marvel or feel admiration in the face of something new or beautiful
Wondering is the desire to know, a feeling of intense curiosity, a speculative frame of mind, even the expression of doubt about something
Wonderment is a noun meaning a state of reverence or adoration.

When I look upon a star and wonder, it could be an amazed and admiring wonder at the magnificence of the star or it could be a curious and speculative wondering that is more scientifically inclined or it could be the awe-inspired wonderment of an acolyte experiencing a miracle.

I wonder which permutation of wonder is the most apt in this case...

As children, the sense of wonder is omnipresent in us. We experience our world in a state of surprise. We are curious about everything. We feel awed by much of what we experience. Our amazement is fascinating, thrilling, enthralling--and it opens us, hooks us, draws us to more surprises that thrill us, fascinate us, enthrall us...

Nurture your wonder, your wondering, your wonderment. 

Keep it safe. Grow it. Don't let it die. 

It will keep you willing and able to live and learn and change and be affected and be impressed and celebrate and be inspired. 

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: V is for Vision

What is vision and why is it important? Here's a short story I often tell participants at my Leadership workshops:

A self-made shoe manufacturer had two sons. He was now a rich man and his sons were raised in the city but his own childhood days were spent in abject poverty in one of India's poorest rural regions. The businessman wanted to know which one of his sons would be the better entrepreneur and thus the best leader for his company after him. 

When his elder son turned 21 and joined the family business, the father said: "I want you to go to this village and ascertain whether I should set up a shoe factory there." Without knowing it, the son traveled to the same poverty-stricken village where his father grew up. In a few days, he called his father and said: "Dad, nobody wears shoes here. There's no point in setting up a factory in this place."
His father sighed and said, "OK, then, I won't."

When the younger son turned 21 and joined the family business, the father sent him to the same village with the same instructions. The very next day, the younger son called his father. He sounded really excited. "Hey, Dad, we should definitely set up a factory here. In fact, we should double our capacity. There is so much opportunity here. Nobody wears shoes!"

Guess which son ultimately inherited his father's company?

Just as listening is not just hearing and understanding is more than merely knowing, vision goes further than sight.

Vision is not just what you can see with the eyes that look out into the world, it is what you imagine with your mind's eye.

Vision, in fact, is especially that which is seen otherwise than by the ordinary sight. You may call it your rational eye; a supernatural, prophetic, or imaginary sight.

Vision is what helps us create and innovate. It challenges reality and dares to imagine what it will be.

You know all companies have a vision statement. This is an "envisioning"of what a company thinks it will be. It is not about the company's reality but its transformative goal; the aspirational becoming--like a child's vision of what he wants to grow up to be (I want to become Dr. Kapur because he helps children; I want to be a teacher so I can punish naughty people; I want to be a Fireman because I want to save people and ride a fire-truck)

In adulthood, we must hold on to this ability the child in us had in abundance so that we are still able to transform into our aspirational selves. So that we are still able to become.

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: U is for Understanding

How do you define the word "understanding?"

I understand quantum mechanics: this refers to my conceptual knowledge of a particular subject.

I understand why you cried: this refers to my ability to evaluate and judge a particular event or situation.
You and I have an understanding: this refers to an informal agreement between us.

Being understanding, however, is a very different and difficult and a wonderful life-skill to develop. It is being sympathetically aware of other people's feelings; being tolerant and forgiving, being kind and compassionate, thoughtful, sensitive, patient and perceptive.

Understanding is deeper than mere knowledge. To know is not necessarily to understand. Think of the fairy tales and nursery rhymes of your childhood; think of the tables, theorems and formulae you learnt by rote. You knew them, but did you understand them then?

Understanding brings together both our thinking and feeling selves. It requires from us an investment into "listening" instead of just "hearing." Most of the time, when we listen, we are simultaneously evaluating what is said and formulating our reply. We can't do this and understand. 

If we are to be understanding, we have to commit to opening our minds and hearts and assimilating the information given to us without evaluation. As the Buddha said, "To understand is to forgive."If we have understood, we cannot sit in judgment.

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: T for Trying

I toyed with the idea of doing T for Time Management because I think that's a vital skill to have, but "trying"won hands down.

Of course I don't mean "trying" as in being difficult and annoying. I mean "trying" as in attempting, putting in effort, striving, applying yourself to something, not giving up, endeavouring, experimenting, practicing....

To get something we don't have, we have to do something we haven't yet done. So we try new things.
To fulfill our potential in life, we don't have to compete with others to be the best, we just have to try our hardest.
To not fail, we just have to not give up and keep on trying.
If we don't try, we will never know what we can achieve.

Try everything. Try hard. Try again. Trying is a tremendous soft skill and life lesson for everybody.

"There is no use trying,"said Alice; one can't believe impossible things."
"I dare say you haven't had much practice,"said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
--Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: S is for Simplicity

So I'm just a little overextended today and I'm going to take "S for a shortcut" on this one until I find adequate time to do this "S for soft skill" the justice it deserves.

I'm going to make you read what people way more famous than I have said about simplicity. Shortcut for me, but still a good read for you.

“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.” 
― Albert Einstein
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” 
― Confucius
“And I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time.” 
― Nicholas Sparks
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” 
― Clare Boothe Luce
“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.” 
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Other Writings
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” 
― Ernst F. Schumacher
“Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.” 
― Lao Tzu
“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.” 
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
“The greatest ideas are the simplest.” 
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies
“It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.” 
― Bruce Lee
“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.” 
― Henry David Thoreau
“The greatest step towards a life of simplicity is to learn to let go.” 
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
“Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy” 
― Isaac Newton
“If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.” 
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, 'If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.'
Said [author: Diogenes|3213618, 'Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king".” 
― Anthony de Mello
“The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward.” 
― Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: R is for Resilience

Resilience is a noun that comes from the Latin resiliens that means “to recoil or to rebound.”
This brings to my mind the elastic, quality of something to come back to its core shape and size after being stretched or stressed or compressed or bent.

In terms of character and personality, resilience is a person’s mental and emotional ability to recover quickly from something negative that has happened to them. We call it the ability to bounce back. Or rise from the ashes.

Resilience helps you cope better with problems and manage stress situations.

What makes one person more resilient than another?

Think of two trees in a typhoon. The hardwood tree stands rigid and refuses to bend. It breaks.
The soft bamboos and palms bend easily and low to the wind's direction and can thus go back to standing after the storm has passed.

The lesson, then, is to enhance your ability to adapt, to bend, to be more pliable and flexible and open to changes.

Many, many, many years ago, I read something in a book I don't even remember. But that something has stayed with me. The book talked about there being 3 types of people in the world.

The first type would pray to his gods:"Don't bend me lest I break"
The second would pray: "Bend me, but only to my breaking point. Don't let me break."
The third would ask: "Bend me. Bend me. Bend me and see if I can break."

In order to "bounce back" from anything, we have to hit the ground hard.

In order to "rise from the ashes," we first have to be willing to burn.

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: Q is for Questioning

Sometimes I think the word why? is why we're at the top of the food chain! Of course, the words what? when? where? how? who? also help.

Frederich Neitzsche, my favourite philosopher, said it succinctly like he said everything--"Great intellects are sceptical."

Knowledge is not about collecting and collating what is generally or specifically "known." It is about questioning whatever we think we know for a fact. There is no "knowing" without "questioning." Iconoclasm is natural to those who lead us to conquer new territories of our minds, bodies and souls. 

Here's another one from Charles Bukowski, the German-American writer: "'The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence."

Only, I don't see it as a problem. 

The intelligent are bound to be doubtful just as confidence belongs to the realm of idiocy. Thank heavens for those that question and doubt else there would be no antithesis to counter a thesis; no synthesis of past knowledge with a future thesis.

Thank the universe for those that choose to challenge sacred cows or there would be no change, no progress, no evolution, nothing new. Ever.

We don't need to teach our children things. All we need to do is teach them to question everything. Oh, the learning they will then do!

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee heads Expressions@Work, a consulting studio for the tailored development of individual and corporate communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: P is for Passion

Passion is emotion so strong we cannot really hide it or regulate it or rein it in. In other words, passion is love uncontrolled, un-harnessed, un-leashed!

Passion is to the soul what air is to the body.
Passion fulfills us even as it consumes us.
Passion helps us become more than the sum of our parts.
Passion makes us able to create miracles and achieve the impossible.
Passion drives us past our shortcomings and failures.
Passion fuels us forever forward, in contempt of obstacles.

Be passionate. There is only this life and there is only this you.

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: O is for Openness

What makes our lives easier to live? What makes our problems easier to solve? What helps us negotiate our way through this journey from birth to death? What makes it all worthwhile?

The network of relationships we create: with other people; with our geographies--the landscapes and cities we carry in our hearts; with the flora and fauna that define our seasons; with the histories that become the baggage we carry with us.

Being open to people unmet, places un-been, voices unheard and faces unseen grows me in ways I cannot imagine.
Being open to experiences I've never had and don't even know might exist makes me emotionally enlarged and enhanced.
Being open to viewpoints and opinions that are not mine enhances my cognitive process and makes me able to think in layers and nuances that I couldn't even guage before.

Open yourself in mind, body and soul. Let other's unsettle your constants and stabilities. Let go of who you know you are. Only then, maybe, you could begin the process of becoming who you could be!

 

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: N is for Novelty

Novelty is the quality of being new, original, or unusual.
Each one of us is novel--like a grain of sand or a snowflake, to use metaphors I've used before, but in living together in families and communities and societies, we tend to favour "likeness" and "conformity" to novelty.

However, it is our novelty that keeps us alive and evolving. We can only change and make new things when we need the new. We can only create and innovate when we want the novel and original.

Think about it. This is your life. It is unlike any other. It is the only life you have. Only you can live it. What could be more novel and original and unusual than your life?

Learn to live this life as new everyday. 

image credit: www.southlandchurch.net

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: M is for Motivation

Motivation is why we act in a particular manner.
Motivation makes us do things. Basically, motivation is what stimulates our desire to achieve something. It gives us the energy, drive and direction we need to get to our goal.

Motivation may be both internal and external:

Say, you're a student. You may want straight As because:

• Your mom said you'd have to move out of the house if you didn't
• Your dad said he'd buy you a new car if you did
• There's a cash prize to be won
• The person you have a crush on only talks to straight A students
• You'll be dissatisfied with yourself if you didn't get those As because you know you're good enough
• If you get straight As you could get into an Ivy League school

Obviously, some of the above reasons are internal and some are external. Some are based on incentives and rewards and others are based on punishment. Obviously also, those who are internally motivated or self-upgrading are most likely to succeed and fulfil their potential.

What motivates you here and now and today probably won't be a motivator for you tomorrow, in some other place or situation or time.

What motivates you will probably not be a motivator for another person.

It is important for us to know our motivators and also, if we're going to take leadership roles in anything, to accurately estimate the motivators of our subordinates, superiors, colleagues and peers.


The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: L is for Learning

I grew up in a devout Sikh household and from the time I was old enough to repeat words, I was taught that the definition of a Sikh was "one who learns." 

That, my grandmother always said, was to be our life ideal, our ultimate aspiration. As human beings, that was our fundamental duty--to keep on learning.

When you stopped learning and questioning and thinking and improving and becoming, you ceased being a Sikh.

That's a great ideal to have, whether or not you are a follower of Sikhism.

Learning helps us improve on who we are now. Continuous learning is continuous improvement, a neverending cycle of reinvention and upgrading that keeps transforming us. Thus, we evolve.

The ability to learn is:

• to find and get information
• to assimilate it and incorporate it within ourselves 
• to create knowledge that we can then use to live our lives more efficiently, effectively and with more enjoyment and fulfillment

Learning helps us problem-solve and make decisions that are educated and pertinent. However, education and learning are not necessarily or always the same thing:

“Education is what people do to you. Learning is what you do for yourself”

Education is formal, driven by external forces, tied to a curriculum and a generalist agenda (a certificate, a diploma, an undergraduate or post-graduate degree) and it is "taught" by experts. It is thus given to you within the ambit of some clear rules of engagement and tested against a standardised syllabus within a specific scope of time and with expected "credit" or accreditation.

Learning is often informal and internally driven to satisfy a curiosity or a desire to know something. It is an active and subjective process in which I take control of the knowledge gathering process. I can learn anything, anywhere, from anyone at any time and by any means or methods I choose.

In fact, we human beings are natural, curious, exploratory, intrinsically motivated, constructive learners and a large chunk of our learning happens outside of our formal education, from life and work and all the things we see and experience.

Even more fundamentally, learning is a survival skill. It helps us change and adapt according to the constantly changing world around us. It helps us gain control of our ever-shifting environment and circumstances. It helps us upgrade and evolve and prevents us from becoming dated and thus obsolete!

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: K is for Kindness

Kindness as a soft skill? To me, it is more special than knowledge.

Kindness is the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.

Kindness makes us think and feel another person's need and fulfill it with no expectation of return. It makes us act with goodness and compassion and tenderness to all our fellow creatures. It makes us aware of perceptions, needs and wants other than merely our own.

Kindness completes us as human beings and makes us live up to our spirits. In life, it makes us concerned individuals who care for the well-being of all things that make up our world. It keeps us happy because in being kind to others, we are actually being kind to ourselves. In being helping, we are helping ourselves.

We all have the power to change someone's day--if not his life--with a kind word or a thoughtful gesture.

A compassionate smile; a sympathetic ear; the tiniest, most fleeting act that shows another that we care; just a little consideration--that's all it takes to touch a life and make it better than it was a moment ago.

Kindness is an attitude that should become a way of life. It costs us very little, but becomes a treasure of goodwill for us over time. Much more, see how wonderful you feel about yourself when you've distributed some kindness around you!

Little, random acts of kindness accumulate into a world of goodness and positivity. I firmly believe this and tell my students and trainees to commit themselves to 5 arbitrary and indiscriminate acts of kindness every day.

Let your imagination go! You'll have so much fun thinking of small things you can do for the people around you at work, on the street, at the stores or at home. Here are some ways you can start your kindness program today:

• Buy a chocolate for the cashier at your grocery store
• Let someone cut in front of you in a long queue
• Smile at and compliment a complete stranger
• Bring a home-cooked tiffin for the co-worker who always eats street food for lunch
• Visit a retired colleague and spend 15 minutes listening to her
• Tell a parent how well behaved her child is when you're at the mall
• Lend your pen to the lady who doesn't have one at the bank
• This diwali, buy diyas and distribute them as you walk here and there
• Donate a casual leave to a co-worker who needs it more
• When someone asks you for directions, take the time to explain patiently
• Everytime you buy yourself a new shirt, give an old shirt to someone you think needs one
• If someone in the office litters, pick it up and throw it in the dust-bin

Just 5 simple acts of kindness and I guarantee that you'll be happier with yourself. You will find yourself smiling at odd moments and you'll sleep much better at night.

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: J is for Judgement

Judgment refers to a person’s ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions based on the facts, resources and constraints of the here and now.

The inimitable Warren Buffet said famously, after he lost one billion dollars from the collapse of Tesco: "In life you only need to make a few good decisions, so long as you don’t make too many bad ones." Good judgment is a soft skill that helps people make good decisions. It turns information into knowledge and lets a person find patterns and motifs in seemingly unrelated data.

Fundamentally, we make three types of Judgement:

Value judgments are based on the principles and beliefs we hold as standards for our lives and the morality and ethics we would like to retain and preserve in our families, work-atmosphere and societies. Here we apply a “rule” or a “norm” that exists and is valued.

Reality judgments attempt to make objective and balanced determinations of the course a particular event will take in reality or the consequences of an action based on the environment and information available to us and our sense of the relevance of such environment or information to the decision.

Action judgments answer the question, “So what do we do about this?” after the issue is defined by our “value” and “real” judgments. Good action judgments re-imagine possibilities and practicalities and do not rely simply on what has been done in the past in such situations.

To develop a good sense of judgment, it is important for us to:

• be self-aware and examine our prejudices and gaps in knowledge
• acknowledge our errors and take ownership of mistakes we have made in the past 
• learn from them 
• start again from point one

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: I is for Innocence

Picture Credit: PositiveMD

Innocence is freedom from sin. It isn’t about not doing wrong. It is about being guiltless and guileless. It is about being conceptually unaware of the very idea of sin or evil.

The state of innocence is thus generally pitched as the opposite of experience. Childhood is innocence and growing up, or experience, robs us of our innocence.

Why do I feel innocence is a desirable soft skill?

Innocence helps us take the world at face value without expectation of returns. It keeps us full of hope and happiness. It makes us trust.

Innocence helps us make our decisions with a clean slate. It helps us disregard knowledge that says we can’t when we feel we can.

Every story is a new story, even if it is the same story being retold. Every ending is a surprise ending, even if it is predictable. In innocence, we live in the here and now. Nothing else exists.

Innocence helps us react spontaneously and openly to ideas and proposals without stereotypical bias or sub-text that stains them as we compare them to our personal experiential context.

Innocence helps us be ourselves without deceit and makes us do and say things we want to with full-hearted abandon.

I think that if we should definitely and determinedly protect and retain our innocence. Those of us who succeed can make our adult worlds and lives work in the image of our child-like selves: full of fun and happy surprises and wonderment.

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: H is for Honesty

Hanging behind my dad's desk in his office was this quote:

"Truth is High. Higher still is truthful living." (Guru Nanak, Page 62 of the Guru Granth Sahib)

Honesty is easy to advocate and really, really difficult to practice. Being honest to others and to yourself sounds like something we should all be able to do, but here's a reality check.

Close your eyes right now and count the untruths you've collected today. Think of those minor adjustments to the truth, the harmless exaggerations, the small white lies, half-truths, tiny omissions and not just the outright lies you have told today, to yourself or to another.

You'll squirm. If you're capable of being honest with yourself, that is.

As Indians, we grow up with this thought: Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram. Only the truth is beneficial. Only what is beneficial is beautiful.

Philosophically speaking, we revere truth with a Big T.

The Truth.

We seek it vigorously through our religions and rituals. We are exhorted to live it every day by the value system we inherit from our ancient shruti and smriti. We reject all that is illusion, all worldly maya in rigorous pursuit of the sat-guru: a true mentor, a spiritual guide, the truth-teacher who shows us the real that is not of the worldly realm.

In our here-and-now everyday living and breathing, though, we falter. We worship not the common quotidien variety of truths. Those don't matter to us too much. We feel no qualms in hiding from them. Our highly stylised and stratified social structures make us palpably dishonest in our daily dealings with self and other.

In search of the big Truth, we forget the value of daily honesty. And thus we lose to illusion; fall into the maya-trap.

Most self-actualised people--the people we admire and aspire to become--have this really straightforward and simple honesty that is unwavering and unafraid; non-threatening and un-threatened. It is what gains them your credibility and respect. It is what makes you want to follow in their footsteps.

Bring honesty into your daily living. Become your own sat-guru.

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: G is for Generosity

The word generosity stems from the Latin gener (which gives us words like genus, gender and genius) and is associated with the concept of a "type" of something; a collective, a race, a clan etc.

Interestingly, the Latin word generōsus (noble by birth) came to England via the Old French word genereux. Historically, the word "generous" has been associated with nobility in the sense of blue blooded, aristocratic lineage.

However, as is the dynamic wont of language, somewhere along the line during the 17th century, people started using the word generous more in terms of spirit than birth--albeit still as a descriptor of character traits associated with those who were high-born-- an open-hearted abundance, a philanthropic benevolence, a sense of fairness and justice, bravery, valour, caring, giving and so on.

Generosity thus became a personal quality; an aspirational ideal of virtue and nobility; a moral orientation; a strong rejection of selfishness and greed. It evolved to the extraordinary ability of some people to do good and freely share their bounties with the world.

As a soft skill, generosity is what I call our giving gene. It makes us share ourselves, our time, our abilities, our things, our wealth or our knowledge freely with those who need or want it. It is a state of being that extends us, makes us bigger, happier, more forgiving, more tolerant... just more than we are.

People who are either born with this generosity of spirit or those who learn it from life are more satisfied with their lives simply because they are not bound by things. They are not afraid to give of themselves and their stuff and don't sweat the small, petty stuff.

Thus, they are open-hearted. They trust and they have compassion and they share and connect easily to other people without fear or insecurity or expectation or blame or despair.

The best leaders, the best teachers, the prophets and philosophers we revere are all characterised by this wonderful soft skill.


The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: F is for Fairness

This is not an advertisement for Fair and Lovely and is definitely not a testament to the sub-continental obsession with "fairness" that is only skin deep.

This post is about the principles of fairness--the philosophy that precedes and informs the concept of "justice."

As far as soft skills go, it is a biggie for me.

Fairness is not about equality. It is about equal opportunity. You and I may be vastly different in our interests, our intelligences, our capabilities and skills. We cannot be judged by the same criteria. One exam for all animals is not a fair test of ability. Giving every animal the same opportunity to prove its ability in its own way would be fair.

Various groups of people with varied philosophies have described fairness in different ways:

The Utilitarian says it is the "greatest good for the greatest number"
The Egalitarian says it is when we give the same provisions to everybody regardless of ability or effort
The Socialist says it it when people give according to their abilities and are given according to their needs
The Capitalist says it is what people "earn" according to their effort, their productivity or their market value
The Libertarian says it is when I keep what I earn and you keep what  you earn and nobody has the right to question or dilute my absolute ownership over my property

The best definition however comes from John Rawls' Fairness Principle:

Say we're at the beginning of creating a new society and we don't know who we are in that society in terms of our status, wealth, occupation, intelligence, physical abilities, personal attributes etc

In such a state, where we could be the lowest of the low or the highest of the high but are under a veil of ignorance, every reasonable person would subscribe to the following principles:

After all, as Mariann Wright Edelman said, "The future which we hold in trust for our own children will be shaped by our fairness to other people's children."

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: E is for Empathy

image credit: www.empathysymbol.com

Empathy is the quality and experience of being able to “feel” and understand another person’s emotions.

It is a much bandied word in soft skills circles these days. It is supposed to be a good quality in people. Everyone says empathetic people are more “human” and able to touch other people in ways that others cannot and the common wisdom is that it definitely makes for healthier interpersonal relationships. Empaths make great listeners and are highly intuitive and attuned to emotions. They make wonderful parents, teachers, nurses and excel in service industries.

While it is true that empathy leads people to be pro-social and enhances helping behaviour, it is equally true that decisions taken under empathetic onslaughts (and yes, I do mean onslaughts as in attacks or assaults), can be quite disastrous!

Empathy often stops people from using their rational capabilities. Empaths are more likely to be used by people and get battered by their feelings. Their “mirror neurons” are highly active and they are easily “infected” by emotional contagion. Thus, they often lose perspective of their own needs and selves in their natural desire to help. This is the empathetic state of personal distress and is certainly not a desirable soft skill!

What we need is Empathic Concern. This type of empathy may be described as the capability of being able to identify another's emotional state and to feel that emotional state. In the case of negative or distressful emotions we should be able to feel and display appropriate concern without losing our own selves or drowning in that feeling and putting ourselves in distress.

We cannot help others or cause positive change in situations and people if we lose ourselves in their emotions. Empathy is a wonderful soft skill as long as it keeps us engaged and involved with the people around us as long as we keep our own selves grounded.

Ultimately, it is all about balance!

image credit: empathicperspectives.wordpress.com

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: D is for Dedication

Dedication is the quality of being committed to a task or purpose. When I dedicate myself to something, I make it understood that I am willing to put in a lot of my time and energy to it. When I dedicate myself to someone, I express my strong support for or loyalty to that person.

The quality or state of being dedicated conveys my single-minded application, faithfulness, sincerity and diligence to a thing or person or cause. 

Why is dedication such a desired soft skill? Kenneth Blanchard, management guru and author of The One Minute Manager talks about commitment thus:

"There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses; only results."

Dedication is commitment, only more. It is the highest degree of commitment you can have to something. It is doing something in the most focused way you can, giving it your best effort, your most time, without any let up and without any expectations of returns.

Dedication brings discipline. It makes you work harder. It won't let you quit.

We often look at artists, musicians, sportspeople, actors and iconic entrepreneurs and marvel at their talents. We envy them their fans and the fantastic personal heights and economic successes they achieve. 

What we fail to acknowledge is the mental strength, the never-give-up attitude, the fortitude, the sacrifices, the discipline and total dedication required in addition to talent for any measure of success in any field.

Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar may have been gifted, but without their undying dedication, they would not be legends. Today, Virat Kohli's name would not be spoken in the same breath as that of his hero Sachin Tendulkar if, as a 19 year old, he had not shown the dedication of coming in to bat on the morning after his father died.

The story goes that Virat Kohli got the news that his father had passed away at three in the morning before the 3rd day of the 2006 Ranji Trophy match between Karnataka and Delhi. Delhi were 14 for 3 in answer to Karnataka's massive 446 when Virat went into bat on Day 2. Virat was just playing his 4th match for Delhi. He was on 40 runs by the end of the day with Delhi 59 for 5. 

Virat was not expected to come in to bat that morning, but he did. He played 238 balls and made a score of 90 runs before he went home for his father's cremation. 

That dedication is why Virat Kohli is the next Sachin Tendulkar and why Sachin Tendulkar was the next Sunil Gavaskar.

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: C is for Communication

Communication is the mother of all soft skills!

We all communicate 24X7, both consciously and involuntarily, in a million different ways every day. In fact, we never stop communicating. Your appearance, your voice, your facial expressions, your gestures, the way you use space, your relationship with time, the gaps between your words—these communicate more than your conscious verbal interactions.

The quality of your communication decides how others perceive you, how they react to your ideas and opinions and how they evaluate your worth. People with highly developed communication abilities articulate their ideas with conviction and self-assurance. Those who can articulate their thoughts and emotions with confidence are more successful and more satisfied with life, both personally and professionally.

Communication is the only way we can survive, develop and evolve.

Without communication, without the sharing of information and pooling of ideas; without the storing and learning of past knowledge; there would be no fire, no wheel, no pyramid, no light bulb, no space travel.

Without communication, there would be no conceiving of imaginary worlds that would later translate into scientific inventions.

Sharing information—communication—is the only way for us to know more than what we can actually see and feel: by reading, talking to others about their experiences; viewing television; listening to the radio etc.

In short, communication is the only way we can know anything about anything.

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: B is for Balance

Balance is difficult for most of us.
Work takes too much time, too much energy, too much going to and fro and "life" suffers the consequences. Most of us want a good career because we want to provide ourselves and our families with a healthy and happy lifestyle. Yet, somewhere along the way, work takes over and our families have to be satisfied with the leftover dregs of our time, energy and selves.
Rhythm. Order. Harmony. Peace. Happiness. Fulfilment. Those of us who find it know that each of our three primary commitments--to ourselves, to those we love, and to the work that earns us our daily bread--require equal attention.
However, the daily push and pull of all the long ropes that tether us prove too much. We stumble. The ball drops. 
Say your life is out of balance and that you and your loved ones are suffering the stresses of the dis-balances in your life. What can you do to at least try to achieve a modicum of balance in your day?
Here's my list of things that work for me and may work for you:

1. Prioritize the tasks that take your time every day and be aware of what is urgent and important. Do those first. This way, you feel in control and on top of things. Your mood improves. Your stress levels go down. 
2. Work smart--not hard. Take some time. Think about what's important to you. Sit down and create efficient and effective systems for the specifics of your life.
3. Delegate what you can. Most of us think no one else can do certain things the way we do them. That's probably true, but are those things really important for us to do or are they merely habit? If it's not really imperative that you do it and if you have the authority to pass it on to someone else who is willing and able to do it without making a total mess of it, delegate it!
4. Eliminate the unnecessary. A lot of the things we do during any particular work day are unnecessary. Make a list. Be ruthless. Eliminate those things.
5. Set boundaries and switch off. Do this especially when your emotional presence is important to those you love
6. Live in the moment. Stay in the here and now--be present and give your full attention to this moment and the people in it
7. Say "no" without guilt. I'm not even going to expand on that.
8. Do your best, but don't seek perfection in everything you do

Remember that your work is one-third of your life. Respect it, but don't live for it.
Keep those balls in the air!

The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.

A-Z of Soft Skills: A is for Attitude

image credit: www.imgion.com

Attitude. The dictionaries define it as a settled way of thinking or feeling about something.Let's talk about what it is and how it affects what we say and do.

Attitude, basically, is my general inclination or my tendency to react happily or unhappily, positively or negatively, My attitude affects my acts and behaviour and also impacts how I react to to something or someone or to an idea or event.

My attitude is formed through the generalities or stereotypes I hold consciously--this is the cognitive component. For instance, I may think all teenagers are lazy or all babies are cute or dogs are ferocious or women are nurturing.

This general cognitive component affects the affective component, that is, my feelings or emotions towards eenagers, babies, dogs or women as a group even before I get to know them individually. For instance, I distrust teenagers, feel warm and fuzzy about babies, am afraid of dogs and think women are wonderful.

This affective component in turn governs the connative component of attitude or my expressed behaviour when I am confronted by people or situations. I am stand-offish to teenagers, I smile at babies, I avoid dogs and befriend women.

Thus it is that my attitudes determine how I relate to the world. They form my perspectives and orient me. They are the unseen and unknown parts of me that fuel and direct my expressed behaviour. My attitudes give me my individuality and they aggregate to form my personality.

In the specific way my attitudes combine to make me who I am, they also make me unique, like snowflakes and grains of sand.


The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee consults under the brand Expressions@Work to create and deliver learning and development programs in communication and soft skills.