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We are in a "credit crunch". Times are hard. It isn't the first time;and it won't be the last. People tighten their belts and do their bestto weather the storm, and businesses focus an even more critical eye ontheir spending. Often, one of the first things to come under scrutinyis training and development, and decisions are made to put anythingother than "essential" training on hold. "Soft skills", (also referredto as "People Skills") often seen as the "fluffy bunny" stuff ofdevelopment, is the first to be dropped. But how effective is thisstrategy in reality?Shona Garner exposes some common "myths"around soft skills and explains why, in the scramble to reduce ourspending, going for the "obvious" targets may not be as effective astrategy as you think.Why do we call "soft skills" by thatname, and what does it conjure up for you exactly? What images or wordsdo you associate with this frequently used term?For me itconjures up some kind of "fluffy bunny", soft, gentle, rather vagueterm, designed to encompass abilities which are not so easily measured,and certainly less tangible than, let's say your ability to rewire ahome, use powerpoint, or know your products inside out. There'ssomething almost apologetic about "soft skills" too; after all theseare also often referred to as "people skills" - and we're all, well,people arent we? That being the case, these "skills" will be an innatepart of our being already, so there's no real need to spend muchresource on developing them.Or is there?Over manyyears, working 1-2-1 or in workshops with managers and teams I amstruck by how often the following issues come up: - The team just don'tpull together.- There are 1 or 2 individuals who are extremely difficult to manage or work alongside, and this creates tension in the team.- Communication, either internally, or externally with clients or customers, is poor.-One or two individuals are underperforming, either taking manyabsences, not completing work on time, or resisting doing certain partsof their role, and others are getting fed up of having to "carry them."- Changes in the wider organisation are affecting morale.-Team members feeling there's a lack of leadership, of fairness, ofsupport or development, or of valuing what they do - with the resultthey just "do what they need to, to keep out of trouble" They're notpassionate or enthusiastic about their work - this is "just a job"which pays the bills.Credit crunch or not - if you think theseVERY common symptoms aren't damaging your bottom line - think again! Ibet I could find at least some of these in your business right now!Andthese symtpoms are caused, not because you haven't given these peoplethe training they need to do their job - they are the result of lessthan effective people skills!The dynamics of the workingrelationships in a team can make the difference between hitting, ormissing your targets - between profit and loss - between survival in acredit crunch and real difficulties.And the central figure in that dynamic, who can make or break the team's ability to function, is the manager.A quick look at some figures, for those of you who really like to see the hard facts!Gallupresearch looked at a retailer with over 30,000 employees and over 300stores. This retailer took great care to ensure each store provided thecustomer with a consistent shopping experience, whichever store theyvisited. Using 12 questions which asked workers to rate how they feltabout their role, then looking at the answers and the actual results inthat store or team within a store, what they found was astonishing, andsignificant.They found, that where employees scored more highlyin terms of their satisfaction with the "culture" in the team, the hardline sales figures were significantly, and consistently better thanthose stores where the cultures were hindered by things such as lack oftrust, poor morale and little enthusiasm. They found the highestscoring stores were on average:- 4.56% over sales budget for the year. This translated into $104 million of salesIf the company could transform the poorer stores, this would increase their total sales by 2.6%- 14% over profit budget The bottom stores missed their profit goals by a full 30%-Retaining staff by an average of 12 staff more per year than theircounterparts in the bottom 25% of the survey This translated into thetop stores retaining 1000 more staff over the year. Estimating theaverage store employee salary, and the cost of finding, hiring andtraining the new employees, the overall cost to the company was$27million.How would you like to shave some of that "cost" off your bottom line?So- next time you're thinking of cutting your training budget to stripout the "nice to have" things like "soft skills" - perhaps you mightthink again?Even if you scale down such training for everyone,ensuring your managers are highly skilled people managers is one of themost worthwhile investments you will EVER make. Article Tags: Soft Skills