"Hi, how are you?" - Find out how this set of skills can help develop your personality, and in turn, your career!

Tuesday: Return Driven Strategy FROM THE DESK OF MILES EVERSON: As a business leader, one of the frameworks I truly find effective in managing my team is Return Driven Strategy (RDS). This pyramid-shaped framework has 11 tenets and 3 foundations, which, when applied properly, can help firms ethically achieve true wealth and value creation. RDS is also applicable to the microlevel. Just apply its tenets and foundations to your career and you have Career Driven Strategy (CDS). In this article, let’s focus on CDS’ tenet about engaging yourself and others. Ready to learn more about today’s topic? Keep reading to know why these skills are important drivers for many professionals’ career growth and development. CEO, MBO Partners Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute

"Hi, how are you?" - Find out how this set of skills can help develop your personality, and in turn, your career! Nowadays, success in the workplace requires having a multitude of skills. While job-specific, technical knowledge is still an important ability for employees to possess, emphasis on abilities that are applicable to all jobs is growing. These skills are vital for being an effective member of a team and getting ahead in one’s career. What do we call these skills? Interpersonal skills! Interpersonal skills, a.k.a. “people skills,” are the soft skills you use to communicate with and understand others. Examples of these include: Active listening Teamwork Dependability Motivation Flexibility Patience Empathy … and more. These skills are imperative in the workplace as they help ensure your effectiveness in doing your job. While building strong interpersonal skills takes time, having these can contribute to a much more enjoyable and helpful work environment. Besides, most individuals enjoy working with colleagues who have good people skills! Here are some benefits of having good interpersonal relationships with others: They foster effective communication in the workplace. Building positive relationships facilitates the sharing of knowledge and information, as well as the development of new skills and abilities. Good communication skills also lessen misunderstandings at work, and encourage mutual respect and appreciation of each other’s viewpoints and contributions. They expand your career opportunities. Feedback loops are always present in the workplace. Therefore, managers and supervisors must know how to communicate with their subordinates effectively and foster an environment where they feel comfortable expressing themselves. Likewise, employees should feel comfortable communicating with their supervisors so they can establish strong relationships with one another and open up opportunities to advance their careers in the future. They help maintain good relationships in the workplace. Interpersonal skills are most effective, helpful, and gratifying when they help build meaningful connections with others. How can you build these kinds of connections in the workplace? By being honest, responsible, trustworthy, and approachable! They make you an effective and empathic leader. To be a successful leader, you have to develop positive relationships with your subordinates, and that happens by building trust and communicating effectively with them. Empathy is also a vital characteristic of a good leader. This is a genuine asset that lets everyone in a firm feel more motivated and productive at work. Interpersonal Skills as Seen in the Lens of Career Driven Strategy (CDS) Tenet 9—Engage Yourself and Others—is one of the “Supporting Tenets” of CDS. According to Professor Joel Litman and Dr. Mark L. Frigo, high-performing leaders and employees treat their subordinates and colleagues like customers, understanding exactly what they like to receive from the firm, and designing systems to fulfill both their personal and professional needs. What else? Engaging employees, partners, associates, colleagues, etc. is critical to an organization’s success. That’s why it’s important that both leaders and subordinates have good interpersonal skills so they can drive their strategies forward and achieve their goals. Besides, Professor Litman and Dr. Frigo believe career-driven leaders, managers, and workers know how to apply a similar marketing methodology to the operations and recruitment sides of a business. In their words: “The same skills found in a great marketing department are found in the skills of a great human resources department.” This means employee-related efforts and the internal processes of a firm should mirror effective marketing. Once the right strategies have been determined, career-driven leaders and managers consider the attributes of the RIGHT employees, then segment, target, and position employee groups and offerings to attract and engage them before and after hiring. Take note that engaging yourself and others is an essential tenet in CDS—it supports your entire business or career strategy and helps you achieve the higher tenets. That’s why you have to develop your interpersonal skills! This will enable you to get into the engagement process effectively, thereby helping you and your entire organization to achieve true wealth and value creation. Hope you found this week’s insights interesting and helpful. Follow us on LinkedIn. Stay tuned for next Tuesday’s Return Driven Strategy! In a past “Return Driven Strategy” article, we talked about toy company Toys R Us and some factors that led to its downfall in the lens of RDS’ Tenet 2: Fulfill Otherwise Unmet Customer Needs. Learn more about Toys R Us’ downfall in the lens of another tenet in Return Driven Strategy in next week’s article!

FROM THE DESK OF MILES EVERSON: As a business leader, one of the frameworks I truly find effective in managing my team is Return Driven Strategy (RDS). This pyramid-shaped framework has 11 tenets and 3 foundations, which, when applied properly, can help firms ethically achieve true wealth and value creation. RDS is also applicable to the microlevel. Just apply its tenets and foundations to your career and you have Career Driven Strategy (CDS). In this article, let’s focus on CDS’ tenet about engaging yourself and others. Ready to learn more about today’s topic? Keep reading to know why these skills are important drivers for many professionals’ career growth and development. CEO, MBO Partners Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute

"Hi, how are you?" - Find out how this set of skills can help develop your personality, and in turn, your career! Nowadays, success in the workplace requires having a multitude of skills. While job-specific, technical knowledge is still an important ability for employees to possess, emphasis on abilities that are applicable to all jobs is growing. These skills are vital for being an effective member of a team and getting ahead in one’s career. What do we call these skills? Interpersonal skills! Interpersonal skills, a.k.a. “people skills,” are the soft skills you use to communicate with and understand others. Examples of these include: Active listening Teamwork Dependability Motivation Flexibility Patience Empathy … and more. These skills are imperative in the workplace as they help ensure your effectiveness in doing your job. While building strong interpersonal skills takes time, having these can contribute to a much more enjoyable and helpful work environment. Besides, most individuals enjoy working with colleagues who have good people skills! Here are some benefits of having good interpersonal relationships with others: They foster effective communication in the workplace. Building positive relationships facilitates the sharing of knowledge and information, as well as the development of new skills and abilities. Good communication skills also lessen misunderstandings at work, and encourage mutual respect and appreciation of each other’s viewpoints and contributions. They expand your career opportunities. Feedback loops are always present in the workplace. Therefore, managers and supervisors must know how to communicate with their subordinates effectively and foster an environment where they feel comfortable expressing themselves. Likewise, employees should feel comfortable communicating with their supervisors so they can establish strong relationships with one another and open up opportunities to advance their careers in the future. They help maintain good relationships in the workplace. Interpersonal skills are most effective, helpful, and gratifying when they help build meaningful connections with others. How can you build these kinds of connections in the workplace? By being honest, responsible, trustworthy, and approachable! They make you an effective and empathic leader. To be a successful leader, you have to develop positive relationships with your subordinates, and that happens by building trust and communicating effectively with them. Empathy is also a vital characteristic of a good leader. This is a genuine asset that lets everyone in a firm feel more motivated and productive at work. Interpersonal Skills as Seen in the Lens of Career Driven Strategy (CDS) Tenet 9—Engage Yourself and Others—is one of the “Supporting Tenets” of CDS. According to Professor Joel Litman and Dr. Mark L. Frigo, high-performing leaders and employees treat their subordinates and colleagues like customers, understanding exactly what they like to receive from the firm, and designing systems to fulfill both their personal and professional needs. What else? Engaging employees, partners, associates, colleagues, etc. is critical to an organization’s success. That’s why it’s important that both leaders and subordinates have good interpersonal skills so they can drive their strategies forward and achieve their goals. Besides, Professor Litman and Dr. Frigo believe career-driven leaders, managers, and workers know how to apply a similar marketing methodology to the operations and recruitment sides of a business. In their words: “The same skills found in a great marketing department are found in the skills of a great human resources department.” This means employee-related efforts and the internal processes of a firm should mirror effective marketing. Once the right strategies have been determined, career-driven leaders and managers consider the attributes of the RIGHT employees, then segment, target, and position employee groups and offerings to attract and engage them before and after hiring. Take note that engaging yourself and others is an essential tenet in CDS—it supports your entire business or career strategy and helps you achieve the higher tenets. That’s why you have to develop your interpersonal skills! This will enable you to get into the engagement process effectively, thereby helping you and your entire organization to achieve true wealth and value creation. Hope you found this week’s insights interesting and helpful. Follow us on LinkedIn.     Stay tuned for next Tuesday’s Return Driven Strategy! In a past “Return Driven Strategy” article, we talked about toy company Toys R Us and some factors that led to its downfall in the lens of RDS’ Tenet 2: Fulfill Otherwise Unmet Customer Needs. Learn more about Toys R Us’ downfall in the lens of another tenet in Return Driven Strategy in next week’s article!