The Ultimate Soft Skills Manual

The Ultimate Soft Skills Manual
Hone your Soft Skills to Become a More Effective Manager

Jill Maidment
JILL MAIDMENT
THE ULTIMATE SOFT

SKILLS MANUAL
HONE YOUR SOFT SKILLS
TO BECOME A MORE
EFFECTIVE MANAGER
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The Ultimate Soft Skills Manual: Hone your Soft Skills to Become a More Effective Manager
1st edition
© 2023 Jill Maidment & bookboon.com
ISBN 978-87-403-4710-4
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THE ULTIMATE SOFT SKILLS MANUAL Contents
CONTENTS
About the Author 5
Introduction 7
1 Manage Yourself to be a Great People Manager 9

1.1 What Are the Key Soft Skills and How Do You Know
How Good Yours Are? 10
1.2 How to Improve Your Self-Awareness and Identify Your Blind Spots 11
1.3 Chapter Summary 17
2 Develop Your Assertiveness Skills to Better Manage Others 18

2.1 What is Assertiveness 18
2.2 Create Boundaries to Remain Assertive and Maintain Balance? 20
2.3 Say ‘No’ When Required 21
3 Maximise Your Communication 23

3.1 What Constitutes Effective Communication? 23
3.2 How to Actively Listen to Become a Better People Manager 24
3.3 How Asking Open Questions Can Transform Your Communication 26
3.4 How to Influence and Become More Persuasive 29
4 How to Resolve Interpersonal Conflicts 31

4.1 How to Deal With Conflict 31
4.2 How to Build Productive Working Relationships 35
5 How to Carve Out Time to Focus on the Priorities 38

5.1 How to Review and Improve How you Spend your Time 38
5.2 Stephen Covey’s Time Management Grid for Planning and Prioritising 41
5.3 How to Become More Efficient 42
5.4 How to Manage Your Inbox 44
Conclusion 47
References 48
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THE ULTIMATE SOFT SKILLS MANUAL About the Author
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The author is Jill Maidment, Director and Founder of Natural Talent, a Coaching and
Training Consultancy, based in Bristol and South Wales in the UK. Jill is a highly sought-
after and effective international Executive Business Coach and Mentor, also providing
Career and Outplacement Coaching and Resilience Coaching, as well as working as a
British Psychological Society-qualified Assessor. For twenty years Jill has been working
in partnership and confidentially with a wide range of global brands, large public sector
organisations, and SMEs. Her clients include global leaders, their teams, and high potentials
in FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies. Jill affects real and lasting behavioural change
by providing executives with practical tools and techniques to cope with the key issues
and challenges of modern-day leadership; these include hybrid working, managing change,
strategy implementation and alignment. During Career and Outplacement Coaching and
Mentoring, Jill has supported her clients to develop their soft skills in a safe environment,
enabling them to get their dream job or be promoted.
Over twenty years, alongside her work as an Executive and Career Coach, Jill has also
designed and delivered many training courses on leadership and soft skills. In addition, she
has always felt it important to attend many courses herself and has been trained by some of
the top performance improvement Consultancies. Jill has assisted many hundreds of leaders,
people managers, and team members to develop their soft skills to be more effective in and
outside work and has a wide range of experience and techniques to share with her readers.
In her early career Jill has over 15 years of management experience in high-profile senior roles
within sales and marketing, client relationship management, training, and consultancy, with
companies including the BBC, Air France, KLM, SHL. In addition, Jill has been trained at
Stanford Graduate School of Management in Leadership and Strategy for Growth and High
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THE ULTIMATE SOFT SKILLS MANUAL About the Author
Performance. Jill’s Blogs covering leadership and management issues are amongst some of
the most widely read globally at www.natural-talent.com Her many expert audio talks on
management and leadership topics and eBooks on Hybrid Leadership and Resilience can
be found at www.bookboon.com.
Throughout this eBook there are exercises for you to complete. I would recommend either
writing or typing your responses and action plans in a physical or online notebook.
Email: jill@natural-talent.com
Website: www.natural-talent.com
LinkedIn: Jill Maidment at Natural Talent UK
Twitter: @naturaltalent1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100072261577661
Expert Audio Talks: bookboon.com
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THE ULTIMATE SOFT SKILLS MANUAL Introduction
INTRODUCTION
The Ultimate Soft Skills Manual is a ‘how to’ eBook for team leaders, emerging managers,
new and existing managers, or inexperienced leaders, who may need to improve their self-
awareness and their soft skills to become more effective.
This eBook can be used as a personal development tool to help you manage yourself, your
team, and your career. You may be working in any function and in any sector. You may be
struggling to communicate well, be assertive, influence key stakeholders, manage conflict,
and manage your heavy workload. If so, the techniques in this eBook will support you in
becoming more confident in your abilities.
Before you can manage others effectively or persuade them to ‘buy’ into your ideas, you
have to be able to manage yourself well and manage your own behaviours. In this eBook
you will learn how to adapt your style and how to hone some of the most useful soft skills
to be an effective people manager. These skills include
• Communication – active listening and asking open questions

• Assertiveness – creating boundaries
• Conflict management – building and maintaining effective working relationships
• Time Management – Planning, organising, prioritising, and managing meetings
and emails
By further developing these skills, you will be able to manage yourself and your people more
effectively. In turn, this will assist you in meeting some of the challenges facing businesses,
such as needing to increase levels of attraction, employee engagement, and retention.
Soft skills are increasingly in demand from employers, especially due to the global skills
shortage. Hiring managers are looking for self-aware managers who can communicate well,
and influence others. In the more complex workplace, teams are working in a hybrid model,
cross-functionally, and in matrix models. Therefore, soft skills are increasingly important
to business success.
We all know that communication is key. Learning tools and techniques to improve your active
listening, open questioning, and assertiveness can lead to a dramatic improvement in the
quality of your working and personal relationships. Improving your overall communication
skills will also help you to be able to present, influence, and manage more effectively.
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THE ULTIMATE SOFT SKILLS MANUAL Introduction
In addition, learning practical techniques for managing your time and workload effectively
will make you a more rounded manager. Similarly, learning how to manage conflict will
make you a better people manager and leader.
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THE ULTIMATE SOFT SKILLS MANUAL Manage Yourself to be a Great People Manager
1 MANAGE YOURSELF TO BE A
GREAT PEOPLE MANAGER
Assess your soft skills, develop your levels of assertiveness to be able to manage others, create
boundaries, and say ‘no’ when required.
Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true

wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself
is true power.
– Lao Tzu
This quotation by Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher and writer, demonstrates the
importance of being self-aware and knowing yourself, in order to perform well and better
understand others. To become more self-aware, it is useful to find out what some of your
blind spots are. Most people have blind spots, which may be an action, behaviour, or habit
that you have, especially when communicating with other people, but of which you are
unaware. A blind spot is the information and observations that others know about you, but
you do not know about yourself. This information others have of you may manifest itself
in body language, habits, or mannerisms and even your tone of voice. Examples can range
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from unconsciously tutting, rolling your eyes, to humming when you are under pressure.
For those who are very unaware of how they come across to others, it can be a complete
surprise to learn about these blind spots. Becoming aware of your blind spots, being more
self-aware, and developing your soft skills can all assist you in being more effective as a
manager.
1.1 WHAT ARE THE KEY SOFT SKILLS AND HOW DO

YOU KNOW HOW GOOD YOURS ARE?
We keep hearing that soft skills are even more in demand due to the increase in remote
working, hybrid working, home working, and the need for team members to be more self-
motivated, adaptable, and creative. Leaders and managers are required to be authentic and
show more compassion and empathy to engage their people, who still may be struggling
with all sorts of issues due to the impact of the coronavirus and increase in home working,
or who may be looking to change jobs.
So, what are soft skills?
They are a range of non-technical skills and behaviours that you employ when you’re at
work, including:
• how you deal with your colleagues

• how you communicate, in particular, how you actively listen
• how you plan ahead, organise, and manage your time
• how you manage conflict
Even pre-Covid, in 2019 a report by LinkedIn Talent Solutions cites some interesting
statistics regarding the importance of soft skills in the hiring process, retention levels,
and organisational success. Soft skills complement hard and technical skills; they are a
combination of people skills and social skills, communication skills, character, or personality
traits, attitudes, emotional intelligence, and include high levels of common sense.
These skills assist leaders, managers, and team members alike to understand their working
environment, to build strong working relationships, and work effectively to achieve their
objectives. With the trend of spending an increasing amount of time on smartphones,
tablets, and digital platforms, the art of communication and social interaction are becoming
less instinctive. Add into the mix, the fact that successive lockdowns from March 2020 due
to the coronavirus prohibited groups socialising, and you can begin to understand why in
particular some of the younger generations struggle to interact effectively with their key
stakeholders.
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The LinkedIn report states that the soft skills in most demand in 2019 were:
• Creativity (encompassing problem-solving skills)

• Persuasion (communicating, negotiating, and influencing effectively)
• Collaboration (teamwork and cross-functional working)
• Adaptability
• Time Management
Soft skills often form part of an organisation’s competency or behavioural framework, which
are often used in Job Descriptions and Person Specs to assess, recruit, and then develop
their staff. If an organisation has the right competency framework in place, with associated
behaviours and values, this can provide a solid platform for hiring, performance managing,
training, and retaining their employees.
According to the research by LinkedIn, ‘92% of talent professionals say [soft skills] matter as
much or more than hard skills when they hire, and 80% say they’re increasingly important to
company success.’
They also state that 89% of bad hires lack soft skills. If you imagine a highly technical
individual may be able to design a successful product, but if they can’t communicate with
their team members and collaborate well, then there is the danger they may become an
outlier or even a toxic employee, who disrupts the team and even the organisation. The
article by LinkedIn also states that only 41% of companies surveyed had a formal process
in place to measure soft skills. This is surprising, when you consider that many global
organisations use a range of robust talent assessment tools in their recruitment process, from
competency/behavioural/situational/values-based interview questions, to psychometric tests,
including personality questionnaires.
1.2 HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SELF-AWARENESS

AND IDENTIFY YOUR BLIND SPOTS
There are a whole range of online occupational and psychometric tests which are designed
to provide an objective and fair assessment of abilities and aptitude. They find out more
about an individual’s own strengths, development areas, and blind spots, which encompass
soft skills. There is strong evidence that tests can provide information which is reliable in
predicting job success. In addition, personality questionnaires give a comprehensive picture
of how people are likely to behave at work, how they relate to others, the way they solve
problems, and approach conflict, in other words, how good their soft skills are.
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Personality questionnaires are objective, fair, and consistent and assist in identifying the
most suitable people for roles.They also assist in identifying training and development needs,
providing a better understanding of personality and main sources of motivation, in addition
to increasing self-awareness and identifying how improvements can be made in certain key
skills and Leadership and Management competencies.
If you haven’t completed a Personality Questionnaire, now would be a good time to do so.
That way you will identify some of your more dominant character traits and blind spots.
Then you can recognise potential issues you may encounter when dealing with completely
different personality types. For example, if you are more of an introvert than an extrovert,
you may struggle to tolerate someone being overly loud. Or if you are highly analytical,
you may not wish to be rushed into making a decision, or to receive vague instructions
regarding a work task or project because you need a lot of detail. Conversely, if you are
more of a forceful character, chances are you won’t want your team members to waste
your time by pointing out the minutiae. The key is to share your dominant personality
traits with your team and then understand how to flex your style according to theirs. That
way you can not only become more self-aware, but also learn how you can avoid conflict
situations with people who have very different approaches, styles, motivations, and value
systems to your own.
Another highly effective method of assessing soft skills and associated behaviours is a 360
Feedback Review, which obtains feedback from your boss, your peers, your direct reports,
and key stakeholders, who may even be your external customers. Frequently the resultant
360 Feedback Report is described as having a mirror put in front of you, as you’re able to
identify how you are really perceived at work. This is even more effective when the 360
Feedback Review is carried out face to face. The 360 Feedback process enables you to hear
about all your key strengths and how these are benchmarked against your colleagues’ own
performance. You also find out if you have any blind spots or areas to improve. Similarly,
you can see what is working well, not so well, and what you can develop. Recommendations
often include what you could stop doing, what you need to do more of, and what you need
to start doing to improve your own and the teams’ efficiency and performance.
When the 360 Feedback is structured around your organisations’ leadership and management
competencies, values, and desired behaviours, it becomes even more useful. Any soft skills
that have been identified as development areas can be learned or honed through 1:1 Executive
Coaching and Mentoring or group Leadership or Management Training. Regular feedback
regarding progress should also be received from your line manager and there is no reason not
to ask your peers and direct reports for ongoing feedback. A follow up anonymous 360 ‘lite’
version can be conducted six months after any learning and development interventions to
evaluate the results. When combined with Executive Coaching or Mentoring, a professionally
conducted, anonymous 360 Feedback Review can result in excellent Return On Investment,
due to improved performance, added to higher levels of engagement and retention.
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You may be familiar with the Johari Window, which psychologists, Joseph Luft and Harry
Ingham (Jo and Hari) developed in 1955. Even nowadays the model is often utilised as a
communication and feedback tool to depict how we give and receive information about
ourselves and others. It is a way of introducing how we can become more self-aware. The
more self-aware we are, the more likely we will be able to recognise what we are feeling,
and how we can deal with our emotions in order to become more effective managers.
1.2.1 THE JOHARI WINDOW MODEL
SELF
Solicits Feedback
Things I Know Things I Don’t Know

Things They
Know
Arena Blind Spot

Gives Feedback
Self-Disclosure
GROUP
In
Or
sig
ht
Things They
Don’t Know
Façade
Unknown
Hidden Area
The model depicts a four-paned window with four panes as columns and rows. The two
vertical columns represent oneself and the first contains ‘things I know about myself;’ the
second contains ‘things I don’t know about myself.’ The first horizontal row represents ‘things
they know about me’ and the second row represents ‘things they do not know about me’.
The size of the information contained in each of these panes varies as the level of mutual
trust and exchange of feedback varies in the group in which the person is interacting. So,
in the Arena, for example, the pane contains information that you know about yourself,
and the group, which may be your colleagues and peers, knows about you. It is an area
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characterised by free and open exchange of information between yourself and others. The
Arena can increase in size as the level of individual to individual, or individual to group,
trust and communication increases. This represents the transparent part of your personality,
or in other words, the ‘public’ you.
The Blind Spot is the information that is known about you by others, but which you do
not know about yourself. This information may be in the form of body language, habits,
mannerisms, or tone of voice, for example. The Blind Spot can include both strengths and
weaknesses that you don’t even know you have. The Facade is the area of information that
you know about yourself but which, for some reason, you choose to withhold from others.
This information may include feelings, opinions, prejudices, and past history. People have
various motives for keeping things secret, for example, some may fear rejection or ridicule,
whereas others may withhold information in order to manipulate others. The part of you
that you choose to keep from others could include feelings about others that you choose
to keep to yourself.
The Unknown pane contains things that neither you nor others know about you. Some
of this material may be so far below the surface that you may never become aware of it.
Other material, however, may be below the surface of awareness to you and others, but can
be made public through an exchange of feedback. This information may include childhood
memories or unrealised potential. Because knowing yourself completely is extremely unlikely,
the Unknown pane in the Johari Window model is extended so that part of it always will
remain unknown. This is what Sigmund Freud, the Austrian neurologist and the founder of
psychoanalysis, referred to as the ‘unconscious’. There is likely to be part of your personality
that you or others may be unaware or unsure of.
The boundaries of the panes of the Johari Window are flexible, that means you can enlarge
or reduce a column or row by increasing or decreasing the amount of feedback you give and
receive. Much of the purpose of Coaching and Training is to reduce your Blind Spot, in
order to develop a receptive attitude and to encourage others in a group to give you more
feedback. Another purpose of using the model is to help you reduce your Façade and become
more authentic. You can do this by providing information to others about your reactions
to what is going on in a group and inside yourself. Increasing the size of your Arena (the
public you) will shift the lines. As the Blind Spot gets smaller, so does the Façade.
In order to be able to develop your soft skills, it is important to know more about yourself
so that you can identify what you are feeling, what triggers a stress response, and how you
can continue to grow as a person. In addition, if we don’t know how others see us, we can
lose out on building more effective relationships and even not achieve that sought-after
promotion.
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In any significant relationship, a window with a large Arena and a small Blind Spot, Facade
and Unknown is best. A person of this description would be relatively easy for others to
interact with and understand, making for better and more honest relationships. In general,
the size of the Arena increases as the level of trust in a group increases and behaviours are
developed that facilitate giving and receiving information.
We have all heard the expression ‘like a bull-in-a-china-shop.’ A person who has a large
Blind Spot will give a great deal of feedback but solicit very little. Their participation style
is to comment on what is going on in a group, including group issues and the behaviour
of other members. Unfortunately, they either tend to be poor listeners, therefore insensitive
to the impact of their behaviour on others or what others are trying to tell them, or they
may respond to feedback in such a way, for example, with anger, tears or by threatening to
leave, that others are reluctant to continue to give it. This type may be perceived by others
as insensitive, opinionated, and critical. Because they are unaware of the impact of their
behaviour on others, such individuals do not know what behaviours they need to change
to become more effective.
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A person with a large Unknown tends to be the silent member or ‘observer’ in a group,
neither giving nor soliciting feedback. It is difficult for group members to know where this
person stands in the group or where they stand with individuals. When confronted about
such lack of participation, this person may respond with ‘I learn more by listening’. Actually,
however, they learn very little about themselves because they do not provide a group with
any data to which it can react. It takes a considerable amount of energy to maintain an
Arena this small in a group situation because of the pressure that group norms exert against
this kind of behaviour.
The goal of learning to give and solicit feedback is to move information from the Blind
Spot and the Facade into the Arena. Through this process, new information also can move
from the Unknown into the Arena. This frequently is called ‘insight’.
Even if you are familiar with the Johari Window you may be less used to the Nohari
Window. This is a list of negative adjectives, which you may feel describe some of your
perceived weaknesses or areas of improvement. If you ask your team members or your
Coach to review your chosen adjectives, you will receive valuable feedback on how others
see you. Frequently they will disagree with your choices, demonstrating that you are not as
self-aware as you may have thought, and/or that you are quite self-critical.
Exercise 1:
To increase your self-awareness, pick the five or six words that you feel best represent your
perceived weaknesses from the list below:
incompetent intolerant inflexible timid cowardly
violent aloof glum stupid simple
insecure irresponsible vulgar lethargic withdrawn
hostile selfish unhappy unhelpful cynical
needy unimaginative inane brash cruel
ignorant irrational distant childish boastful
blasé imperceptive chaotic impatient weak
embarrassed loud vacuous panicky unethical
insensitive self-satisfied passive smug rash
dispassionate overdramatic dull predictable callous
inattentive unreliable cold foolish humourless
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Once you have picked a maximum of 5 or 6 adjectives, it’s a good idea to test your responses
with a friend, colleague, or Coach to identify if they feel that your perception of yourself
is how they view you. Then if they agree with any of your choices, list some actions you
can take to modify your behaviours to act differently.
You may have found the Nohari Window quite confronting.
Exercise 2: Achievements Exercise

To boost your confidence after Exercise 1, you can write down the five top achievements
in your life, either inside or outside work:
List your Top 5 Achievements – in or out of work

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Then keep adding to this list to boost your confidence and morale.
1.3 CHAPTER SUMMARY

1. To be able to manage others effectively, it helps to become more self-aware, to
understand yourself, manage your feelings, and how you react to certain people
and situations.
2. Soft skills are in demand and include communication, assertiveness, managing
your time, and managing conflict.
3. The Johari and Nohari Windows are models which can help you to overcome
blindspots and ask for feedback on your behaviours.
4. Talent Assessment tools, such as Personality Questionnaires and 360 Feedback
Reviews, are effective in identifying development areas, and increasing your self-
awareness.
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DEVELOP YOUR ASSERTIVENESS SKILLS
THE ULTIMATE SOFT SKILLS MANUAL TO BETTER MANAGE OTHERS
2 DEVELOP YOUR
ASSERTIVENESS SKILLS TO
BETTER MANAGE OTHERS
To be passive is to let others decide for you. To be aggressive

is to decide for others. To be assertive is to decide for
yourself. And to trust that there is enough, that you are
enough
– Edith Eva Eger
2.1 WHAT IS ASSERTIVENESS

Assertiveness Training often deals with three key areas: self-belief (what you think and
believe you are capable of doing), self-awareness, and having the ‘right’ to speak up or ask
a question and express your opinion. It also involves working on techniques to monitor
perceived aggression, or to increase confidence levels.
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Being assertive is about having rights: the right to have your opinion heard, and the right
to be treated as an equal and with respect. It is about being clear about what you want and
deciding that it is relevant and fair to others. It involves taking ownership of your decisions
and opinions. Assertiveness is being clear about your own position, communicating this to
others, and accepting their positions. It involves taking responsibility for your own feelings
and beliefs and not attempting to justify them. Assertiveness means standing up for your
rights without violating the rights of others.
However, it’s important to note that there is a fine line between being assertive and being
perceived as aggressive; in particular, women in leadership and management positions are
often described as aggressive, when in fact they are only being assertive.
If you are one of those individuals who has been described as ‘arrogant, controlling, dictatorial
or a bulldozer’, or ‘demanding, driving, forceful, daring, determined’, then you may be highly
assertive. In this case, you may need to work on your confrontation and problem-solving
techniques. Remaining calm and in control isn’t always easy for highly assertive individuals
especially when they are under pressure, as naturally people tend to adopt a ‘fight or flight’
stress approach and become aggressive or passive/aggressive. Clarifying facts, being willing
to listen actively, and showing mutual respect for the other person’s point of view, can all
assist in developing assertive communication and behaviours.
For those individuals who are working on becoming more assertive it’s key to understand
the importance of verbal and non-verbal communication, including body language, vocal
impact, eye contact, gestures, facial expressions, and posture. Irrational thoughts can also
prevent you from being assertive, so practicing techniques to stamp out your negative voice/
head chatter/inner critic can help you to become more assertive. Techniques can include
remembering positive experiences and making a list of all your key accomplishments as in
Exercise Two above. You can then refer back to this list when it is necessary to be more
assertive and to increase your confidence levels.
You can also practice being more direct in your communication style and avoid preambles
such as ‘I know you’re really busy but….’ or ‘I’m ever so sorry to trouble you but….’ This
ensures you sound more assertive. Taking responsibility for your views and actions also
results in you coming across as assertive, using statements with ‘I’ rather than ’You’, such
as ‘In my opinion...’ or ‘My understanding is...’ which are more effective than ‘You are....’ or
‘That’s not right’.
If you struggle to be assertive, it’s important to monitor your communication style, for
example, instead of saying long preambles and almost apologising for what you’re about to
say, try starting sentences with ‘I believe that we should do x’ or ‘I consider y to be the best
option in this situation.’
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If you can control your head chatter and give yourself positive messages and remember
that you alone are in control of your behaviour, you are more likely to come across as
assertive. You can enlist the help of a friendly work buddy, a peer, or your Coach to give
you feedback on your progress.
2.2 CREATE BOUNDARIES TO REMAIN ASSERTIVE

AND MAINTAIN BALANCE?
As Hybrid Working has become the ‘new normal,’ many workers are still trying to establish
boundaries, not only for home and office working, but also for their personal lives. For
those of you who are mainly working from home, you are effectively living in your office.
So, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, or would like to feel more in control, you may need to
work on setting boundaries. Here’s how to start to do that:
Chances are that you have a set of objectives at work, but what about outside work? If you
haven’t already got a personal vision with goals and priorities, then make a list of what is
important to you and how you could spend more time doing what you enjoy and with
those you want to be with.
If you feel like you’re on the metaphorical treadmill of working, then spending too much
time doing chores, block off some time in your diary to identify what you really need and
want, both from work and from your home life. If you can, then delegate work and at home
get your children or housemates to pick up more of the domestic chores to help you out.
If you are always the manager or team member who offers to work late or help with that
challenging project, or outside work, if you frequently hear yourself offering to be the
designated driver on a friend’s night out, then ask yourself why this is the case? Often it
has something to do with your personality, upbringing, or your beliefs and values which
involve caring for people; you may be a ‘people pleaser’ or a ‘rescuer’ who wants to save
and change the world. However, often it can be to the detriment of your own health and
wellbeing and it’s you who ends up stressed or even burnt out. So, as the air crew say before
a flight, ‘put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others.’
The problem with being highly empathetic, compassionate, and trying to help everyone
out, is that you can end up feeling used, undervalued, and not respected. This can lead to
resentment or even anger. So, if you keep hearing yourself volunteering to work a weekend,
or to bake cakes for the school fete, then start to practice staying quiet. If you’re then asked
to do something you really don’t have time to do, then start practicing being assertive and
saying ‘no’ politely but firmly. It’s not easy to change a habit of a lifetime, so keep practicing
and pick the events you can help with.
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If you find yourself struggling to say ‘no’, then practice statements followed by open questions,
such as ‘I can’t do x now, so when would be a better time for me to help you out?’ And ‘I’m
interested in assisting you with y. I’ve got to pick my son up from school now, so when can we
schedule some time to discuss it?’
It takes time and effort to create boundaries, so you have to ‘train’ your key stakeholders to
respect them by offering alternatives to what they want and by repeating statements. If you
are the kind colleague/neighbour/friend who always stays behind to clear up after an event,
or is always offering to drop someone off, you will need to keep working at modifying your
behaviour and communicating and pushing back against some demands. Often this feels
as if you’re being selfish, when it is in fact self-care.
2.3 SAY ‘NO’ WHEN REQUIRED

In a world where ‘busyness’ is becoming an epidemic, it’s no wonder then that Sarah Knight’s
book ‘The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F***’ is a bestseller, as people struggle to
turn down work and social engagements, and the Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO, is an
added invisible pressure, exacerbated by social media.
Knight advocates being more ruthless with your time and not agonising over how to politely
refuse the latest gathering with colleagues/friends/family. Her slightly brash American style
may upset some British people or more reserved cultures, but the exercises she recommends
completing can assist individuals in no longer being taken for granted or being used as a
proverbial door mat. As a word of caution though, if you do tell people that you’ve read the
book, make sure they don’t take it literally at face value, as it’s not about changing a caring,
compassionate, and empathic individual into a ruthless monster! It’s more about being assertive
and taking back control of your own life, your self-care, and what is important to you.
A key element to being assertive and pushing back against a barrage of demands, is to be
able to say ‘no’ assertively, so here are 12 techniques to practice next time you’re asked, for
example, to stay late when you have a doctor’s appointment, or to babysit your neighbours’
children when you’ve got ‘flu, or attend the Birthday party of a long-lost cousin, who lives
hundreds of miles away:
1. Demonstrate empathy when you’re asked to do something, ‘I understand your

position, but I need to look after the children…’
2. State the outcome of your own situation, for example, ‘I can’t stay until 8pm tonight
because I need to pick up my daughter from after school club at 6pm and if I don’t…’
3. Repeat your statements using the ‘broken record technique’ and the person
asking you to help them move house on your only free weekend of the
Summer will finally give up asking.
21
4. Don’t judge and don’t ask ‘why?’ If you do, you may find you are being
manipulated into feeling sorry for someone and being distracted by their
deadlines.
5. Stick to talking about facts and behaviours, not personality issues; so, when you
can’t deliver something, say ‘I’m working on an important project for X which I
need to finish by tomorrow morning.’
6. Don’t keep saying sorry; apologising regularly weakens your position, and even
if you say, ‘No I can’t do it sorry’ or ‘I’m afraid I can’t do it’, the other party may
see an opportunity to persevere with their request.
7. Don’t keep justifying your actions or behaviours; say ‘this is how/what/when/why/
who/where I believe we should…’
8. Be clear and concise; don’t waffle as your message will lose impact.
9. Focus on what can be done, not what can’t be done.
10. Offer different options or any help you can, such as, ‘I can’t help you with that
report now, but I’ll come in at 7 am tomorrow to help you with it.’
11. If the other party starts to complain strongly, say ‘What I’d prefer we did is x’
or handle the objection by saying ‘If you can’t stay late tonight, when would be a
better time to tackle the report?’
12. Agree boundaries, such as what behaviour is unacceptable. Being assertive is
not about bullying or being aggressive or rude, it is about being calm and
measured, in order to take back control.
Overstretching yourself mentally and physically can lead to stress and burnout. We all
need creative or strategic thinking time at work and emotional space and time to reflect
and recuperate at home; so, taking back control of any of your spare time and limiting
commitments to prevent over-committing to others, is a positive step towards a healthy
work/life balance and overall well-being. Being self-aware and assertive, flexing your
communication style, creating boundaries, and saying ‘no’ to too many demands, all help
you to better manage yourself to be able to be an effective people manager.
In Chapter Three we will look at how you can continue to work on improving your
Communication style to be able to influence others.
2.4 CHAPTER SUMMARY

1. By dealing with negative thoughts, focusing on your achievements, and
modifying your communication style, you can become more assertive.
2. Creating boundaries is crucial to maintain a healthy balance and to be able to
operate as an effective manager.
3. Learning to say ‘no’ politely and assertively to differing and conflicting demands
on your time is important self-care for you to be an effective as a manager.
22
THE ULTIMATE SOFT SKILLS MANUAL Maximise Your Communication
3 MAXIMISE YOUR
COMMUNICATION
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand;

they listen with the intent to reply
– Stephen Covey
By listening more intently, then following up with probing open questions, you will find
you are able to influence others effectively
3.1 WHAT CONSTITUTES EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION?

Verbal and non-verbal Communication are amongst the most important soft skills for an
effective manager. We’ve all taken part in the game where someone whispers a statement
to the person next to them, and then the last person in a group says what they think they
heard out loud. Most of the time the final sentence doesn’t resemble the first one! The reason
for this is frequently people weren’t listening intently or didn’t understand the accent or the
message, so they made assumptions and filled in the gaps, or there was a lot of distracting
23
background noise. Of course, in a real-life business scenario, this could be dangerous as the
wrong message could circulate around an organisation with people making assumptions,
fearing the worst, and even spreading rumours and becoming toxic.
Aside from listening, which we will cover below, body language and non-verbal communication
are also important elements of effective communication. For example, when someone is asked
a question, they may look away and say something which isn’t a fact, but their body language
and lack of eye contact will betray their thoughts. Non-verbal messages can sometimes be
wrongly interpreted, such as when some people close their eyes to concentrate. Making eye
contact is key to establishing trust, but staring is of course viewed as not being polite. It’s
important to obtain a balance.
We tend to form an impression of someone within a few seconds. The same happens on
a phone call, so it’s also important to monitor not only what you say, but the pitch, pace,
tone, energy, and inflection you use, and articulate clearly to ensure that your message is
heard. Try to avoid unnecessary words and expressions such as ‘absolutely, basically, you
know, obviously’ as these are very common, but can diminish the impact of the message
you are giving.
3.2 HOW TO ACTIVELY LISTEN TO BECOME

A BETTER PEOPLE MANAGER
The most overlooked part of communication is listening. People often think that good
communication skills are about being articulate, telling a good story, and having a wide
vocabulary, but the ability and willingness to listen to others is more important. We are
taught how to speak but not normally taught how to listen. Active Listening is a combination
of hearing and understanding exactly what someone is saying to us.
By listening actively, not only do you hear and understand the other person, you also let
them know that you are hearing and understanding them.
Often people will describe themselves as a ‘good listener’, but when you observe them, it
becomes clear that in fact they are not listening actively. To identify if you are adept at
actively listening, you can take part in a 360 Feedback Process to see how your line manager,
peers, direct reports, and even customers view you. In addition, you can ask yourself the
following questions and see if your colleagues/friends/Coach agree:
24
Exercise One:
When your direct report/team member/colleague/partner/friend is talking to you, what are
you actually doing? Be honest and tick which of these activities and behaviours you are
regularly involved in when they are speaking:
a. Scrolling through your smartphone – which is becoming very common

b. Thinking about what you’re going to do after this meeting/conversation
c. Starting to think about how you will respond
d. Wishing they would hurry up and get to the end of their story
e. Interrupting them to tell them about your experience of the topic they’re telling
you about
f. Trying to second-guess why they are telling you about this issue, and maybe
even trying to psychoanalyse them
g. Judging them and feeling critical of their appearance, their accent, their way of
expressing themselves, or even thinking they should be able to deal with this
situation much more effectively on their own
h. Picking out the parts of their story that you think are the most relevant and
ignoring the others, and/or using confirmation bias to agree with aspects of
their story that reinforce your own beliefs or values
i. Being ‘miles away’ thinking about your next meal/holiday/night out
Make an effort to really listen next time you have a meeting or conversation with someone.
It’s not easy and can be quite tiring, but persevere as you may be missing the real nugget.
As a Coach, it’s important to listen intently and pick out what may be behind the words
as people are dealing with lots of different thoughts, feelings, emotions, and problems at
one time, so it’s key to remember this and try to identify what they really want and need
from your conversation.
If you practice Actively Listening, you can often find common ground and a shared
understanding of an issue. So, listen actively by practicing doing these ten actions:
1. Don’t do anything else, other than listen.

2. Do NOT interrupt.
3. Really look at the person and maintain eye contact.
4. To show that you have heard what they said and understand, nod your head.
5. Take notes with their permission.
6. Imagine yourself in their shoes so that you can empathise with them and
understand the situation from their perspective.
7. Smile to encourage them to talk more, as and when appropriate.
25
8. Really think about the words they are using and what their values, concerns,
hopes, and objectives may be.
9. Ask them if you have understood what they said and meant and interpreted
their words correctly by summarising back the key points they have made.
10. Evaluate what you already know about the person and the situation and then
start to ask them Open Questions about the set of circumstances they are
describing.
There are plenty of suggestions for Open Questions below.
3.3 HOW ASKING OPEN QUESTIONS CAN

TRANSFORM YOUR COMMUNICATION
Open-ended Questions are those to which you can’t give a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. They begin
with the words:
WHY?
HOW?
WHAT?
WHO?
WHEN?
WHERE?
If you listen to young children, they are very curious, always asking Open Questions, in
particular, ‘Why?’ Then when they go to school, they may be discouraged from asking too
many Open Questions as it slows down teaching if there are large classroom numbers. The
tendency to ask quite direct Open Questions is viewed as normal in some cultures, for
example, in the US, and some countries in Northern Europe, whereas the British tend to
be less direct in their questioning.
If you practice asking Open Questions to your direct reports, colleagues, key stakeholders,
and especially your teenage children, you will see an immediate improvement in your
interactions: you will find out more information and come across as genuinely interested.
For example, if your child comes home from school and you ask them, ‘did you have a nice
26
day at school today?’ you may get a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response. However, if you ask them ‘How
was your day at school today? What did you do?’ they have to respond with more detail. The
same works for any stakeholder.
It’s important to note that asking an adult in a business environment or someone who is
clearly struggling ‘Why…did you do that?’ can sound abrasive. Instead, you can soften it by
asking ‘So, what do you think was the reason behind doing that?’
Asking ‘How?’ and ‘What?’ can identify more details around emotions, feelings, and someone’s
values, such as ‘How will you deal with that issue?’ Asking someone ‘Who?’ ‘When?’ ‘Where?’
will elicit facts about a particular situation.
There are many Open Questioning models which are used by Sales teams, Consultants,
and Coaches. The key is to identify what you want to cover in your meeting or discussion,
what the key issues are, and what will success look like. Here is Natural Talent’s effective
model to practice with some examples of broad Open Questions: SCORPION
27
Situation:
What is the current situation in the organisation/team/project?
Where is the main focus to be?
Circumstance:
What has got you to this place?
Who was responsible for making the previous decisions?
Objective:
What do we need to achieve in our meeting today?
When do we need to have everything in place by?
How will we know when we’ve reached our desired outcome?
Reality of the Situation:
Who is preventing you from achieving an on-time delivery?
How concerned should I be regarding the next phase?
What else do you need from me?
Problem:
What are the key barriers to success?
How do you plan to address the negative feedback?
Impact of the Circumstance or Problem
What impact do you think these issues are having on the business?
What will that lead to?
28
Options:
What are all the options we have to resolve this?
How many different ways could you approach the issue?
How will this give us the result you want?
Need to Win:
What support do you need from me?
What will success look like?
When do we start?
Asking Open Questions can help a people manager find out what is driving their team,
what improvements can be made, what the team should stop doing or start doing, and lead
to more consultative, meaningful conversations and working relationships.
3.4 HOW TO INFLUENCE AND BECOME MORE PERSUASIVE

It’s key for a line manager to be able to influence the attitudes and opinions of their team
members and key stakeholders in order to gain agreement to their ideas, plans, goals, and
strategies.
Influencing and persuading others involves a set of skills and behaviours that include the
following:
• It is about being aware of what your objectives are and stating them clearly and
gaining trust in an open and honest dialogue, which involves active listening and
asking open questions.
• It also involves acting with integrity and with respect, being honest and not
being intimidating or threatening.
• The more self-aware you are, the more you are likely to be able to influence
and persuade others that the prescribed course of action is the correct one at
a certain time. This is important for managers to be able to communicate the
company vision, mission statement, business strategy, and key objectives, then to
be able to explain how the work tasks and projects of their team align with these
to create business success.
29
• It is also being aware of the problems, all options available to resolve key issues,
and the decisions that are needed to make progress.
• Being able to explain the rationale behind decisions.
• Build a convincing case to address business issues and implement change,
highlighting the benefits of certain actions and initiatives
• Being positive and creating a picture of success and the end goal.
• Challenging others’ thoughts in a calm, reasonable manner, enabling constructive
disagreement and debate in a trusting environment.
By working hard to improve your communication skills, to actively listen, and ask open
questions, you are likely to be able to influence others effectively and develop and improve
working relationships. Then, resolving conflicts and differences of opinion become easier
and more needs are met, as we explore in Chapter Four.
3.5 CHAPTER SUMMARY

1. By working hard to listen actively, key messages are not missed.
2. Asking Open Questions in a structured manner can help to identify issues and
possible solutions, as well as help to build strong working relationships.
3. Being clear about your objectives and improving communication enables you to
influence your key stakeholders.
30
THE ULTIMATE SOFT SKILLS MANUAL How to Resolve Interpersonal Conflicts
4 HOW TO RESOLVE
INTERPERSONAL CONFLICTS
Address the issue early, before it turns into a bigger problem,

but be sure to wait until things have cooled down. It’s difficult
to have a productive discussion if you and your colleague
are angry or upset. Wait until you are both clear-headed.
– David W. Ballard
Healthy debate and open and honest communication are key to business success. However,
when unhealthy conflict starts to damage working relationships, line managers need to act
swiftly.
4.1 HOW TO DEAL WITH CONFLICT

According to the CIPD ‘the single most common contributor to conflict is differences in personality
or styles of working.’ They also report that around half of employees cite personality clashes
as the key issue, followed by high workload, general stress, dishonesty, and poor leadership
31
also derailing working relationships. Some statistics suggest that 85% of employees have
experienced conflict at work, with 30% saying it happens on a frequent basis and managers
reporting they can spend up to 2 – 3 hours each week attempting to resolve disputes.
When a manager and team member or two colleagues have different needs, interests, values
or motivators, conflict can arise, and communication can become personal: ‘You never finish
projects on time’ as well as accusatory: ‘Why do you always blame Marketing?’ Team members
can then become defensive and deny responsibility, respond with a complaint, start making
excuses, or lose interest and motivation.
Negative body language, such as rolling of eyes and even tutting, can ensue resulting in a
general breakdown in constructive communication. As already mentioned, nowadays the art
of Active Listening is dying out as we are all side-tracked by multiple forms of technology,
open–plan offices, and extremely high workloads. Consequently, managers and employees
often miss-hear, miss-understand, or miss-interpret what they have heard or been told, and
relationships can start to deteriorate. Add into the mix the impact of homeworking and
the fact that many employees were onboarded remotely during lockdowns and continue to
work remotely as a result of offices having closed, and you have a new dynamic of virtual
teams and remote managers to deal with.
Not surprisingly, as a result of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, many workers
have struggled with the aftermath of lockdowns, home schooling, illness, and an increased
workload. Levels of stress, fatigue, and burnout have risen and frequently resulted in
interpersonal conflicts becoming more common.
To continue to improve your self-awareness and be able to manage yourself in order to

manage others effectively, it’s a good idea to assess how you handle conflict situations. In
addition to Personality Questionnaires, and 360 Feedback Assessments, another model to
identify how you deal with conflict is the Thomas-Kilmann model. This assessment was
devised in 1974 by Kenneth W. Thomas and Ralph H. Kilmann and is still used effectively
today. It looks at five strategies for Managing Conflict, including Avoiding, Competing,
Accommodating, Collaborating, and Compromising.
According to the Thomas Kilmann model, if you are an Avoider, it is likely that you are
unassertive and uncooperative when faced with a potential conflict situation, preferring to
withdraw and not get involved. Of course, this may be a good way to deal with an issue
that isn’t very important or over which you have no control, or when you feel it is best to
let those involved calm down or you need to obtain more information.
32
Competitors tend to be assertive and uncooperative. They may try to force others to accept
their solution to the conflict and to win, irrespective of other peoples’ needs and issues. Often
Competitors think in ‘black and white, win or lose’ terms. Again, in some circumstances
this approach to resolving conflict may be useful, for example in an emergency when quick
decisions and actions need to happen, or when swift change is required.
Those who are unassertive and cooperative are known as Accommodators in the model. This
type of approach involves relationship building in an effort to achieve harmony, possibly to
the detriment of your own objectives and needs. This tactic may be of use if you realise that
your opinion or action is wrong and that others have much better viewpoints or solutions,
or that their needs are much greater than your own. As a people manager this tactic may
be used to enable upskilling of your team members to allow them to make a mistake in a
safe environment.
Compromisers aim for the middle ground and are prepared to relinquish some of their
objectives if the other party does the same. If your key stakeholder has the same amount of
power and influence that you do, then this may be a useful strategy to employ, for example,
in pay disputes, or when every other approach has failed.
Ideally, being both assertive and cooperative and Collaborating is a practical approach to
take to ensure that solutions are found and relationships are maintained and developed.
This strategy may be used when you need to learn how to understand how others operate,
and to make decisions and solve problems as a team.
Exercise 1:
a. Think through some of the recent conflicts and confrontations you may have had.
b. What strategy did you employ? What worked well or not so well?
c. What would you do differently next time?
One of the most challenging tasks for line managers is resolving conflict situations. Some less
experienced managers may avoid conflict, which can result in issues ‘festering’, deteriorating,
and then becoming more serious, and then HR may have to be involved to reach a resolution.
There are many practical techniques to enable you to approach and manage conflict situations
to achieve a positive outcome.
33
Here is a 10 Point Plan:
1. As a child, your parents may have told you to ‘count to ten’ when you were
feeling angry. If you sense a potential conflict, it is wise to take a few deep
breaths, stop, and think what may be causing the other person’s behaviour.
Also, watch your body language, relax your shoulders, keep your arms unfolded,
and avoid banging your fist on a desk!
2. Rather than diving straight in with your opinion, it’s effective to ask an Open
Question as it shows that you are interested in the other person’s side of the
story, and you can check that they have all the relevant facts and information:
‘What do you consider to be the fundamental thing that we should aim to achieve?’
3. Then actively listen to the other party’s concerns and response. If necessary, use
the Natural Talent SCORPION Open Question Model from Chapter 2, ask for
their opinion and consider all alternative solutions: ‘If you feel this project won’t
work, what would you like to see as the approach? How would you suggest we do it
differently?’
4. Calmly and sincerely state your position and agree what the outcome needs to be,
keep trying to aim for a ‘win-win’ solution that benefits both parties’ objectives.
Remember that in a working environment, conflicting views tend to cause heated
debates, so keep to the business issue and don’t take criticism personally.
5. Try to take out all the emotion and focus on what needs to be resolved, tasks
that need to be accomplished, and results achieved, as opposed to becoming
personal and criticising character traits. Use ‘I’ and ‘We’ rather than ‘You.’ For
example, ‘We’ve noticed that.…’ rather than ‘you always slam the door when you
walk into the office.’
6. Keep clarifying that you both understand the issue that you are debating. Who
hasn’t had a disagreement, only to start discussing recurring problems, then
forgetting what the original argument was about? Keep to the business topic.
7. Take a ‘Time Out.’ If the situation does deteriorate, agree to take a break, or
even to sleep on the matter to ensure cool heads. Many of us will remember
when a manager or team member lost their temper and behaved irrationally.
We don’t tend to remember what the argument was about, but the authority
and credibility of the individual can be damaged, and respect lost.
8. Confirm the next actions very clearly to avoid any further misunderstanding
and agree timescales for reviewing progress.
9. Sometimes, if tensions are running high and there appears to be no resolution,
even if you know you are right, you may need to walk away or refer the
individual or issue to someone else, such as HR, a Mediator, or Coach, who
will view the situation objectively and make recommendations.
10. Pick your battles! Sometimes it is not worth the time and effort debating an
issue with someone who you know won’t change their mind.
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4.2 HOW TO BUILD PRODUCTIVE WORKING RELATIONSHIPS

We can’t all be expected to get on with everyone all the time, but it seems that in an ever
complex and busy workplace it is becoming more difficult to create and sustain effective
working relationships. Only a few years ago team members often went for a drink after
work to bond, but nowadays, with an increase in hybrid working or commuting time, a
rise in workload and team sizes or virtual teams, a quick drink after work isn’t as simple to
organise and sometimes culturally is not acceptable.
What team members look for in a positive working relationship are:
• Mutual trust and respect

• Clear, open, honest, and regular communication
• Taking responsibility for words and actions
• Collaboration
• Accepting generational, gender, and cultural differences
• Acknowledgement that everyone is working towards the same vision, mission,
goal, and cause
Surveys find that 90% of top performers are skilled at managing relationships, and when
there are close working relationships, levels of employee engagement increase. In a survey
by Gallup, they found that those employees who said they had a best friend at work were
seven times more likely to be actively engaged.
So, how can you build, develop, and maintain strong and effective working relationships in
this increasingly VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Changeable, Ambiguous) world and complex
working environment?
Start by building rapport. This is a way of showing other people that you value them and
their input. Developing rapport can start by sharing common issues, interests, and topics,
such as the weather (especially in the UK!), sport, family, holidays. It involves honest and
open communication, showing that you really care about them as an individual and building
trust by being consistent in your behaviours. Developing rapport is particularly important
when you want to put others at ease or make them feel comfortable. You can ask them
Open Questions about themselves and then Actively Listen patiently to their responses.
It helps to smile and use appropriate humour to show empathy and be patient. Some
people build rapport very easily, whilst others may struggle with it. Pick some role models
and watch how they move through groups of people with ease, making them laugh and
showing genuine interest and care about them. Don’t be overbearing or undermine people,
but always treat others with respect and as a line manager remember to motivate, praise,
and reward your team members. Keep being open minded, identify what motivates your
team, and understand others’ views or cultures. Ensure that you share information in the
team, be flexible, and empower others.
35
Here is a simple 10 Point Plan to build more effective Working Relationships

1. Identify your key Stakeholders: those people who have an interest in your work,
projects, objectives, and career. Then decide how you need to communicate
with them on a regular basis, such as verbally, by email, using a consultative
approach, or just keeping them informed about what you are doing.
2. Identify those people who have the most influence or impact on your work,
such as your leader, key customer, or supplier. If you are not spending
enough time with them either in person or virtually, to develop the working
relationship, then diarise regular 1:1s and meetings, preferably with cameras on.
Many working relationships break down because of miss-understandings caused
by the tone of an email, so pick up the phone or jump on a video call.
3. Clarify what your key stakeholders need from you, when, and why.
4. Use Active Listening to empathise with what the other person is saying,
nodding to acknowledge their interests and needs, using key words and Open
Questions, and summarise the key points to ensure you have understood
correctly.
5. Identify what personality type they are. Using Personality Questionnaires can
help you to understand what motivates your stakeholders, direct reports, and
colleagues. You are then able to understand ways to adapt your style in order to
have a more productive working relationship.
6. Develop and use your emotional intelligence to better understand your own
and your stakeholders’ emotions.
7. Give regular positive and constructive feedback and remember to praise and
celebrate success.
8. Maintain a Positive Mental Attitude as emotions are infectious and no one
wants to hear someone constantly moaning and being negative.
9. Clarify roles and responsibilities and learn to say ‘No’ assertively to create
boundaries in the working relationship.
10. Very importantly, maintain confidentiality. Don’t become involved in gossip
and office politics; chances are your comments will reach that person you’ve
been criticising, or worse, your boss/customer/supplier and lead to a dispute.
Remember that if you tell one person something in confidence, chances are
they will repeat that ‘secret’ to at least seven other people!
36
4.3 CHAPTER SUMMARY

1. Working relationships often become strained in the complex work environment.
Any interpersonal conflict should be dealt with swiftly.
2. The Thomas-Kilmann model identifies your conflict management style, allowing
you to flex your approach to different stakeholders and situations.
3. Active Listening and Open Questioning can help you to manage conflict
effectively.
4. Building rapport is useful in starting to develop effective working relationships.
37
THE ULTIMATE SOFT SKILLS MANUAL How to Carve Out Time to Focus on the Priorities
5 HOW TO CARVE OUT TIME TO

FOCUS ON THE PRIORITIES
Either you run the day, or the day runs you.
– Jim Rohn
Nowadays managers don’t just manage their people; they have their own work tasks and
projects to complete, as well as managing their teams. Planning, preparing, and prioritising
are important skills to enable you to be able to manage your team alongside a heavy workload
and to ensure that you are in control of your day and your diary.
5.1 HOW TO REVIEW AND IMPROVE HOW

YOU SPEND YOUR TIME
Time management is a personal issue. No matter how many courses you have attended, or
how many books you have read on the topic, we all tend to organise our time and work
tasks differently. This can depend on our background, upbringing, personality, and the work
38
environment we have been used to. For example, some people thrive under pressure with
very tight deadlines that enable them to focus and avoid distractions, whereas others find
short timescales can cause them stress and they become overwhelmed and inefficient. As a
line manager, check what works best for your team members.
The key to effective time management is firstly to analyse how you currently spend your time
and identify when you are the most productive. It’s also important to recognise why you
are the most productive at a certain time and then to maximise that time slot to complete
key tasks. As with any skills development, it involves reviewing your routines and habits,
committing to change some behaviours, controlling your work environment and maintaining
a positive attitude. Before you can improve, it’s a good idea to assess how effective your
skills are and what you need to work on.
Exercise 1:
a. Think about how you manage your work and leisure time.
b. Ask yourself: What works well?
c. What could be improved on?
d. What do you need to stop doing?
e. What do you need to start doing?
f. Consider the reasons why you are not as effective at managing your time,
planning ahead, organising and prioritising your work tasks as you would like
to be.
g. How can you become more productive?
h. How can you stop procrastinating?
i. What can you do to break down large tasks and projects into more manageable
chunks?
j. How can you reward yourself for completing a task?
k. How often are you running late and why?
l. What can you change?
m. What can you commit to changing today that will make a real difference.
Write down up to 6 SMART goals. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable,
Realistic, and Timebound. These will assist you in changing your behaviour to become
more productive.
To make yourself accountable, share these with your own line manager, colleague, partner,
friend, or Coach.
39
Lockdowns due to the coronavirus meant that working from home, remote working, and
subsequently hybrid working resulted in managers and their teams spending more time in
online or hybrid meetings. Quick catch ups in the corridor or the water cooler conversations
have been replaced by online meetings. This means that managers and their teams have been
spending hours online, which leaves little time for them to be strategic or actually carry out
their work tasks and projects. Executives and managers were heavily involved in firefighting
during the Covid crisis, but many continue to do so and are struggling to become more
strategic and less operational.
In addition to the increase in online and hybrid meetings, many roles have been cut, people
continue to be off sick, or burnt out, which means that the workload of most managers
and their teams has increased. A day or even a week may go by and at the end managers
may be feeling they have not achieved anything of significance to progress them closer to
meeting their own objectives or those of the organisation.
Time is what most people want more of. However, most of us always find time to do what
we really want to do outside of work, such as engaging in a favourite hobby or catching up
with close family and friends. What many workers don’t realise is that time management is
complex, personal, and emotional. It involves changing habits and modifying behaviours.
When reviewing how well you manage your time, it’s also worth starting by examining your
environment and laptop. So ask yourself: What can I get rid of? Having a clear desk and/
or desktop is proven to lead to feeling more in control.
Exercise 2:
Interestingly, we tend to be the most effective the day before we go on holiday, so imagine
you’re off on vacation for two weeks! Ask yourself:
a. What can I delegate and to whom?

b. What can I simply delete, such as non-important emails?
c. What can I completely disregard, including those papers or reports you thought
you may get round to reading?
So, detox your desk and your desktop to feel more in control of your working environment
and workload. The key is to become ruthless and very focused. Use a system that works
for you to identify what you should be concentrating your time on. Many leaders still find
the late Stephen Covey’s Time Management Grid useful to identify what is Urgent versus
Important.
40
5.2 STEPHEN COVEY’S TIME MANAGEMENT GRID

FOR PLANNING AND PRIORITISING
The Time Management grid which the former US President Eisenhower used, was then
popularised by Stephen Covey. Even today it is still an effective method of organising your
priorities. It differentiates between activities that are important and those that are urgent.
The grid includes 4 Quadrants. In Quadrant 1 are the tasks that appear to be urgent, such
as those with tight deadlines.
Quadrant 2 contains activities which don’t appear urgent, but which are in fact very important
and will cause issues if ignored, such as strategic planning, networking, and taking time to
regroup and recover.
Some mundane activities and those recurring non-essential meetings appear in Quadrant
3. The real time wasters such as surfing the web or checking social media regularly are in
Quadrant 4.
The idea is to review how much time you spend on the activities and tasks in each Quadrant.
Sometimes workers are surprised when they realise how much time they waste on non-
essential meetings or playing online games to ‘reward’ themselves. The key is to block off
slots in your diary to spend more time in Quadrant 2 which are the important, not urgent
tasks, which will create more personal and business success. This means that you can become
less operational and reactive, and more strategic and proactive to achieve your objectives
and those of the organisation.
Based on the Time Management Grid from Stephen Covey’s ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective
People’
41
Urgent Not Urgent
I Quadrant 1 Quadrant 2
m ACTIVITIES ACTIVITIES
p • Crises (real or perceived) • Prevention
o • Other people’s issues or objectives • Learning and development
r • Pressing problems • Relationship building and networking
t • Deadline-driven projects • Recognising new opportunities
a
• Planning
n
• Taking time out
t
• Strategic thinking
N Quadrant 3 Quadrant 4
o ACTIVITIES ACTIVITIES
t • Interruptions • Trivial tasks
• Some emails or reports • Surfing the web
I • Unimportant meetings • Checking social media
m
• Some team building • Gossiping with colleagues
p
• Some water cooler conversations
o
• Time wasters
r
t
a
n
t
5.3 HOW TO BECOME MORE EFFICIENT

To become more productive, it’s good to create the habit of regularly thinking about what
you consider is urgent according to the Time Management Grid. Then ask yourself: is it
really? The key is to plan ahead and prioritise activities that are important and strategic
before they become urgent – think about a leaking roof; you may ignore it because it
doesn’t seem important in the Summer, but come Winter when rain is pouring into your
home, it becomes urgent. Work activities are similar, for example, if your company ignores
Marketing, you may find it ends up with no new clients.
I like the expression, ’if you want something done, ask a busy person,’ as they are normally very
effective at delivering. So try to stop reacting to other people’s perceived emergencies. Stop,
think, and ask yourself a question about the urgency of a task. It’s important to respond,
also with an Open Question, as opposed to react. Don’t become a busy fool rushing around
sorting out what may appear to be urgent tasks, when in fact they may be perceived to
42
be urgent on someone else’s priority list. As a manager, you should have a daily, weekly,
monthly, and yearly list of priorities. These should include your own objectives, which are
aligned with your organisation’s vision, mission, and business strategy, and your teams’
overall objectives. At the end of every day, transfer what you haven’t done on your ’To Do’
list or list of priorities to the next days. Work backwards from key deadlines and dates and
diarise everything or it won’t get done. Your prioritised ’To Do’ list should include diarised
time for strategic thinking and planning, and strategic meetings so ringfence it!
I recommend to all my clients that they block out time every day or at least once a week
for strategic and creative thinking time. Sometimes all you need is 15 – 30 minutes to
review your ’To Do’ list and your priorities, assess what’s working well, or not so well, and
establishing what changes could be made to make everything more efficient and productive.
By blocking off that time, managers can work ’on’ the business not ’in’ it. That way you have
the capacity to keep ahead, spot what your competitors are doing, what the latest trends
are, how the Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal, and Environmental
(known as PESTLE) influences are impacting your business and team. If you can spend
your strategic and creative time away from your desk, laptop, and phone, that makes it
even more effective. If you work from home, sit in a different room, or go outside if it’s
warm and dry enough. Who hasn’t had a brilliant idea when they’re staring at the horizon
on a beach?
If you’ve got a long report to write, then work from home, if your company policy allows
it and there are fewer distractions there than in the office. Since the onset of Covid-19,
we have become used to being flexible regarding our working environment, so avoid going
back to trying to concentrate in a bustling office where there are so many interruptions,
distractions, noise, and so much socialising!
If you’re a people pleaser or perfectionist, start to create boundaries as set out in Chapter
Two. Keep practicing saying ’no’ assertively and politely. This can be a life changing behaviour
which starts to free up time for you to be in control of your diary. If you haven’t got the
spare capacity, don’t offer to bake those cakes for your children’s fund-raising day!
The key is to take a long hard look at what you do every day and commit to changing
something. If you don’t find time to exercise, try going to bed half an hour earlier, rather
than watching a TV series, and go for a run before work, if feasible, or lift some weights
at home. Exercise makes you more energetic and helps to clear the brain so you are more
effective. If you’re commuting, maximise that time by making calls, if safe to do so, or
reading those emails that have been ’festering’ in your Inbox. Some of the most productive
executives that I have Coached and Mentored don’t have Personal or Executive Assistants;
they respond to emails on their smartphones in batches with very succinct answers. In
addition, they save time by making quick decisions regarding what to delegate, to whom,
and what to delete and discard.
43
Meetings are the biggest timewasters. It’s no surprise that some of the most successful
companies limit their meeting time. Indeed, some only allow 15 minute virtual ’stand-up’
meetings to discuss really urgent or important issues. The rest is agreed by email or instant
messaging, with a monthly meeting to discuss strategic matters. Any operational issues or
updates are emailed. So, if you’re calling a meeting, ask yourself if an email will suffice. If
you’re invited to a meeting, think who could attend in your place, or whether you could
just join in for a short amount of time that relates the most to your role, team, function,
or country. If you can’t avoid having a meeting, block off time beforehand to prepare and
afterwards to action any important tasks or decisions.
Nowadays it has also become popular to also have a ’Not To Do List’ both inside and
outside work. Write yours to create boundaries and to focus on what is really important.
It also helps to create some time to plan and prepare for real-life crises!
Keep asking yourself:
Why am I doing this now?
Who else could or should be doing it?
What should I be doing instead?
What is the most important thing for me to achieve today?
5.4 HOW TO MANAGE YOUR INBOX

What did we do before we had emails? How did we communicate? Even up until the 1990s
some organisations used paper memos circulated in brown company envelopes tied with a
bit of string to advise staff of important updates, or to send messages between departments.
Or people simply picked up the phone! Or important messages were sent by telex!
Often I hear that some managers are receiving over 600 emails every day! This means that
they could spend about two hours per day just responding to them. To be able to keep on
top of emails, what tends to happen is that managers sift through their emails out of hours
or at weekends, which can cause stress and of course eats into their home life and disrupts
a healthy work/life balance.
44
Here are some tips to assist you in managing your Emails:

1. If you are a leader or manager of a function or team, agree with your team
members how often you will use emails for communication and what other
methods are more relevant, for example using Instant Messaging, texts,
WhatsApp, or a good old-fashioned phone call for quick questions.
2. Once you and your team have agreed clear guidelines on which communication
method or platform to use for which purpose, then agree the boundaries
for emailing; some companies ban emails after 6pm in the evening and at
weekends. Leaders and line managers need to role model good behaviours and
values. If the team agrees not to respond to emails in the evening or over the
weekend, then their people managers should do the same.
3. Setting boundaries is much more complex if you work for a global organisation
and operate over many time zones. The key is to agree with your team and
stakeholders what a cut off time is for responding to emails from the US, for
example. This is important if you are based in the UK, Europe, or South Africa
and are also dealing with Australia or Asia. Everyone needs to sleep, so agreeing
boundaries and managing expectations are crucial.
4. One of the most common recommendations for dealing with many emails
is not to answer them on demand, but rather to set aside time to process
them in batches. That way you are more focused and tend to respond more
succinctly. Turn off notifications on your phones which can disrupt your
attention and focus.
5. Another technique is to only use your smartphone to send and reply to emails.
Due to the small screen you tend to write much shorter emails and responses.
If you do this, it’s a good idea to warn people that your response may be short
so as not to appear rude!
6. If you can, try to read emails once, be decisive and decide if you need to reply
to it or delete it. If it needs a lengthy response, try to create folders for relevant
messages, otherwise, you may lose track of which emails require a reply.
It also helps to manage your stakeholders’ expectations in your email signature, for example,
writing, ’I work flexibly from 08:00am until 8pm GMT, therefore, if you don’t receive a response
from me within four hours, I am either in a meeting, or offline.’
45
5.5 CHAPTER SUMMARY

1. There are many different tools to help you plan, organise, and prioritise your
time, tasks and projects, but Time Management is personal and emotional, so
choose what works for you.
2. To improve your Time Management skills, you can start by identifying how
you spend your time, what activities are time wasters, and when you are the
most productive.
3. You may wish to use Stephen Covey’s Time Management Grid to identify what
tasks and activities are important, as opposed to appearing urgent.
4. Diarising time for strategic thinking and planning is very effective in preventing
you from always being operational and not meeting your objectives.
5. Managing your Inbox creates less stress, so be ruthless, create guidelines and
boundaries, and manage your stakeholders’ expectations.
46
THE ULTIMATE SOFT SKILLS MANUAL Conclusion
CONCLUSION
Soft skills are increasingly in demand by employers. Honing your soft skills involves becoming
more self-aware, improving your communication style with more Active Listening and
asking Open Questions.
Building rapport to develop effective working relationships, managing conflict, and being able
to manage your time and workload can help you to become a more effective line manager.
To assess your progress, you can revisit the exercises and ask your own line manager,
peers, colleagues, and Coach for feedback.
Thank you for taking time to read this eBook; next time, I will look at additional soft skills,
such as problem solving, decision making, team building, and managing stress.
47
THE ULTIMATE SOFT SKILLS MANUAL References
REFERENCES
LinkedIn Releases 2019 Global Talent Trends Report. (2019, January 28). Linkedin.com;
LinkedIn releases 2019 Global Talent Trends Report.
https://news.linkedin.com/2019/January/linkedin-releases-2019-global-talent-trends-report ‌
Carlson, R. (1997). Don’t sweat the small stuff-- and it’s all small stuff: simple ways to keep
the little things from taking over your life. Hyperion.
CIPD. (2015). Survey Report. https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/getting-under-skin-workplace-

conflict_2015-tracing-experiences-employees_tcm18-10800.pdf
Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 habits of highly effective people: powerful lessons in personal
change. Simon And Schuster
Knight, S. (2015). The life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k. Quercus
Johari and Nohari Windows: Natural Talent Client Management Training Course Materials, 2006
Knowing others is intelligence; knowing... - Quote. (n.d.). AllAuthor. Retrieved March 3, 2023,
from https://allauthor.com/quotes/88387/ [Lao Tzu Quote]
Inc, G. (2022, August 17). The Increasing Importance of a Best Friend at Work. Gallup.com.
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/397058/increasing-importance-best-friend-work.aspx
Medrut, F. (2017, December 25). 25 Henry Ford Quotes to Make You Feel Like You Can
Achieve Anything. Goalcast. https://www.goalcast.com/2017/12/24/henry-ford-quotes
Stephen Covey Time Management Grid, Natural Talent Client Management Training
Course, 2007
Thomas-Kilman Conflict Styles Model: Natural Talent Client Management Training

Course, 2008‌
48

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The Ultimate Soft Skills Manual

Hone your Soft Skills to Become a More Effective Manager

THE ULTIMATE SOFT

1 Manage Yourself to be a Great People Manager 9

2 Develop Your Assertiveness Skills to Better Manage Others 18

3 Maximise Your Communication 23

4 How to Resolve Interpersonal Conflicts 31

5 How to Carve Out Time to Focus on the Priorities 38

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LinkedIn: Jill Maidment at Natural Talent UK

Expert Audio Talks: bookboon.com

• Communication – active listening and asking open questions

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true

1.1 WHAT ARE THE KEY SOFT SKILLS AND HOW DO

So, what are soft skills?

• how you deal with your colleagues

• Creativity (encompassing problem-solving skills)

1.2 HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SELF-AWARENESS

1.2.1 THE JOHARI WINDOW MODEL

Things I Know Things I Don’t Know

Arena Blind Spot

incompetent intolerant inflexible timid cowardly

violent aloof glum stupid simple

insecure irresponsible vulgar lethargic withdrawn

hostile selfish unhappy unhelpful cynical

needy unimaginative inane brash cruel

ignorant irrational distant childish boastful

blasé imperceptive chaotic impatient weak

embarrassed loud vacuous panicky unethical

insensitive self-satisfied passive smug rash

dispassionate overdramatic dull predictable callous

inattentive unreliable cold foolish humourless

You may have found the Nohari Window quite confronting.

Exercise 2: Achievements Exercise

List your Top 5 Achievements – in or out of work

1.3 CHAPTER SUMMARY

To be passive is to let others decide for you. To be aggressive

– Edith Eva Eger

2.1 WHAT IS ASSERTIVENESS

2.2 CREATE BOUNDARIES TO REMAIN ASSERTIVE

2.3 SAY ‘NO’ WHEN REQUIRED

1. Demonstrate empathy when you’re asked to do something, ‘I understand your

2.4 CHAPTER SUMMARY

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand;

3.1 WHAT CONSTITUTES EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION?

3.2 HOW TO ACTIVELY LISTEN TO BECOME

a. Scrolling through your smartphone – which is becoming very common

1. Don’t do anything else, other than listen.

There are plenty of suggestions for Open Questions below.

3.3 HOW ASKING OPEN QUESTIONS CAN

What is the current situation in the organisation/team/project?

Where is the main focus to be?

What has got you to this place?

Who was responsible for making the previous decisions?

What do we need to achieve in our meeting today?

When do we need to have everything in place by?

How will we know when we’ve reached our desired outcome?

Reality of the Situation:

1 Manage Yourself to be a Great People Manager 9

2 Develop Your Assertiveness Skills to Better Manage Others 18

3 Maximise Your Communication 23

4 How to Resolve Interpersonal Conflicts 31

5 How to Carve Out Time to Focus on the Priorities 38

1.1 WHAT ARE THE KEY SOFT SKILLS AND HOW DO

1.2 HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SELF-AWARENESS

2.2 CREATE BOUNDARIES TO REMAIN ASSERTIVE

3.2 HOW TO ACTIVELY LISTEN TO BECOME

3.3 HOW ASKING OPEN QUESTIONS CAN

5 HOW TO CARVE OUT TIME TO

5.1 HOW TO REVIEW AND IMPROVE HOW

5.2 STEPHEN COVEY’S TIME MANAGEMENT GRID