A Practical Guide To Soft Skills - Communication, Psychology, and Ethics For Your Professional Life

A PRACTICAL GUIDE
TO SOFT SKILLS
This accessible text looks at the range of soft skills sought after by employers
and provides a practical guide to developing and effectively demonstrating
these skills.
Soft skills – including communication, customer service, teamwork, problem
solving, and personal management – represent a major component of any worker’s
professional identity. This book analyzes major soft skills, including both inward-
facing soft skills (how workers manage themselves to effectively perform their
work) and outward-facing skills (how workers effectively interact with others
and in groups). It explores how these skills are rooted in fundamental areas
of liberal arts including interpersonal communication, psychology, and ethics.
It provides an active learning pedagogy, including creative exercises and case
studies through which students can assess their understanding of underlying
concepts and their application in real-world situations.
The book can be used as a supplement for communication, business, and
career-oriented courses, and it will be of interest to individual students and junior
professionals as well as career counselors, postsecondary instructors across the
curriculum, and professionals in human resources and learning and development.
Richard Almonte teaches Communication in the Centre for Business at

George Brown College in Toronto.
A PRACTICAL GUIDE
TO SOFT SKILLS
Communication, Psychology, and
Ethics for Your Professional Life
Richard Almonte
Cover image: © gremlin / Getty Images
First published 2022

by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Richard Almonte
The right of Richard Almonte to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-032-08101-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-07105-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-21294-2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003212942
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To Peter
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
1 Soft Skills in a Digital Age 1
PART 1
The Background to Soft Skills 19
2 Ethics 21
3 Psychology 37
4 Interpersonal Communication 55
PART 2
Outward-Facing Soft Skills 71
5 Communication 73
6 Teamwork 85
7 Customer Service Orientation 98

viii Contents
PART 3
Inward-Facing Soft Skills 113
8 Problem-Solving Orientation 115
9 Productivity and Work Ethic 129
10 Likability 142
11 Can Soft Skills Be Taught? 156
Index 170
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my colleagues in George Brown College’s Centre for

Business who, along with me, teach GHUM 1087 each semester. I’d especially
like to thank those who worked on the original course development with
me: Frank Maloney, Morris Marshall, Roger Cecchetto, and Ted Snell, as
well as those who were co-investigators on the effectiveness research project
in 2019–2020: Heather McAfee and Ted Snell. Thanks too to my academic
administrators: former Dean Maureen Loweth, Academic Director Elizabeth
Speers, and former Chair Kathy Dumanski, all of whom championed the soft
skills work. Finally, thanks to the students who’ve taken the course over the
years and shared their soft skills insights and experiences making the course
that much richer.
1
SOFT SKILLS IN A DIGITAL AGE
Over the past ten years, the phrase “soft skills” has increasingly entered public
discussions in various forums including the media, business (often in human
resources and skills training), elementary, secondary, and post-secondary
education, as well as in peer-reviewed research journals.1 As often happens
when a phrase begins to appear so frequently, its use is often a direct ref lection
of some form of crisis, debate, or change in the wider society.
In the case of soft skills, speaking anecdotally, I began to notice around
2010 that the phrase was cropping up in discussions with my colleagues at a
WHAT’S COVERED IN THIS CHAPTER?

In this chapter you’ll learn:
• A multifaceted definition of soft skills

• What employers and researchers have said about soft skills
• Whether or not soft skills should be considered a “moral reform”
movement
1. Examples of recent soft skills coverage includes Lister (2019) “Corporate Canada Is Facing a Soft-
Skills Deficit” www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/leadership/article-corporate-canada-
is-facing-a-soft-skills-deficit-what-can-we-do/; King (2019) “Wanted: Employees Who Can Shake
Hands, Make Small Talk” www.wsj.com/articles/wanted-experts-at-soft-skills-1544360400; Brett
(2018) “Future Graduates Will Need Creativity and Empathy: Not Just Technical Skills” www.
theguardian.com/education/2018/dec/20/future-graduates-will-need-creativity-and-empathy-
not-just-technical-skills. Similar examples abound in the business press, and in peer-reviewed edu-
cation, psychology, and organizational behavior journals. Some of these peer-reviewed sources are
discussed later.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003212942-1
2 Soft Skills in a Digital Age
large urban community college. At the same time, the phrase began to appear
in various think-tank reports as well as in newspaper business sections. Upon
first glance, I could see that the phrase was being used in one of two ways.
First, it was being used by employers to name a group of sought-after skills
they thought weren’t being displayed effectively enough by employees (the
“complaint” or “gap/deficit” view of soft skills). Second, it was being used by
journalists, educators, and skills trainers to name a group of sought-after skills
that employees and potential employees could and should master, in order to be
successful (the “self-help” or “competency” view of soft skills).
As you begin your exploration of soft skills, let’s agree to resist easy defini-
tions of the term. You’ll find it more productive to start thinking of soft skills
as an elastic and relational term. By this I mean when it comes to defining soft
skills, besides saying that it’s “a noun that refers to a group of skills that are
sought-after in today’s world”, the phrase also has several other meanings. For
one, as we saw earlier, it can refer to a complaint that exists in the world about
the way people behave. For another, it can refer to techniques you can use to
improve these poor behaviors. In other words, a key aspect of the phrase soft
skills is that it’s always both referring to the problem that it solves and at the
same time embodying the solution. “Soft skills” is one of those terms like “val-
ues” that signifies both a problem and a solution.
Going a bit further down this path, when I say that soft skills both refer to a
problem and embody the solution to that problem, I’m getting close to answer-
ing the question that’s implied whenever the term “soft skills” is mentioned:
why do we need soft skills? We need them, I’d argue, because they offer one
useful solution to a current challenge facing many parts of the Western world.
The challenge, simply put, is how to manage vast amounts of change in the
make-up of society and in how society functions, knowing that many people’s
natural tendency is to be conservative (not necessarily in the political sense),
that is, to like things the way they are.
The changes I’m speaking about are, on the one hand, rapidly increasing
amounts of diversity in our societies, both racial and ethnic and gender-
based, as immigration increases to fill the demographic decline in places like
Canada, the United States, and Western Europe, and as new definitions of
gender become normalized.2 At the same time, rapidly increasing amounts
2. Examples of rapid demographic change include Ballingall (2017) “A Majority of Torontonians Now
Identify Themselves as Visible Minorities” www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/10/25/a-majority-
of-torontonians-now-identify-themselves-as-visible-minorities-census-shows.html; Poston, Jr. and
Saenz (2017) “U.S. Whites Will Soon Be the Minority in Number, But Not Power”www.baltimoresun.
com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0809-minority-majority-20170808-story.html; Dawar (2013) “White
Britons Are Now a Minority in 4 Towns and Cities” www.express.co.uk/news/uk/370013/White-
Britons-are-now-a-minority-in-4-towns-and-cities. Discussions of acute generational conflict include
“The Clash of the Baby Boomers and Millenials” www.forbes.com/sites/nazbeheshti/2018/11/29/
the-clash-of-the-baby-boomers-and-millennials-how-can-we-all-get-along/#64a24f81f9e2;
“Generational Differences at Work Are Small: Thinking They’re Big Affects Our Behavior” https://
Soft Skills in a Digital Age 3
of technological disruption exist in our lives, by which I mean all the new and
changing tools, gadgets, apps, and digital modalities we encounter in our home
and work lives such as Zoom, texting, Slack, office-hoteling and many oth-
ers.3 It’s these twin disruptors – diversity and digital technology – plus a third
disruptor I haven’t yet mentioned: sharp generational differences in society –
that seem to be causing the world we live in to be, to some degree, destabilized.
Here we can pause to add another provisional way to approach thinking
about soft skills. Soft skills invoke a small-c conservative movement for manag-
ing rapid change by creating and upholding agreed-upon standards for behav-
ior. In a world of disruption and change, it makes sense that a somewhat fuzzy
concept – soft skills – should emerge as one potential method of restoring things
to “normal”. An example will illustrate what I mean. Let’s say a large orga-
nization in the financial services sector was challenged recently with how to
reconcile its need for employees who can communicate effectively and its com-
mitment to diversity. A young employee complained to her manager that she felt
“exposed” and “threatened” when giving presentations. She further stated that
in her culture, speaking openly in front of other people was something women
were discouraged from doing and that she would therefore prefer not to have to
do this at work. Her manager’s private feelings were understandably conflicted.
The employee in question was a member of a visible minority, and his depart-
ment had for many years been working to increase its number of visible minority
employees.
At the same time, the manager was surprised by his employee’s complaint,
because speaking to co-workers, clients, and other parties (whether in a
conversation, a meeting, a presentation, or a seminar) was a bread-and-butter
aspect of the job, for people of all genders and backgrounds. In fact, the
employee had talked up her own strong communication skills when she was
interviewed for the job! And on top of that, “effective spoken and written
communication” is the first requirement listed in all of the department’s job
descriptions – considered so important that it appears before the more technical,
hard skills tasks like spreadsheet use, risk management assessment, or financial
planning capabilities. What was he supposed to do? How to reconcile the
diversity-based request (i.e., I’m uncomfortable speaking in front of people for
hbr.org/2019/08/generational-differences-at-work-are-small-thinking-theyre-big-affects-our-
behavior; Cotton (2019) “Millenials Cause Generational Conflict in the Workplace” www.business
leader.co.uk/millennials-cause-generational-conflict-in-the-workplace/60389/.
3. Representative coverage of rapid technological change includes Jackson (2018) “Reports of Rapid
Tech Change Causing the Demise of Traditional Employment Are Greatly Exaggerated” www.
theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-reports-of-rapid-tech-change-causing-the-
demise-of-traditional/; Porter (2019) “Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two” www.nytimes.
com/2019/02/04/business/economy/productivity-inequality-wages.html; and Partington (2019)
“Things Are Changing So Fast” www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/30/changing-fast-
benefits-dangers-robots-uk-workplace.
cultural reasons) with necessary workplace norms (i.e., speaking in front of

people is a foundational part of the job)?
Clearly this example is stark, and not likely to occur frequently. That said,
less stark and dramatic versions of the clash between established norms and
new points of view are happening every day; otherwise we wouldn’t be hear-
ing all the noise we have been for ten years about the “lack of ” or “gap in”
soft skills. Perhaps one way out of this dilemma is to examine brief ly another
way in which soft skills can be approached, and that is, by reference to its
binary opposite of “hard skills”. In the same way that “soft skills” is elastic
and relational because it refers both to a problem and to the solution to that
problem, so too is it elastic and relational because it is always referring, if only
obliquely and subtly, to its opposite, which is “hard skills”. Like all binary
opposites (good/bad; beautiful/ugly; rich/poor; gay/straight; etc.) liberal-
minded academic commentators have long argued that seemingly neutral
binary oppositions like hard skills/soft skills are not neutral (or natural) but
rather culturally produced. And what’s more, they’re produced in a dishon-
estly “equal-looking” form (i.e., the binary) that serves to mask the reality,
which is that one term in the binary is always valorized, or held in higher
esteem, compared with the other term.4
In such a cultural analysis, it’s customary to destabilize or deconstruct the
binary to show, for example, how the less equal term within it is as valuable or
even more valuable than its opposite. In another form of this type of analysis,
you can demonstrate that there are categories that stand apart from, between,
or outside the binary that are just as valid (e.g., today the gay/straight binary is
rarely invoked without recognizing the validity of bisexuality or trans identi-
ties and the oversimplification, in terms of sexual orientation, of the original
binary). If you were to perform such a destabilizing analysis of the hard skills/
soft skills binary, you might begin by agreeing that “hard skills” has tradition-
ally been the valorized term. It points to the specific, technical, skills-based
abilities – often stemming from years of education and training or else natural
talent – that employees demonstrate as part of their job, and which set them
apart from others who don’t have these abilities.
Historically, soft skills were thus the less valorized part of the binary. These
skills, variously known as “professionalism”, “people skills”, “ability to get
along”, “confidence”, “communication” among many other synonyms, were
4. Helpful discussions of binaries and their deconstruction in various forms of analysis include Wilcox
(2015) “Deconstructive Literary Criticism” https://medium.com/@brettwilcox/deconstructive-
literary-criticism-e2fcf9b2e848; Thomassen (2010) “Deconstruction as Method in Political Theory”
https://webapp.uibk.ac.at/ojs/index.php/OEZP/article/viewFile/1369/1063; Kau (2001) “Decon-
struction and Science” http://sites.science.oregonstate.edu/~stetza/ph407H/Deconstruction.pdf;
Balkin (1987) “Deconstructive Practice and Legal Theory” https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/
cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7061&context=ylj. Similar sources can be found for numerous other
aspects of human culture or endeavour including religion, society, culture, education, etc.
assumed to come with you into your job. In other words, the assumption was
that soft skills were part of our upbringing, our culture, our way of doing things.
No extra education or study was required, and any professional employee or
person aiming to be a professional could tap into these already-existing parts
of themselves, or know when and how to deploy and perform these skills.
Some people today, when speaking candidly – educators and employers among
them – still believe this. As a result, when soft skills behaviors are not obviously
deployed and performed, a crisis is invoked.
Funnily enough, it hasn’t required a cultural analysis to destabilize the hard
skills/soft skills binary. Two very real-world phenomena of the late 20th and
early 21st centuries, globalization and automation, have done the job for us.
Broadly speaking, for many years between the Industrial Revolution and the
immediate post–World War II decades, the Western world was the heart of
manufacturing, as well as of the various forms of innovation and ancillary func-
tions that go together with making things, such as research, design, market-
ing, finance, etc. The past 30 years have altered this picture. Manufacturing is
becoming skewed toward Asian and in some cases Latin American countries,
and even the ancillary industries supporting manufacturing are beginning to
shift their geographical locus.5 The impact this has had on the Western world
has been profound. We’ve experienced on the one hand an economic shift to
“knowledge economies” in which labor is more about creative, problem-solving
skills than about mass producing things (this is the positive end of the spectrum)
to, on the other hand, a political shift toward nationalist, populist governments
whose base of support comes from populations who feel “left behind” by the
knowledge economy shift (this is the negative end of the spectrum).
What you’ll want to be able to trace is the effect of this shift on the skills
required for success in the world. Clearly, the move toward people-centered,
knowledge-related work in much of the Western world has meant that soft skills,
which were previously nice-to-have’s (with the exception of certain areas such as
nursing or counseling in which they’ve been consciously needed for a long time),
have now become must-have’s across a much wider section of the economy. The
binary has been upset, or righted, and we now find ourselves in a place where
soft skills get much more notice than hard skills. It’s not uncommon to hear
employers and human resources consultants saying things like: “We can train
new employees to use the software/sell the product/code the software, etc. but
they need to be team players and problem solvers!” It’s now soft skills that are in
demand, and hard skills are taking a back seat, at least for the moment.
5. The somewhat contradictory evidence about the global manufacturing shift from West to East
is discussed in Ferdows (2020) “Five Myths about Manufacturing” www.washingtonpost.com/
outlook/five-myths/five-myths-about-manufacturing/2020/08/28/ba8199a8-e7da-11ea-970a-
64c73a1c2392_story.html. Changes in research and development spending are highlighted in Con-
gressional Research Service (2020) “Global Research and Development Expenditures” https://fas.
org/sgp/crs/misc/R44283.pdf.
As you move through this book therefore, remember that “soft skills” is a
term that’s in f lux, and that’s ok. It defines a problem that exists in society, it
encompasses the solution to that problem, it invokes a conservative impulse to
uphold standards in human behavior, and it exists in a f luid binary opposition
with another set of skills – hard skills – that, while still very important, is cur-
rently in the shadow of the more necessary soft skills.
What Are Soft Skills?

Despite the request made of you earlier not to be too concerned with a neat defi-
nition of soft skills, it’s inevitable (and obviously helpful) that we should move
towards a precise description of the parameters of what the phrase means. One of
the most thoughtful definitions I’ve found so far is by Hurrell et al. (2013). Soft
skills, they claim, are the skills that help you deal with others and manage your-
self and your emotions in the way your workplace requires. This means honing
inter- and intrapersonal abilities to create a “mastered performance” in various
contexts, such as customer service, teamwork, etc. Beyond this definition, there
are other ways of looking at soft skills, some of which I’ll describe further.
Another approach to defining soft skills is to say they include aspects of our
personality. This definition of soft skills is reminiscent of what I said earlier
when I talked about the relatively widespread belief that soft skills are innate,
waiting in store to be deployed or performed in certain situations. As we’ll see
in the second section of this book, a personality view of soft skills is one with
deep roots in human culture, including both ethics and psychology. That said,
a personality explanation of soft skills hinges on some problematic truths.
First, if soft skills are aspects of our personality (e.g., likability), then
they are also already part of our make-up as adults – in other words, they’re
a relatively fixed thing. Second, if soft skills are innate personality traits,
it’s possible that some people will be luckier or more successful than others
at demonstrating soft skills and this might not be a changeable situation.6
Finally, if soft skills are part of our personality, then how do we account
for our negative personality traits? Everyone agrees our personality includes
negative aspects as well as positive ones – does this mean there are some
negative soft skills or behaviors? Isn’t this an oxymoron? For the time being,
let’s hold on to the helpful part of the soft skills-as-part-of-our-personality
definition, which is that every person has a unique set of positive personality
traits that are part of their overall make-up.
6. Recent research into personality change in young adulthood shows that under certain circum-
stances, including workplace experience, young adults will modify their personality. See the litera-
ture review section in Le, K., Donellan, M. B., & Conger, R. (2014) “Personality Development
at Work: Workplace Conditions, Personality Changes, and the Corresponsive Principle”, Journal of
Personality, 82.1.
If “personality” isn’t the perfect synonym for soft skills, what about soft
skills as a set of habits? There’s something logical and helpful about moving the
definition away from personality and towards habits, for a couple of reasons.
First, by definition habits are habitual, meaning they happen regularly. To me
this is closer to the notion of soft skills we’re trying to develop because it includes
the concept of repetition over time. For example, if you’re in the habit of smiling
at people you encounter at work, chances are this happens at well-defined times
(e.g., in elevators and stairways, in the morning as everyone’s getting in, etc.).
The idea of soft skills-as-habit is thus more precise than the amorphous idea that
likability (to name one soft skill) is a mark of your personality. How would we
know this? When and how would you show this?
Another reason why soft skills-as-habit is attractive is that habits, again by
definition, are learned. We’ve all heard the phrases “I picked up the habit”,
meaning I learned to act in this way at some point in my life, or, “Old habits
die hard”, meaning it’s challenging to stop a behavior you’re used to displaying.
The learnability of habits moves us in a more positive direction than personal-
ity, which is seen by most experts to be innate (though as we see in footnote 6,
able to change under certain circumstances). Of course, we should acknowl-
edge that as with negative personality traits, so too are we all guilty of having
negative habits that we cannot let go. This complicates an easy solution to our
definition problem. It’s not as simple as saying that soft skills are a type of habit,
because habits can be negative (not just positive), whereas soft skills are always
positive. For now, let’s hold on to the helpful idea of habits as learnable and as
occurring regularly as we build our definition of soft skills.
Personality and habits get us part way toward a satisfactory definition of
soft skills, so where else can we turn? I would suggest the most useful way to
conceptualize soft skills is to introduce the concept of performativity, which is
hinted at in Hurrell et al.’s definition quoted earlier. Recent scholarship on the
intersection of performativity and strategy, for example, shows that performa-
tivity can be used to help define soft skills. If we accept that, like strategy, soft
skills is an instance of an organizational “performative utterance” or “performa-
tive discourse”, in such utterances and discourses, the words used by the people
involved (as well as their gestures, tone, vocabulary, etc.) can “bring about the
reality they describe” (Cabantous 2018).7 In other words, using accounting lingo
and jargon properly is, to a certain degree, what makes a person an accountant.
7. See Cabantous, L., Gond, J.-P., & Wright, A. (2018) “The Performativity of Strategy: Taking
Stock and Moving Ahead”, Long Range Planning, 51.3, pp. 407–416. Building on the foundational
work of John Searle and J.L. Austin from the 1960s, many scholars (including Gond and Caban-
tous) are now working in the area of performativity as it relates to, for example, nursing education,
or strategy and management or engineering or prison work. Gond and Cabantous summarize the
state of the field succinctly in their chapter titled Performativity in The Routledge Companion to
Philosophy in Organization Studies (New York: Routledge, 2016).
What this means in practice is that in any given sub-discipline of business,

for example marketing or human resources, the discipline is constituted by its
discourse: the way people talk about it and talk within it (including vocabulary,
jargon, etc.). Naturally there are tangible tasks requiring expertise that need to
get accomplished (besides discourse) that do get done by people in these fields,
such as drafting a performance review document, completing an organization’s
audit, coding software. However, when looked at closely, many of these tasks
(e.g., doing research, writing proposals, holding meetings, giving presentations,
etc.) are common across many fields. To a significant degree, then, according
to the performativity concept, it’s the actual correct use of the relevant words and
behaviors while doing these tasks (e.g., “creative brief ” or “performance man-
agement strategy”) that actually “proves” that people are part of a given field.
What I’m arguing is that soft skills can be seen as another such performative
discourse – a series of words, gestures, and behaviors based on discrete pieces
of culturally inf lected knowledge, history, theories, etc. – that together signal
your competence in a given field. And the field we’re talking about is that of
ideal workplace behavior. In fact, you could argue that viewing soft skills also
as a field of knowledge (with its own performative discourse) is the missing
piece of the soft skills definitional puzzle. For this reason, the second section of
this book is devoted to describing the contours of an emerging academic disci-
pline of soft skills, which is grounded in a handful of earlier disciplines, namely
ethics, psychology, and interpersonal communication.
Soft skills mean all the things we’ve said so far: a complaint on the part of
employers about missing skills, a self-help regimen for gaining these needed
skills, a conservative impulse to manage rapid change, the currently-more-
valorized inverse of hard skills, a leveraging of our personality traits, a series
of positive habits, a performative discourse. Crucially, it should also start being
seen as an academic field or discipline like any other you’d find at a university
or college (French, geography, hospitality, nursing, etc.) with its own classic
texts, procedures, controversies, and students and teachers.
You now have a multi-pronged working definition of soft skills that not only
gives you a rich understanding of the term, and which should help you in situa-
tions you may run into where someone says that “soft skills” is a term that can’t
be easily defined. It can be defined, but it’s not definable in one pithy sentence,
which is, again, okay. You may be curious at this point for specifics. What does
a performance of soft skills actually look like? A lot has been said about this very
question, and we’ll look brief ly in the next sections at the two groups who’ve
had the most to say: employers and academics (though journalists are also quite
interested!). It’s not giving away a big secret to say that a careful reading of
the literature produced by these two groups shows two things: the term “soft
skills” means performing interpersonal effectiveness (being effective with other
people) and it means performing personal effectiveness (being effective on your
own). While there are many specific examples of these two kinds of behavior,
as I’ll show later (based on research completed at my institution), the needed soft
skills behaviors can be helpfully summarized into six main types.
What Do Employers Say About Soft Skills?

If you search online using keywords like “workplace and soft skills”, you’ll
likely get thousands of hits such as the recent article from The Globe and Mail
titled “Corporate Canada is Facing a Soft Skills Deficit: What Can We Do?”
( Lister 2019). This article (similar ones have been published over the past ten
years in leading newspapers across the Western world, including the New York
Times) provides an example of the “complaint” view of soft skills I spoke about
earlier. The short answer to the question posed in this section’s title, then, is that
employers are concerned that the candidates they’re seeing (and perhaps as well
their current employees) don’t possess the right soft skills. Therefore, according
to employers across the Western world, a soft skills gap or deficit exists.
The Globe article is based on research carried out by LinkedIn Canada and
the Labour Market Information Council, one of many employers or arm’s-
length government associations (others include Conference Board of Canada and
Canadian Federation of Independent Business) that have published reports or stud-
ies on the soft skills “deficit” or “gap”. Similar reports have appeared recently in
the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, among other countries.8
What unites these reports, besides the framing device of a soft skills gap or deficit,
is, oftentimes, a checklist (usually based on employer surveys) of the specific soft
skills employers would like employees to possess and/or demonstrate.
A typical checklist comes from the job site Workopolis (The most sought
2014). According to Workopolis’ research, employers are looking for five
important soft skills: dependability/reliability, communication, motivation,
enthusiasm, and f lexibility/adaptability. Hundreds of similar checklists exist in
the online universe, and as we’ll see later, this is one reason why the academics
studying soft skills have bemoaned the lack of a standardized definition of soft
skills. Still, if we look carefully at even the short list from Workopolis, we’ll
notice that the soft skills mentioned in this particular survey of employers fall
nicely into the overarching two-part structure I’ve already mentioned: behaving
effectively with others (communication, enthusiasm) and behaving effectively
on one’s own (dependability/reliability, motivation, f lexibility/adaptability). I
would argue that all lists of soft skills can be broken down in this way.
8. Report examples include The Value of Soft Skills to the UK Economy (2017, UK) https://pacelearning.
com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/The-Value-of-Soft-Skills-to-the-UK-Economy.pdf; Soft Skills
for Business Success (2017, Australia) https://www2.deloitte.com/au/en/pages/economics/articles/
soft-skills-business-success.html; Auckland Plan 2050 (2018, New Zealand) www.aucklandcouncil.
govt.nz/plans-projects-policies-reports-bylaws/our-plans-strategies/auckland-plan/opportunities-
prosperity/Pages/importance-soft-skills.aspx; Bridging the Soft Skills Gap (2017, United States)
www.uschamberfoundation.org/reports/soft-skills-gap.
What Do Researchers Say About Soft Skills?

In the past ten years the pace of academic research and publication on the topic
of soft skills has grown substantially. The Google Scholar database shows more
than a tripling in articles published on soft skills in 2019 (roughly 17,000) com-
pared to 2010 (roughly 5,000). Reviewing a sample of the 2019 articles shows
that there are recurring themes in the literature, including attempts to more
precisely define soft skills, to investigate whether or not they can be effectively
taught, and to more closely relate soft skills to employer needs. Incidentally, this
book adds to all three sub-themes. It provides an expanded and nuanced defini-
tion of soft skills (in the earlier part of the Introduction), it adds to the literature
that says soft skills can be taught at the postsecondary level (in the Conclusion)
and again in the Conclusion it provides evidence that employers continue to
find soft skills highly attractive and necessary.
The first area of significant academic inquiry is into defining soft skills. A
number of researchers remark that “soft skills” remains a somewhat ambiguous
term without a widely accepted definition (Cimatti 2016; Matteson et al. 2016;
Landine 2018). One researcher goes so far as to claim that the sheer number
of commonly cited soft skills makes it “impossible to think about them as a
coherent whole” (Toulomakos 2020). At the same time, others are happy to
provide common-sensical definitions, if not always as fulsome as the one I’ve
provided earlier. For example, Hurrell et al. (2013) define soft skills as “non-
technical and not reliant on abstract reasoning, involving interpersonal and
intrapersonal abilities to facilitate mastered performance in particular social
context”. Hurell et al.’s focus on inter/intrapersonal abilities is helpful, as is
their recognition that “soft skills” is performative. Surprising, however, is
their decision to not include personal abilities that don’t involve interaction
with others, such as a decision to demonstrate likability, problem-solving ori-
entation, a good work ethic, etc.
A second group of studies delves into the teaching strategies that best support
and best elicit successful soft skills in post-secondary institutions (Anthony & Gar-
ner 2016; Brown 2018; Martin 2019). One interesting thing about such studies is
their attempt to pinpoint the assignments students find most helpful in learning
soft skills. Students report that learning soft skills is best facilitated through guest
speakers, followed by self-analysis and journal article research, with soft skills
videos being least helpful. Counter to what you’ll hear later about the soft skills
course at my home institution, in which case studies with simulation and behavior
modeling are seen as the most effective way to learn soft skills, the students in the
studies listed earlier have either not been exposed to this method or don’t see it as
helpful. Only one meta-review of soft skills pedagogy was identified (Lee 2018).
In it, the author examines a number of methodologies used to teach soft skills
to postsecondary students, including intervention programs, courses, and work-
shops. She highlights the “scarcity of current studies that address adult soft-skill
acquisition, particularly among . . . undergraduate learners”. The Conclusion to

this book will offer just such a study, with positive results.
A third area of significant research is into the need for soft skills in contem-
porary digital workplaces. There is a large group of studies (e.g., Carvalho &
Rabechini 2015; Ravindranath 2016; Thompson 2019) that seek to explain
soft skills necessity in specific fields. These studies are often about sub-fields
of business (e.g., project management, hospitality, IT) or else healthcare (e.g.,
nursing, medicine). The conclusions of these studies regularly locate a direct
link between high employer need for effective soft skills and relatively low
employee demonstration of such skills. A counterintuitive and refreshing study
is Hurrell (2016). In “Rethinking the soft skills deficit blame game: Employ-
ers, withdrawal, and the reporting of soft skills gaps” Hurrell posits a con-
trarian hypothesis, that the soft skills gap so regularly discussed in the media
and by academics is being looked at the wrong way, that is, as a gap/deficit
among employees. In fact, Hurrell demonstrates, it is as much a weakness in
employer recruitment strategy, lack of employer soft skills training, and contra-
dictions between stated soft skills required by employers and authority granted
to employees to actually display such skills that explain the soft skills deficit. As
Hurrell concludes, “Soft skills gaps caused by deficient HR practices do not,
for example, require the changes to skills and education policy that employers
frequently demand”. Such a conclusion could be a wake-up call for what we
might provisionally label the “soft skills industry”: the journalists, researchers,
employers, and educators who spend time thinking and writing about issue.
Is Soft Skills a Moral Reform Movement?

Even without the benefit of Hurrell’s critique of soft skills (i.e., that it’s as much
or even more an employer issue than it is a gap or deficit shown by employ-
ees), the idea may have begun to cross your mind that the soft skills debate of
the past decade bears a resemblance to a recurring human event known as a
“moral panic”. Whenever behavior changes in significant ways in society, or
is perceived to be doing so, a portion of humans tends to react negatively by
denouncing such behavior change.9 The 20th and early 21st centuries have
experienced their fair share of such episodes. For example, the conservative
backlashes to first- and second-wave feminism, to the increasing use of mari-
juana, and to the increasing use of alcohol have caused moral panics at various
points since the 1880s. More recently, moral panic episodes have come from the
left of the political spectrum. Rape culture (called out by the Me Too Move-
ment) and police violence against Blacks (called out by the Black Lives Matter
Movement) are also examples of moral panics.
9. See Matthew Wills’ “The First Moral Panic: London, 1744” for a short introduction to the topic
at https://daily.jstor.org/the-first-moral-panic-london-1744/.
Whatever their political inspiration, moral panics follow a similar cycle that
includes protest against the offending behavior, which is picked up on by the
media that then labels the protest a movement. The impetus for these movements
has been analyzed as either stemming from some form of status discontent (i.e.,
I’m unhappy about these people who are getting something I’m not getting) or
else as a conscious cognitive judgment based on an individual’s background (i.e.,
knowing what I know about behavior, I don’t think this is correct behavior)
( Wood & Hughes 1984). While the soft skills gap hasn’t caused protests in the
streets, other aspects of its trajectory follow the moral panic formula, especially
the media’s co-opting of the issue and adding a simplifying and magnifying spot-
light to it.
The types of moral regulation movements that occur after moral panics
have been well documented, for example, the early 20th-century moral regu-
lation movement of prohibition/temperance as a response to the moral panic
of alcohol abuse. Scholars who study moral regulation have some interesting
things to say that are pertinent to my argument that we can perhaps view
the recent soft skills debate as an instance of moral panic. Corrigan (1981)
shows that moral regulation seeks to accomplish a number of goals, but mostly,
“through its reproduction of particular (proper, permitted, encouraged) forms
of expression it fixes (or tries to fix) particular signs, genres, repertoires, codes
as normal representations of ‘standard’ experiences which represent human
beings.” Commenting on Corrigan’s definition of moral regulation, Valverde
and Weir (2006) stress the performative nature of this kind of regulation: “Cor-
rigan [analyzes] moral regulation as the privileging of certain forms of expres-
sion. ‘The establishment of proper public ways of performation’ results in the
subordination of other expressive behaviours”. This is another way of saying
that moral regulation (e.g., via the widespread “need” for soft skills) may be
one way of tamping down forms of expression that are beginning to appear
in the workplace but that are not the preferred form of managers, owners, or
shareholders.10
While in one way the lens of moral panic/moral regulation seems tailor-
made as a way to describe the phenomenon of the soft skills gap/deficit and its
resulting “need” and “requirement” among employers for excellent soft skills,
we should be careful to distinguish between a true moral panic (which is about
an individual behavior that’s physically as well as morally detrimental in some
way) and the less dire nature of the soft skills situation. While it’s true that the
soft skills situation includes a type of policing by employers of their employees’
behavior, it’s also true that the vast majority of employees (and postsecondary
10. For more on this argument, see for example Zamudio, M. M., & Lichter, M. I. (2008) “Bad
Attitudes and Good Soldiers: Soft Skills as a Code for Tractability in the Hiring of Immigrant
Latina/os Over Native Blacks in the Hotel Industry”, Social Problems, 55.4.
students) tend to agree with employers about the need for civility and teamwork
and good communication, among other soft skills. While I understand Hurrell’s
wanting to turn the tables and lay some blame on employers for the supposed soft
skills gap, this is less an employer versus employee situation than it is an us versus
each other situation. All of us who inhabit workplaces – employers, employees,
customers – have reciprocal responsibilities to each other to maintain a basic
level of interpersonal and personal effectiveness.
What This Book Does

Any time you invoke a “basic level” of understanding of something, you are in
essence talking about a combination of knowledge and skill. For that reason,
the rest of this book expands on a couple of the important soft skills defini-
tions I discussed earlier. First, soft skills is a body of knowledge, a field, and a
discipline. You may not be used to thinking of it in this way, but you need to
if you’re going to ground your behavior in something more than a subjective
and non-theorized “Behave like X in situation Y” type of logic. “Soft skills”
is not the same as the conduct manuals that proliferated from the 17th to the
19th centuries that explained how various audiences (e.g., young men, young
women, married women) should behave. One reason so many “self-help”- or
“conduct”-type books on soft skills available today leave readers feeling lost
is that they provide almost no context for why the skills that are about to be
described are important, helpful, or where they come from. It’s as if soft skills
just appeared in 2010 and no one in the earlier, long history of the world ever
thought about these things. The context for the concept of soft skills is under-
theorized, under-developed, and under-historicized.
I propose that you’ll find a grounding for a new soft skills discipline in
three well-established places. The fundamental grounding for a soft skills dis-
cipline is in the ancient branch of philosophy known as moral philosophy or
ethics, which is the study of right and wrong behavior. Any discipline with
human behavior at its core must reckon with classic concepts and theories
from ethics. Another fundamental grounding for the discipline of soft skills
is in the human science of psychology, the study of our mental processes.
Psychology takes ethical ideas (how should humans be with each other) and,
using the scientific method, confirms a number of hypotheses about how we
tend to learn, how we tend to behave with each other, how we tend to deal
with stress, among many other aspects of human experience. A final classical
grounding for an emerging soft skills discipline is the study of interpersonal
communication. A relatively recent and still evolving field, dating from the
1960s, interpersonal communication studies the process of communication
not just for its information-transmitting capabilities but for its relationship-
building capabilities.
Together, ethics, psychology, and interpersonal communication offer

conceptual and theoretical heft that the until-recently relatively “thin” con-
cept of soft skills increasingly requires. For this reason, Part 1 of this book
summarizes the important aspects of these foundational disciplines to the
study (and eventual practice of ) soft skills. The next sections of the book,
Parts 2 and 3, are all about practice. Earlier I showed how any list of soft
skills can be broken down into two common denominators. One common
denominator in soft skills lists is the group of skills that demonstrate your
ability to act effectively with others. Another common denominator is the
group of skills that demonstrate your ability to act effectively on your own.
Using an in-depth survey of 350 employers conducted in the Toronto area
in 2013, my colleagues and I were able to discover the six statistically sig-
nificant soft skills that are being asked for by employers. Under the “ability
to act effectively with others” heading, we found effective communication,
effective teamwork, and a positive customer-service orientation. Under the
“ability to act effectively on your own” heading, we found a positive prob-
lem-solving orientation, effective productivity and work ethic, and likability
to be statistically significant.
What’s left to do is to investigate the words, phrases, gestures, and actions
that best elicit a performance or modeling of effective soft skills. Therefore,
in Parts 2 and 3, one chapter is devoted to each of the six soft skills men-
tioned earlier. In each of these chapters, the skill is defined and explained
and current research into its deployment is summarized. Then, a realistic
case study is offered in which this skill is clearly being used ineffectively.
Reminding yourself of the concepts learned from your Part 1 immersion in
ethics, psychology, and interpersonal communication, you’ll work toward
an analytical solution to each case that both identifies the poor soft skills
behaviors but also explains why these are poor behaviors. Then, you’ll be
asked to demonstrate an improved performance of the soft skill in question,
using language, gestures, and actions. You’ll do so by scripting the improve-
ments and ideally, by role-playing/modeling them in person or by filming
yourself. Each of these six soft skills chapters ends with a short checklist of
actions that can be taken to elicit these soft skills in the real world. Along the
way, practical activities are provided to help you become an expert modeler
of the top six soft skills.
In the Conclusion I look at a community college that decided a number
of years ago to develop a mandatory soft skills course for all students at the
undergraduate level in its Business school. Through a conscious choice of
active-learning pedagogy grounded in realistic case study analysis twinned
with scripting, role-playing, and modeling of improved soft skills, the instruc-
tors in this course have come up with a successful model that research has
now shown is effective in delivering soft skills results. Students report high
intention to use soft skills in the workplace, and employers of these students
(the ones who’ve been on a work term placement) agree that the students are
demonstrating high levels of soft skills effectiveness – higher, in fact, than
similar placement students from other institutions who have not taken the
course.
SUMMARY
In this chapter you learned that:
• The definition of soft skills is multifaceted, meaning there’s not one sim-
ple way of explaining the concept. Still, most people would agree that
soft skills are those that help you deal with others and manage yourself
and your emotions in the way your workplace requires. They involve a
“mastered performance” in various contexts including customer inter-
actions and colleague interactions.
• Another lens through which to look at soft skills is to see them as exten-
sions of positive personality traits or habits you are already practicing.
And yet another lens through which to see soft skills is as the latest in
a long historical line of “moral reform” movements, in which part of
society attempts to reform another part of society by changing/improv-
ing what it sees as a problematic social behavior (e.g., drinking alcohol,
overcrowded jails, etc.).
• Employers have tended to see a “soft skills gap” among young or new
employees – in other words, a lack of inter- and intrapersonal skills.
Academic researchers on the other hand have tended to concentrate on
definitions of soft skills, pedagogies for teaching soft skills, and iden-
tifying precisely what soft skills are required in various professions. A
minority academic view is that there is no soft skills gap and instead it’s
employers who need to properly train their employees to demonstrate
required soft skills behaviors.
REFERENCES
Anthony, S., & Garner, B. (2016) Teaching Soft Skills to Business Students. Business &
Professional Communication Quarterly, 79.3, 360–370.
The Auckland Plan 2050: The Importance of Soft Skills (2018) www.aucklandcouncil.govt.
nz/plans-projects-policies-reports-bylaws/our-plans-strategies/auckland-plan/
opportunities-prosperity/Pages/importance-soft-skills.aspx
Balkin, J. M. (1987) Deconstructive Practice and Legal Theory. The Yale Law Journal, 96.
https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7061&context=ylj
Ballingall, A. (2017) A Majority of Torontonians Now Identify Themselves as Visible
Minorities. Toronto Star. www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/10/25/a-majority-of-
torontonians-now-identify-themselves-as-visible-minorities-census-shows.html
Beheshti, N. (2018) The Clash of the Baby Boomers and Millenials. Forbes. www.
forbes.com/sites/nazbeheshti/2018/11/29/the-clash-of-the-baby-boomers-and-
millennials-how-can-we-all-get-along/#64a24f81f9e2
Brett, N. (2018) Future Graduates Will Need Creativity and Empathy: Not Just
Technical Skills. The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/education/2018/dec/20/
future-graduates-will-need-creativity-and-empathy-not-just-technical-skills
Bridging the Soft Skills Gap (2017) www.uschamberfoundation.org/reports/soft-skills-gap
Brown, L. S. (2018) Soft Skill Development in the Higher Education Curriculum: A
Case Study. IUP Journal of Soft Skills, 12.4, 7–29.
Cabantous, L., Gond, J., & Wright, A. (2018) The Performativity of Strategy: Taking
Stock and Moving Ahead. Long Range Planning, 51.3.
Carvalho, M. M. de, & Rabechini, Jr., R. (2015) Impact of Risk Management on Proj-
ect Performance: The Importance of Soft Skills. International Journal of Production
Research, 53.2, 321–340.
Cimatti, B. (2016) Definition, Development, Assessment of Soft Skills and Their Role
for the Quality of Organizations and Enterprises. International Journal for Quality
Research, 10.1, 97.
Corrigan, P. (1981) On Moral Regulation: Some Preliminary Remarks. The Sociological
Review, 29.2, 313–337.
Cotton, B. (2019) Millenials Cause Generational Conf lict in the Workplace. Business
Leader. www.businessleader.co.uk/millennials-cause-generational-conf lict-in-the-
workplace/60389/
Dawar, A. (2013) White Britons Are Now a Minority in 4 Towns and Cities. The
Daily Express. www.express.co.uk/news/uk/370013/White-Britons-are-now-a-
minority-in-4-towns-and-cities
Ferdows, K. (2020) Five Myths about Manufacturing. The Washington Post. www.
washingtonpost.com/outlook/f ive-myths/f ive-myths-about-manufacturing/
2020/08/28/ba8199a8-e7da-11ea-970a-64c73a1c2392_story.html
Global Research and Development Expenditures (2020) Congressional Research Service.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44283.pdf
Gond, J., & Cabantous, L. (2016) Performativity: Towards a Performative Turn in
Organizational Studies. In R. Mir et al. (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy
in Organization Studies. New York: Routledge.
Hurrell, S. A. (2016) Rethinking the Soft Skills Deficit Blame Game: Employers, Skills
Withdrawal and the Reporting of Soft Skills Gaps. Human Relations, 69.3, 605–628.
Hurrell, S. A., Scholarios, D., & Thompson, P. (2013) More Than a “Humpty Dumpty”
Term: Strengthening the Conceptualization of Soft Skills. Economic and Industrial
Democracy, 34.1, 161–182.
Jackson, A. (2018) Reports of Rapid Tech Change Causing the Demise of
Traditional Employment Are Greatly Exaggerated. The Globe and Mail. www.
theglobeandmail.com/business/commentar y/article-reports-of-rapid-tech-
change-causing-the-demise-of-traditional/
Kau, A. (2001) Deconstruction and Science. http://sites.science.oregonstate.edu/~stetza/
ph407H/Deconstruction.pdf
King, E. et al. (2019) Generational Differences at Work Are Small: Thinking They’re Big
Affects Our Behavior. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/08/generational-
differences-at-work-are-small-thinking-theyre-big-affects-our-behavior
King, K. (2019) Wanted: Employees Who Can Shake Hands, Make Small Talk. Wall
Street Journal. www.wsj.com/articles/wanted-experts-at-soft-skills-1544360400
Landine, J. (2018) Soft Skills Summary Report. An Appendix to Building a Pan-Canadian
Soft Skills Framework. Truro, NS: Futureworx, 21–30. https://futureworx.ca/wp-
content/uploads/2019/01/Soft-Skills-Framework-Report.pdf
Le, K., Donellan, M. B., & Conger, R. (2014) Personality Development at Work:
Workplace Conditions, Personality Changes, and the Corresponsive Principle. Jour-
nal of Personality, 82.1.
Lee, N. E. (2018) Skills for the 21st Century: A Meta-Synthesis of Soft Skills and
Achievement. Canadian Journal of Career Development, 17.2, 73–86. http://cjcdonline.
ca/download/skills-21st-century-meta-synthesis-soft-skills-achievement/
Lister, J. (2019) Corporate Canada Is Facing a Soft-Skills Deficit. The Globe and Mail.
www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/leadership/article-corporate-canada-
is-facing-a-soft-skills-deficit-what-can-we-do/
Martin, T. N. (2019) Review of Student Soft Skills Development Using the 5Ws/H
Approach Resulting in a Realistic, Experiential, Applied, Active Learning and
Teaching Pedagogical Classroom. Journal of Behavioral & Applied Management, 19.1,
41–57.
Matteson, M. L., Anderson, L., & Boyden, C. (2016) “Soft Skills”: A Phrase in Search
of Meaning. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 16.1, 71–88.
The Most Sought after Soft Skills by Canadian Employers (2014) Workopolis.com. https://
careers.workopolis.com/advice/the-most-sought-after-soft-skills-by-canadian-
employers/
Partington, R. (2019) Things Are Changing So Fast. The Guardian. www.theguardian.
com/technology/2019/jun/30/changing-fast-benefits-dangers-robots-uk-workplace
Porter, E. (2019) Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two. The New York Times. www.
nytimes.com/2019/02/04/business/economy/productivity-inequality-wages.html
Poston, Jr., D. L., & Saenz, R. (2017) U.S. Whites Will Soon Be the Minority in
Number, But Not Power. The Baltimore Sun. www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/
op-ed/bs-ed-op-0809-minority-majority-20170808-story.html
Ravindranath, S. (2016) Soft Skills in Project Management: A Review. IUP Journal of
Soft Skills, 10.4, 16–25.
Soft Skills for Business Success: Building Australia’s Future Workforce (2017) https://www2.
deloitte.com/au/en/pages/economics/articles/soft-skills-business-success.html
Thomassen, L. (2010) Deconstruction as Method in Political Theory. Austrian Jour-
nal of Political Science, 39.1. https://webapp.uibk.ac.at/ojs/index.php/OEZP/article/
viewFile/1369/1063
Thompson, S. (2019) The Power of Pragmatism: How Project Managers Benefit from
Coaching Practice through Developing Soft Skills and Self-Confidence. Interna-
tional Journal of Evidence Based Coaching & Mentoring, S13.
Touloumakos, A. (2020) Expanded Yet Restricted: A Mini Review of the Soft Skills
Literature. Frontiers in Psychology, 11.
The Value of Soft Skills to the UK Economy (2017) https://pacelearning.com/wp-content/
uploads/2017/10/The-Value-of-Soft-Skills-to-the-UK-Economy.pdf
Valverde, M., & Weir, L. (2006) The Struggles of the Immoral: Preliminary Remarks
on Moral Regulation. In A. Glasbeek (Ed.), Moral Regulation and Governance in Can-
ada. Toronto: Canadian Scholars.
Wilcox, B. (2015) Deconstructive Literary Criticism. Medium. https://medium.com/@

brettwilcox/deconstructive-literary-criticism-e2fcf9b2e848
Wills, M. (2018) The First Moral Panic: London, 1744. Jstor Daily. https://daily.jstor.
org/the-first-moral-panic-london-1744/
Wood, M., & Hughes, M. (1984) The Moral Basis of Moral Reform: Status Discontent
vs. Culture and Socialization as Explanations of Anti-Pornography Social Movement
Adherence. American Sociological Review, 49.1.
Zamudio, M. M., & Lichter, M. I. (2008) Bad Attitudes and Good Soldiers: Soft Skills
as a Code for Tractability in the Hiring of Immigrant Latina/os over Native Blacks
in the Hotel Industry. Social Problems, 55.4.
PART 1
The Background to Soft Skills

2
ETHICS
To understand soft skills and how they should be practiced in the real world,
it helps to be acquainted with the philosophical topic of ethics. The Cambridge
Dictionary of Philosophy defines ethics as the philosophical study of morality,
with morality being a system of behavior that affects others and that has the
lessening of harm as its goal (Audi, ed. 2009). To simplify, ethics is the idea
that we should manage our behavior as it affects others in order to lessen harm.

• A definition of ethics and how to explain the main normative theories of

ethics
• Some of the main reasons why we don’t always act ethically
• How ethics is applied in real-world situations, such as business, health,
and the environment
DEFINING ETHICS
Another philosopher is more dramatic in defining ethics. He writes that ethics is
the sum total of those things that an individual imposes on himself or

denies himself, not primarily to further his own welfare or happiness . . .
but in consideration of the interests or the rights of others, in order to avoid
being a villain, in order to stay true to a certain conception of humanity
DOI: 10.4324/9781003212942-3
22 The Background to Soft Skills
and of himself. Ethics is the answer to the question: “What should I do”?
It is the sum of my duties . . . which I believe to be legitimate – even if
from time to time, as everyone does, I break them. It is the law which I
impose – or which I should impose – upon myself; independently of the
judgment of others and of any expectation of reward.
(Comte-Sponville 2004)
You may already be forming a counterargument to this more lively defini-

tion of ethics. For example, you might be saying, “Wait, isn’t my life about
making myself happier? I’m less interested in thinking about others’ needs and
concerns”. We’ll be coming back to this counterargument because it makes
plain the central tension behind the concept of soft skills: in the workplace do
we think of ourselves, or do we think of others? Keeping with this definition
of ethics, you may also be wondering, what’s the difference between ethics and
morals? Comte-Sponville is very clear on the distinction. He writes:
“What should I do?” and not “What should others do?” This is what
distinguishes ethics from moralizing. Ethics . . . is never for one’s
neighbor: someone who is preoccupied by his neighbor’s duties is not
moral but a moralizer. . . . Ethics is legitimate only in the first person
singular. . . [it] is valid only for oneself; duty applies only to oneself.
In the end, Comte-Sponville says if you want to know whether or not you
should act ethically in any given situation, universalize it. For example, what
if everyone lied, if everyone stole, if everyone was rude? Chances are you
wouldn’t want a world full of people like this; therefore how can you exempt
yourself from what you wish for?
Normative Theories of Ethics

Philosophers have offered four main theories of ethics over the years: duty-
based ethics, consequentialist ethics, social contract ethics, and virtue ethics.
Each of these theories is normative in the sense that it attempts to describe what
ought to be or what should be – in other words, each theory describes a perfect
world. These theories are less interested in the situation on the ground: how
people actually act when confronted with ethical questions. For a discussion of
the pros and cons of teaching ethics to students using a normative vs. a behav-
ioral approach, see de los Reyes et al. (2017). In this book, I will try to do both.
Before the secularizing age of Enlightenment in late 18th-century Europe,
what was considered correct behavior for humans in respect to other humans
was generally decided by religions. Codes of behavior came from Gods and
various holy scriptures, as interpreted by priests. The Enlightenment, which
advocated reason as a way of living life over religious belief (i.e., trust what you
Ethics 23
can see is true in the natural world), changed this and ethics started to become
secularized. Secular is the adjective given to all the things in life that are not
about religion or controlled by religion. So, for example, with the exception
of religiously run private schools, education is a secular concern in our society
(Coulter 2012; Newman 2011; Warburton 2013).
Duty-Based Ethics : Sometimes known as deontological ethics, this theory
says that your ethical duties or obligations should determine the correct action in
every circumstance, regardless of the consequences. The duty-based view of ethics
is that we must do something because it is the right thing to do, no matter what
happens because of our actions. For example, if a good friend comes over and is
wearing a new outfit and asks you what you think of it, according to duty-based
ethics, if you don’t think it’s attractive, you should say so, because telling the truth
is one type of universal behavior you want everyone to always practice.
The duty-based theory of ethics originates in the late 18th-century work
of German philosopher Immanuel Kant. In one of his published treatises, he
explained his reasoning. According to Kant, the motive of any human action
is far more important than the action itself or its consequences. He says that to
know whether or not you are acting ethically, you have to know your inten-
tion. If I offer a visibly pregnant woman on the subway my seat, am I doing this
because I have compassion, because it’ll make me feel better, or because I have
a sense of duty to do so?
Kant says the only appropriate motive for offering my seat is the third one –
that I have a built-in sense of duty to do so. The reason Kant focuses on motives
(which he calls maxims) is that he believes all people can be ethical. This is
because we can only be held responsible for things we can control. I can control
my motives for an action (why I do it) but I can never completely control the
consequences of my actions (what happens after I do it); therefore, consequences
can’t be important to ethics. For example, I don’t really know how the pregnant
woman on the subway or those around her will react to my offering her a seat, so
these consequences should have nothing to do with my ethical decision to offer
her my seat out of a sense of duty.
Kant goes on to say that as rational human beings we have certain categori-
cal duties, meaning absolute and unconditional, such as to always tell the truth,
not to kill others, etc. Kantian ethics is a system of commands to act in certain
ways. He distinguishes categorical duties from hypothetical ones that describe
things that we personally want because they are self-interested (e.g., if I want a
good job, I should go to college or university). Categorical motives are about
other people. The two basic categorical imperatives are Kant’s formula “Act
only on motives you can at the same time rationally want to be universal laws”.
In other words, like Comte-Sponville said earlier, act for reasons you would
want everybody to act on (i.e., I want everyone to tell the truth, so I tell the
truth, etc.). And second, “Treat other people as ends in themselves, never as
a means to an end”. In other words, don’t interact with others for what they
can personally offer you, but recognize their humanity and interact with them
without any hope of gain (i.e., don’t be a “user”).
Kantian duty-based ethics is admirable because it asks us to consider the
interests of others when making ethical decisions. Still, Kant has been criti-
cized for a number of reasons. First, duty-based ethics is so absolute and uni-
versal that it never allows for context or emotion or any other variable to play
a role in decision making. Second, duty-based ethics isn’t helpful when there
are conf licting duties. For example, if I have a duty to always tell the truth and
to not harm those around me, Kant’s theory doesn’t help me when these duties
conf lict, as in the horrible theoretical situation of someone carrying a gun ask-
ing me where my colleagues are hiding. Obviously my instinct is to tell him a
lie, because telling him the truth would go against my duty to ensure no harm
comes to my colleagues. But, having told a lie, according to Kant, I’ve acted
unethically. Finally, duty-based ethics pays no attention to the consequences of
actions. For example, someone well-intentioned who unintentionally causes
many people to lose a lot of money could be seen as ethically blameless from
Kant’s point of view. This is because the well-intentioned person is judged on
his intentions, which were ethical (i.e., help make these people lots of money).
It’s probably for this reason that the second theory of normative ethics was
invented (Coulter 2012; Newman 2011; Warburton 2013).
Consequentialist Ethics : This theory is in some ways the opposite of duty-
based theory. This is because consequentialist theories judge whether an action
is right or wrong based not on the motives of the person performing the action
but on the consequences the action has. For example, going back to the earlier
example about lying to a friend about her outfit, a consequentialist would judge
the lie-telling on the results it had – if it made your friend happy, then your
action was ethical.
The best-known consequentialist ethical system was developed by the
English philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill in the 19th cen-
tury. They called it Utilitarianism. According to Bentham, pain and pleasure
govern human life, and these factors should be the basis of a theory of ethics.
Therefore, he argued that ethical acts are those that maximize pleasure and
minimize pain for everyone. Mill tried to rescue Bentham from the obvious
criticism that it’s absurd that ethics should be all about enjoying ourselves. Mill
changed the definition of happiness (the goal of ethical behavior) so that it was
more about the quality of the pleasure, not just about generating a larger quan-
tity of self-gratification. For Mill, good reasons to seek pleasure include the
appreciation of art, for example, as well as the more common reasons including
seeking pleasure because it feels good.
For a utilitarian, the right action in any circumstance can be calculated
by examining the consequences of the various possible courses of action. To
simplify, whichever is most likely to bring about the most happiness is the
right action in those circumstances. Clearly, because it deals in probable
Ethics 25
consequences, it’s sometimes difficult if not impossible to predict the precise

results of any particular action. For example, if I insult someone, it’s reasonable
to think they’ll be unhappy, but what about the rare situation where the person
I’ve insulted derives pleasure from being insulted? Two other aspects of con-
sequentialist theory are that the focus of our actions should be on deriving the
greatest amount of well-being for the greatest number of people (maximalism)
and that everyone’s happiness should be considered; yours doesn’t count for
more than those of others (universalism). While consequentialism sounds very
straightforward and attractive, it has been criticized on a number of grounds.
First, there’s the issue of measurement. How can we be certain about how much
happiness is being produced by ethical decisions? Similarly, how can we be
certain about what the actual effects of any particular action are? For example,
if a parent rationalizes hitting a child when he misbehaves as an ethical action
because the effect will be a more disciplined, well-functioning adult, can this
easily be weighed against the short-term effect of pain on the child, as well
as hard-to-gauge long-term effects on the child’s emotional development and
even maybe effects on the child’s own children?
Another important criticism of consequentialism is its universalizing aspect.
The theory allows for the possibility of harming one, or a small number, of
individuals as long as net good is achieved for the majority. How is it ethical to
say that some people will get hurt, but more will not be hurt, and that’s ethi-
cal? Finally, consequentialism can be critiqued because taken to its extreme, it
might be used to justify any action as long as the outcome is acceptable. For
example, if using a lot of fertilizer means farmers can grow bigger crops, that
sounds great because we all win: prices are lower for food and farmers are paid
more because they’ve grown more. But what about the polluted water runoff
from all the overfertilized farms? Doesn’t poisoning of our lakes, rivers, and
oceans have to be factored into the ethics of this situation (Coulter 2012; New-
man 2011; Warburton 2013)?
Social Contract Ethics : Sometimes called contractarianism, the third theory
of normative ethics was developed in the 1970s by American philosopher John
Rawls, who based his work on that of earlier Enlightenment philosophers like
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes. Social contract explains the ori-
gin and content of ethical norms using the metaphor of the contract or mutual
agreement. The theory says that the best basis for ethical behavior comes from
the fact that we live among other humans, and therefore, there exists a natural
incentive for people to establish ways of being that include basic respect and
rules for living; otherwise, we’d be fighting and disagreeing all the time. This
metaphorical agreement is referred to as a social contract, and it’s argued that
all rational humans would enter in it.
The social contract theory assumes that humans naturally have the same
needs (for food, shelter, etc.) and that because there’s a scarcity in supply of these
needs, those who are stronger or better organized will naturally take more than
they need, thus leaving others without. In addition, contractarianism argues

that humans have limited altruistic capacity – that is, the ability to put others’
needs in front of their own – and for this reason, we can’t all rely on the kind-
ness of other people who have more than we do to share with us.
Social contract theory therefore argues that we have moved from this state of
nature (where scarcity and lack of altruism reigns) by agreeing to live with a set
of rules that “govern how people treat one another . . . for our mutual benefit,
on the condition that others follow those rules as well”. In other words, social
contract theory says I act ethically toward my fellow humans because the only
thing keeping us from sliding back into an uncivilized, natural state of being
are these unwritten rules about how I should act in society.
While this theory offers an eloquent and easy-to-understand rationale for
ethics (i.e., I act ethically so others will act ethically toward me), it’s been
criticized on a couple of grounds. First, the contract is a metaphor. There is no
actual contract that humans enter into at some point in history, nor are humans
born today ever asked to enter into a social contract. It’s just a theoretical con-
cept that is used to explain the way we live our life. Second, social contract the-
ory overlooks the fact that at various times in human history including today,
not all humans, whether they’re rational or not, have the ability to enter into
such a contract, perhaps because they are enslaved, or perhaps because they are
women and not allowed to make important decisions for themselves, or perhaps
because they are animals at the mercy of human beings. There’s also, of course,
the criticism that some people aren’t rational and would rather do anything
than enter into a contract that recognizes the rights/needs of others as having
the same value as their own (Coulter 2012; Newman 2011; Warburton 2013).
Virtue Ethics : The final normative ethical theory is actually the oldest of
the four. Its origins can be found in ancient Greek society over 2,000 years ago,
although it’s also been revived more recently. Virtue-based ethics says that we
should analyze good actions in terms of the virtues from which they spring,
not from the consequences that occur because of the action, and not from the
motives of the person acting in the situation. In contrast to social contract
theory, virtue ethics looks at the overall ethical traits of the agent of the action,
not anything that happens after an action has taken place. In contrast to duty
ethics, virtue ethics takes a more rounded view of the ethical actor, looking not
just at his or her motives but at his or her character.
When Aristotle, the Greek philosopher who came up with this concept,
was writing, virtue didn’t have the connotation it developed in the 19th cen-
tury, that is, virtuous people as being prim and proper. Instead, in Aristotle’s
time virtue simply meant “character traits” or “types of behavior”. Virtue ethi-
cists believe that ethically good actions with good consequences only happen
because they come from a person who has cultivated virtue in his or her life;
and therefore, the cultivation of virtue over a long period of time results in a
propensity to do the right thing
Ethics 27
In other words, Aristotle is saying that we learn by doing, and so the best
way to become good is to do good. Interestingly, half-way around the world, at
roughly the same time (500 bc), the Chinese philosopher Confucius developed
a similar philosophy, known as Ren. Both Confucius and Aristotle see the
careful cultivation and experience of learning virtue as a gradual process. The
central insight of virtue ethics as designed by Aristotle is that all good choices
have one thing in common: they include a decision to act between extremes.
For example, instead of being stingy all the time, or overly wasteful all the
time, an ethical person is somewhere in the middle, or appropriately generous.
Similarly, between being too shy to act and being so arrogant you always have
to act first is the virtuous position of being humble – acting, but not necessarily
drawing attention to yourself when you do so.
There’s a lot to like about virtue ethics, especially its emphasis about learning
what is good about ethical actions. It’s not all about obedience to ethical rules,
such as in duty-based theory. Also, it’s not just about whether something good
comes of the action, as in consequentialist ethics – we also need to think about
the agent of the action. However, virtue ethics can be criticized for one very
good reason: it doesn’t explain all situations. For example, let’s think brief ly of
a serious crime like sexual assault or rape. Consequentialism can at least say that
what makes this action wrong is that it harms another person. Virtue ethics, on
FIGURE 2.1 Aristotle and Confucius argued that wanting to do good for others is
one aspect of an ethics of virtue or “Ren”
Credit: FG Trade/Getty Images
the other hand, can only say that rape and sexual assault are wrong because a
virtuous person would not do it. This seems backward to most people (Coulter
2012; Newman 2011; Warburton 2013).
Obstacles to Acting Ethically

Although you now have a basic theoretical understanding of and rationale for
acting ethically, it’s often challenging to do so in the real world, for a variety of
reasons. Philosophers and psychologists that study the gap between our ethical
theories/intentions and our ethical actions/behaviors have identified numerous
obstacles to acting ethically in the real world. Simon Blackburn’s book Being
Good (2001) is particularly useful in summarizing the main obstacles we face.
Egoism : A common challenge to acting ethically is our own well-developed
ego that creates selfishness. Egoism is the idea that it’s justified, and even per-
haps preferable, that we prioritize our own concerns over those of other people.
Despite the strength of egoism, there are two ways of recognizing that it’s not
the only aspect of our psychological make-up. First, numerous examples exist
in the world of regular people who partially or wholly sacrifice their own inter-
ests for others. For example, nurses and teachers spend much of their time tend-
ing to strangers’ needs. Second, common-sense arguments exist against being
an egoist. For example, if we were always only self-interested, we’d never be
able to solve problems and situations with competing interests and that would
lead to paralysis in the world. As well, egoism is a sort of delusion that lets you
think you’re better or more important than everyone else, which is a harmful
way of going through life. Finally, egoism is fundamentally unethical because
by saying that people should only think of their own interests, it devalues and
ignores the reality that people have always had to live together in society, with
at least a base level of interest in others’ well-being.
Relativism : Another challenge to ethical behavior is the idea that different
individuals or groups may hold different ideas about ethical behavior, so we
don’t have to enforce one standard type of ethical behavior. Relativism has
negative and positive aspects. On the negative side, there can be people who
believe they don’t need to follow a society’s norms. Murders known as honor
killings have happened in Western countries that have been excused by some
because such behavior is supposedly an accepted part of the culture in certain
Islamic countries. Another example: certain far-right conservatives in Western
countries deny the norm that all citizens have equal voting rights. A positive
aspect is that relativism allows us to have diverse, multicultural societies where
more than one point of view and way of living is generally accepted.
There is a way out of the binary of total relativism (every individual’s/group’s
beliefs are more important than any universal belief ) and total universalism (only
one way of doing things is the right way of doing things). The solution is to rec-
ognize that there are transcultural norms or standards. Transcultural norms or
Ethics 29
standards exist around the world. For example, while we drive on the right side of
the road in many places, and on the left side in other places, everyone recognizes
the need for rules of the road, a type of transcultural norm. The existence of such
transcultural norms and standards proves that universal standards do exist among
human cultures. And when it comes to our behavior with each other, most people,
no matter where they are, would agree that there are norms against harming oth-
ers, mutual respect for others, and telling the truth among others.
Futility : Another obstacle that can challenge us when we decide whether
to act ethically comes from biology, and this is the idea known as determin-
ism. Determinism means that since everything important about us is predeter-
mined, that is, programmed in our genes at birth, there’s no point in worrying
about others around us. What will be will be. Determinism argues that humans
are preprogrammed in certain ways. For example, it’s futile to try to control
sexual desire, especially in young adults. Nature makes them feel sexual desire
on a regular basis, and no rule is going to change that.
The mistake, a philosopher would say, is to then extrapolate that all rules are
similarly futile. All rules are not futile, because even though our genes do program
us to a certain degree (e.g., our hair grows whether or not we want it to), we are
also open to what a biologist would call “input-responsiveness”. Input responsive-
ness is our ability to vary our behavior in response to what we hear, feel, touch,
or see – otherwise, why have these senses? Similarly, we can vary our desires
according to what we’ve learned (e.g., if I learn that a glass is full of sulfuric acid,
my desire to drink it, even though it looks thirst-quenching, is lost). And, we can
and do vary our desires based on what we’ve learned from other people and their
attitudes. We are responsive to the ethical climate around us. A child who grows
up in a moral household will likely turn into a moral person.
Unreasonableness : An obstacle when deciding whether or not to act ethi-
cally is that it’s unreasonable: it’s impractical in certain situations, it’s too much
work, and it’s too demanding. For example, in large cities there can be numer-
ous people asking for change on the streets, and it may seem unreasonable to
give every one of them change every day when you walk past them to work.
We’ve all felt this challenge to acting ethically. You may have said to yourself:
“If I have to think about other people’s needs all day (1) I won’t get anything
done and (2) what about my needs?” Philosophers argue that one way around
the idea that ethics is unreasonable is to limit ethics to the kinds of things we
can reasonably demand of each other on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
Some religions make this part of their practice, for example, giving a small
percentage of income on a regular basis for charitable use.
A related form of unreasonableness is when you start thinking that you don’t
need to give out any change because most of the other people you see walking
down the street don’t stop to give money. Philosophers argue this isn’t really an
excuse, because in the areas of our life that we can each control (e.g., how we act
towards others), we should not use the excuse that other people are unethical to act
unethically ourselves. Another way of putting this is to recognize that your ability
to do something is within your reach, and you may just want to do it that day.
Method of Control : A serious obstacle when deciding whether or not to act
ethically is that doing so may actually be perpetuating a system that doesn’t
have your interests at heart. For example, a woman may find a man’s holding
a door open for her offensive instead of polite or helpful. She probably doesn’t
believe he intended to be offensive; however, if she’s a feminist she could argue
that the man’s behavior is part of a system that perpetuates the idea that women
are weaker than men and in need of male protection. In other words, a skepti-
cal objection to ethics is that the function of ethics may be other than it seems:
less about helping other people and considering their interests, and more about
controlling them or shaping them in ways that are useful for certain powerful
groups or systems such as patriarchy, class, or religion.
A philosopher’s response to this obstacle is that while it’s true at certain
times and places in history that some ethical rules may have been designed to
serve some group’s power base, overall, humans can’t live without standards of
behavior. Therefore, ethics isn’t an impersonal “system” with hidden purposes
that need to be unmasked. Instead, in its everyday f lavor – gratitude to those
who have done us good, sympathy with those in pain or in trouble, dislike of
those who cause pain and trouble – these things are natural to most of us, and
they are encouraged by ethics. There’s nothing to unmask because these are
simply features of how most of us are and how all of us are at our best.
REAL WORLD EXAMPLE

Paul works for a social-services nonprofit organization. He’s the manager of
the paid and volunteer drivers who drive clients (many of whom are senior
citizens) to various medical and other appointments around the city. He
recently found out that one of his longest-serving drivers, Dilip, has been
photographed spending significant amounts of time at various donut and
coffee shops. Dilip’s behavior has meant that numerous clients have had
to wait longer than expected, and have been late for their appointments.
How would you explain Dilip’s behavior in terms of normative ethics and
obstacles to acting ethically? What should Paul do about Dilip’s behavior?
Secularism : A final obstacle to challenge us when we’re deciding whether or

not to act ethically is the secular nature of our society. As we’ve seen, since
the Enlightenment period in Europe, the Western world has steadily secular-
ized, meaning that while religion still exists, it isn’t the center of our lives
for most of us. Instead, it’s separate from the central organizations of society,
including justice, politics, and education. The fact that faith or church is no
Ethics 31
longer central in our lives may mean we don’t necessarily see the ethical rules
that stem from religious traditions as valid. As well, in recent decades there’s
been a fair amount of anger against established religions such as Christian-
ity that have shown themselves to be hypocritical: expecting certain behav-
iors from followers, while indulging in very different behaviors themselves.
Finally, secularism takes away the “leverage” many religions have used over
the years to ensure their ethical rules are followed, that is, fear of eternal
punishment/damnation/not getting to heaven. Philosophers like Kant would
argue that we should ideally act out of respect for an ethical rule, not fear of
what happens if we don’t.
We may be able to reconcile our secularism with religious-based ethics if we
see religion not necessarily as the origin of ethics but as its symbolic expression.
Human standards of ethical behavior, which have been around for thousands of
years, get “draped . . . with stories of divine origin as a way of asserting their
authority” (Blackburn 2001). Our inherited ethical rules against murder, for
example, are more effectively transmitted through history because we have
dramatic narratives in which Gods show their displeasure about murder (e.g.,
Cain and Abel from the Bible, Medea from ancient Greek tragedy), and this
gives these rules even more authority. If religion is a projection of already-
existing standards of behavior, then secularism is not a threat to ethics. Instead,
it’s an unmasking that brings us full circle to show how humans are actually the
source of their own rules of ethical behavior.
Applied Ethics
So far you’ve learned about normative ethical theories: the four main action-
guides for how to decide what to do when ethical issues come up. We’ve also
looked at obstacles to acting ethically: why don’t we act the right way all the
time. Applied ethics is “the application of normative methods to core issues in
science and technology ethics, business or organizational ethics, animal wel-
fare, health, the environment, and research ethics” (“Mission”). Essentially,
applied ethics is how we use the normative ethical theories we’ve learned about
in daily and professional life. Whereas ethics used to be seen strictly as the ter-
ritory of philosophers or religious leaders or parents, over the past 40 years or
so, we’ve evolved to a state in which various aspects of our lives, both personal
and professional, now have an ethical component
The move toward applied ethics really began in the domain of medicine. New
medical technologies were allowing doctors to keep people alive who were ter-
minally ill, and according to doctors, no longer physically alive. Patients’ rights
groups and families began to ask whether it was ethical to do so. Soon enough,
philosophers began to be engaged in the debate, and the field of applied ethics was
created (Cavalier). The balance of this chapter will introduce you brief ly to the
main areas of applied ethics: organizational/business ethics, health/biomedical
ethics, and environmental/animal ethics. It will also offer a practical five-step

guide to how to make ethical decisions in any of the areas discussed today.
Business and Organizational Ethics : Businesses and organizations exist to
further the owner’s/owners’ self-interest, namely, the earning of profits or in
the case of nonprofit organizations, the meeting of certain targets unrelated to
profit. This situation is sometimes good for many people, including the owner,
her employees, and her customers, who may all benefit from the existence of
the business. However, while these different interests ideally come together
harmoniously, there are times when they do not. This is why we need business
and organizational ethics: guidelines to ensure that while earning profits/meet-
ing other targets, nonethical things don’t happen to people.
Three entities work together in any business: the corporation, its employees,
and the consumers who are its customers. When things are working ethically,
each of the entities benefits from the arrangement; for example, consumers get
the products/services they want at the right price, corporations make a profit,
and employees make an appropriate wage. Any time this arrangement is abused
so that one party benefits while another is harmed or doesn’t benefit, we have
a conf lict of interest, which is the main reason we need to apply ethical rules in
business (Newman 2011).
Here are some examples: a company puts a label on a food product that
designates it a “healthy” or “all-natural” product, even if it’s not really that
healthy. A consumer could read the label, think it actually describes the food’s
healthfulness, and assume things about the ingredients that are actually false.
Here the mutually beneficial arrangement has been broken, because one party
is not getting what it expects to get, that is, the healthy products it wants.
On the other hand, sometimes it is consumers who break the arrangement by
putting their interests ahead of the corporation. For example, there’s the case
of theft. Theft is when consumers get what they want without paying for it,
thereby upsetting the corporation’s natural expectation in the business arrange-
ment that it will be paid for its goods or services.
We’re also familiar with examples of the corporation’s interest and the
employee’s interest being at odds. For example, the corporation needs its
employees to perform their roles, and yet for various reasons, employees some-
times feel like they should not perform those roles, but instead update Face-
book, take excessive numbers of breaks, leave early, etc. On the other hand, the
corporation may break the arrangement that says employees work a set number
of hours by giving employees mobile devices and then expecting them to work
in the evening and on weekends simply because the ability to do so exists.
Finally, employees and consumers also have ethical obligations to each other
if business is to run optimally. For example, a salesperson who is tempted to
make a false sales pitch is acting unethically. A classic unethical sales pitch is
the “bait and switch” ploy. Here, the salesperson advertises or promises a great
deal to the customer, but once the customer expresses interest, the salesperson
Ethics 33
instead tries to sell the customer something more profitable to the company.
On the other hand, customers are not always ethical with employees either. For
example, understanding that customer service is important in a competitive
environment, customers may try to unethically get an extremely good deal by
negotiating hard with customer service representatives at a phone company,
or else threatening to take their business elsewhere. This is slightly unethical
because it puts a lot of pressure on an employee who probably doesn’t have the
seniority to deal with these sorts of demands.
In the previous examples, we identify with employees and customers because
they’re people. But what about corporations? How do we get our minds around a
corporation’s need to be ethical? The method that’s been developed, both in legal
terms and ethical terms, is to consider corporations as if they were people. In this
way, it’s easier to understand that a corporation has ethical responsibilities.
One diehard capitalist argument is that the only ethical responsibility a
corporation has is to make profit for its shareholders. A more recent argument is
that corporations also have social responsibilities to the communities in which
they exist and earn their profit. For example, besides making money, a company
needs to be accountable to the environment: its physical presence and its use of
resources, as well as to the community around it. Usually this latter responsibil-
ity means that corporations see the need to support charities or artistic endeavors
as a way of showing that they are “good corporate citizens”. The argument goes
that being a socially responsible corporation actually drives profits back to the
corporation, because consumers like buying from ethical companies.
Health and Biomedical Ethics : Medicine and technology exist to make our
lives better, but most of us can think of situations in which factors other than
helping or improving are part of medicine, such as profit, technological ability,
etc. The relationship between the provider of health care (e.g., nurse, doctor,
therapist) and the person receiving this care (i.e., patient) is one of the most
ethically fraught, which is why both doctors and nurses have to take ethics
courses as part of their education.
Historically, doctors engaged in a paternalistic model of healthcare, in which
because they were the experts, and acted as though they alone were qualified to
make decisions on patients’ behalf. And patients went along with it for the most
part. Clearly this led to problems because the patient’s own decisions and values were
not being considered. An autonomy model of healthcare then began to evolve. This
model is essentially what we encounter today in hospitals and doctor’s offices, where
ethical medical care is a combination of treatment and the values of the patient.
A third way of viewing ethics in healthcare is via the lens of beneficence and
non-maleficence duties. Doctors and nurses are trained to value beneficence,
meaning they try to help people; and non-maleficence, meaning they try to
avoid harming people. We could argue that these duties come before the duty
to respect a patient’s autonomy. For example, sometimes a patient may say he
wants something done, but a doctor still must decide whether the procedure or
drug might be worse for the patient in the long run. Or, a patient may be very
interested in a type of treatment that won’t hurt her, but the doctor may judge
it also won’t help her either (Panza & Potthast 2010).
Despite the move toward a less paternalistic form of medicine and health-
care, a number of thorny medical ethics issues continue to exist. For example,
the possibility of cloning human organs or potentially human beings from
stem cells is ethically challenging because stem cells come from the destruc-
tion of human embryos so what happens when the world includes clones
of other people? Similarly, using advanced genetic technologies to exam-
ine people’s DNA stokes fears that we may eventually choose which people
should and should not have children, get jobs, etc. The perennial ethical issue
of euthanasia, the ability to legally end life, is again in the news as certain
Canadian provincial jurisdictions pass similar laws to those in some European
countries, allowing unwell people to end their lives. Meanwhile, opponents
argue that we don’t get to choose to be born, so why should we choose when
we die?
Environmental and Animal Ethics : Environmental ethics expands ethical
value to the nonhuman realm. It recognizes that ethical problems arise not only
in human interactions but also between humans and the natural world around
them, including animals. This recognition assumes that environmental ethics
offers ethical status and value to nonhuman things. Most people, whether or
not they believe in offering ethical status to the nonhuman world, would agree
that the world is facing serious environmental problems, including climate
change, too-fast population growth, species decline, and rainforest depletion.
In practical terms, environmental ethics means humans making ethical deci-
sions about how to use the environment around them.
A good example would be the decision by the government of the Canadian
province of Ontario to pass greenbelt legislation. This legislation is aimed at
protecting farmland and countryside in a ring around the greater Toronto
area. The decision was taken because it was felt that for such a densely popu-
lated area (roughly 7 million people and counting), some protection was nec-
essary for wilderness and agricultural land; otherwise, pressures to build more
and more suburbs would eventually mean there was no empty land anywhere
near the city.
Animal ethics is slightly different from environmental ethics, because while
few argue that a plant or a tree or an ocean can think, scientists have recently
been able to prove that some animal species and even plan species are “sen-
tient”; in other words, they can feel pain, pleasure, and in some cases rationalize
in the same way we do. Animal ethics is both the study of how we ought to use
and treat animals and the practical reality of how humans use and treat animals,
with animals broken into four main categories: wild, companion, production,
and laboratory (Panza & Potthast 2010). A good example of applied animal
Ethics 35
ethics would be the egg section in your local supermarket. You’ll have noticed
that recently the selection of eggs has expanded a lot from the standard factory-
farm eggs (the cheapest), through to organic eggs (more expensive, better for
the environment), to something brand new: eggs from chickens raised in spa-
cious surroundings instead of the factory pen. This is animal ethics at work.
A Practical Guide to Making Applied Ethical Decisions

When it comes to making ethical decisions in the real world, of course, we
can think back to Aristotle and Kant and Rawls and Bentham, but it’s going to
be easier if we can develop a quick checklist that we can remember easily. An
applied ethical checklist might look something like what’s listed here (Velas-
quez et al. 2009). Whenever you’re faced with an ethical decision – how to
behave correctly or incorrectly – follow these five steps:
1. Identify the ethical issue. What good is at stake in this situation? Are there
competing goods? Which is most important?
2. Know what’s at stake. Identify who has a stake in the situation and what
those stakes are.
3. Envision options for acting. Use normative ethics to envision possible courses
of action. If I act in X way, will I be producing the most good and least
harm? (Consequentialism) Will I be acting as the sort of person I want to
be? (Virtue). Will I be acting the way I’d expect others to act in such a
situation? (Duty).
4. Make a decision and test it if possible. If it’s not an immediate situation, test
your decision on someone whose opinion you respect.
5. Act on your decision and reflect on the outcome. How did your decision turn
out? What have you learned from the situation?
SUMMARY
• In its normative (or theoretical) state, ethics is defined as the study of

right behavior with others, with the goal of lessening harm. It has four
main rationales. We should behave in an ethical way because it’s our
duty to do so at all times (duty-based ethics), because acting ethically
is the way to create the most good/happiness in the world (consequen-
tialist ethics), because acting ethically is what we agree to do under the
social contract, or because it allows us to practice virtues.
• Despite the clear rationales for acting ethically, in reality people often
don’t act ethically, for a number of reasons. Some of these reasons
include egoism (thinking of our own needs instead of the needs of
others), futility (there’s little point in acting ethically), and relativism
(other people may value other ways of behaving so why act ethically).
• Besides theoretical ethics, applied ethics is the study of how ethical
rationales and theories are applied in real-world situations. Applied
ethics is especially important in the fields of medicine and healthcare,
where there are sometimes competing goods (the patient’s health vs.
the cost to society, for example). Business/organizational ethics is also
of major importance – does a company’s requirement to create profit
also mean it must not pay attention to worker safety, environmental
standards, etc.?
REFERENCES
Audi, R. (Ed.) (2009) The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Blackburn, S. (2001) Being Good: A Short Introduction to Ethics. Toronto: Oxford
University Press.
Cavalier, R. (n.d.) Online Guide to Ethics and Moral Philosophy. http://caae.phil.
cmu.edu/cavalier/80130/part2/II_preface.html and http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/
cavalier/80130/part3/III_preface.html, Accessed March 29, 2021.
Comte-Sponville, A. (2004) The Little Book of Philosophy, Frank Wynne (Trans.).
London: William Heinemann.
Coulter, C. (2012) Theories of Ethics: An Introduction. In Peter Kissick (Ed.), Business
Ethics: Concepts, Cases, and Canadian Perspectives. Toronto: Emond Montgomery,
13–26.
De los Reyes, G. et al. (2017) Teaching Ethics in Business Schools: A Conversation
on Disciplinary Differences, Academic Provincialism, and the Case for Integrated
Pedagogy. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 16.2.
“Mission” (n.d.) The W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics. https://ethics.ubc.ca,
Accessed March 29, 2021.
Newman, M. (2011) Ethics Demystified. Toronto: McGraw Hill.
Panza, C., & Potthast, A. (2010) Ethics for Dummies. Toronto: Wiley.
Velasquez, M. et al. (2009) A Framework for Ethical Decision Making. www.scu.edu/ethics/
ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/a-framework-for-ethical-decision-
making/, Accessed March 29, 2021.
Warburton, N. (2013) Philosophy: The Basics. New York: Routledge.
3
PSYCHOLOGY
To understand soft skills and how you use them in the real world, it also helps
to be acquainted with a number of topics from psychology. According to
one textbook, psychology is “the study of behavior and mental processes in
all their many facets”. Psychology therefore encompasses “every aspect of
human thoughts, feelings, and actions” (Morris & Maisto 2015). To simplify,
psychology is the idea that we can understand behavior patterns and modify
them when necessary through a variety of means (Butler & McManus 2014).

• A definition of psychology and how it explains our learning of behaviors

• How personality and being in social groups affects our behavior
• Methods developed by psychology to deal with problematic human
behavior
Defining Psychology and Learning

Sometimes people who are new to psychology assume that it is simply the
study of mental and emotional problems or abnormal behaviors. In fact, psy-
chologists try to understand “normal” human behavior as well, including
human development, personality, counseling, social situations, organizational
behavior, among many other fields. If you search online at one of the major
psychology associations, such as the American Psychology Association (www.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003212942-4
apa.org/about/division) or the Canadian Psychology Association (https://cpa.

ca/sections/), you’ll see that psychologists are divided into dozens of some-
times surprising specialties, including retirement psychology, military psychol-
ogy, and industrial/organizational psychology. Besides its interest in studying
behavior in numerous settings, it’s important to recognize that unlike ethics,
psychology is also a science.
What this means is that psychologists are also researchers who use the sci-
entific method to understand psychological phenomena. They collect data
through careful observation, then explain what they’ve seen by offering theo-
ries and predictions, and then they test the predictions through more observa-
tion. This method has been used on a wide range of topics such as aggressive
behavior, for example. One psychologist may theorize that male aggression
stems from body chemistry and genetics. Another might theorize that cultural
norms, such as teaching boys to “stand up for themselves” or that physical
aggression isn’t “feminine”, explain the behavior. An experiment would be
designed to validate theory.
Like ethics, which theorizes and offers both rationales and methods for dem-
onstrating good behavior in the world, psychology is central to understanding
soft skills. As the academic study of behavior, it has established norms about
what makes successful and unsuccessful behavior in various situations. It backs
up its advice through rigorous observation and experimentation.
Learning and Development Theories

An important psychological theory to help you understand soft skills is social
learning theory. Alfred Bandura, the psychologist who developed the the-
ory, has become well known because his theory seems to make a lot of com-
mon sense; essentially it argues that most human behavior is learned through
modeling. Before Bandura’s work in the 1960s, the accepted opinion was that
learning and development should be considered in purely behaviorist terms,
meaning that learning was seen as determined by rewards and punishments.
The exponent of this theory was psychologist B.F. Skinner (Butler & McManus
2014; Collin 2012; Morris & Maisto 2015).
Skinner had theorized that “if an action is followed by a pleasant effect – a
reward – it will be repeated – whether performed by a man or rat. If pressing a
lever brings with it a yummy food pellet, a rat will learn to press the lever”. How-
ever, the type of learning theorized by Skinner is not the only type of learning –
we don’t do all that we do just because there may be a reward or benefit in store.
Think of peer pressure, for example. In this case we do things because we feel we
must, not because we think we’ll receive something in return. Building on the
work of Skinner, Bandura hypothesized that “children learn aggression through
observing and imitating the violent acts of adults, particularly family members”.
He sought to prove this hypothesis in his famous Bobo doll experiments.
Psychology 39
When children who had been exposed to aggressive acts by adult role mod-
els were later left alone in a room of toys including a Bobo doll, they imitated
many of the aggressive acts performed by the adult model, sometimes even cre-
ating new acts of violence against the doll. Interestingly, children in this group
showed more attraction to other violent toys, despite the fact that the adult had
not modeled this behavior. By contrast, “children who were either in the control
group or who were exposed to a passive adult . . . rarely demonstrated any . . .
physical or verbal aggression”.
Bandura and Walters (1963) conclude that the fact that the children in the
second group often imitated the exact behavior they had just seen suggests that
observational learning was taking place. In addition, Bandura says the extent to
which we imitate behavior learned through observation depends on our moti-
vation to do so. One important motivation is any reward or punishment that
we have seen the behavior bring. To summarize, we learn by observing people
who model a behavior, and this has implications for our behavior with other
people. Bandura (1977, 1986) would go on to widen the scope of his theory
away from learning to other forms of social cognition. His theory, while still
widely accepted, has come under close scrutiny for a number of reasons (Beau-
champ et al. 2019).
Another important psychological development theory is Lawrence Kohl-
berg’s (1976) moral development theory. Kohlberg, an American psychol-
ogist, theorized that morality develops gradually throughout childhood and
adolescence. To prove this theory, in 1956 he undertook a study that involved
72 boys between the ages of 10 and 16. The boys were presented with moral and
ethical dilemmas. In each case they had to choose between two alternatives,
neither of which could be considered completely acceptable (Collin 2012). An
example of one of Kohlberg’s dilemmas was whether it was right or wrong for a
man with no money to steal drugs that his sick wife desperately needed.
Kohlberg tested most of the boys regularly over the next 20 years, to see
if their moral and ethical decision-making changed over time. Based on the
responses to his original moral dilemmas, Kohlberg identified six stages of
moral development, spanning over three levels of moral reasoning. In the pre-
conventional stage of moral reasoning,
children interpret behavior in terms of its concrete consequences, in

other words, they base their judgments of right and wrong behavior on
whether it is rewarded or punished. Somewhat older children still at the
pre-conventional level make their moral choices based on what satisfies
their own needs.
(Collin 2012)
In the conventional stage of moral reasoning, adolescents define “right behavior

as that which pleases or helps others and is approved by them” (Collin 2012).
In other words, they move beyond “morality as consequences” to “morality as

intentions behind the behavior”. In mid-adolescence, there is a shift to con-
sidering “abstract social virtues, such as being a ‘good citizen’ and respect-
ing authority”. Both types of moral reasoning require you to put yourself in
the other person’s shoes. In the post-conventional stage of moral reasoning, which
according to Kohlberg only about 10–15% of the population tends to achieve,
a person moves beyond the conformity of conventional morality and recog-
nizes that sometimes individual rights are more important than laws or rules
that seek to restrict them – essentially post-conventional morality means that
human life is more sacred than just following rules. Sometimes, a person will
reach a very high level of moral reasoning in which equality and respect for
all trumps all other considerations, even to the point of participating in civil
disobedience to make a point (Collin 2012).
Kohlberg’s theory was radical at the time it was published because he moved
beyond behaviorism which said that being moral and ethical is simply a way of
avoiding bad feelings. He showed instead that morality is developed indepen-
dently and that this takes place as children begin to understand concepts like
respect, empathy, and love through interactions with other people.
That said, Kohlberg has been criticized for a few reasons. For example,
because most people only ever demonstrate conventional moral reasoning, does
this mean that they are underdeveloped? Or, what about cultural differences
in moral values? Kohlberg emphasizes that a concern for justice is the apex of
moral development, while in other societies (e.g., Buddhist Nepal), alleviat-
ing suffering and showing compassion are considered most important. Finally,
prominent feminist psychologist Carol Gilligan (1982) has argued that Kohl-
berg’s theory is sexist because he found that boys usually score higher than girls
on his test of moral development. According to Gilligan, this was because boys
are more inclined to base their moral judgments on abstract concepts like jus-
tice, whereas girls tend to base theirs more on the criteria of caring about other
people and the importance of maintaining personal relationships. According to
Gilligan, there is no valid reason “to assume that one of these perspectives is
morally superior to the other”.
While Kohlberg’s work is still cited by psychologists, recent work in moral
development theory has moved beyond focusing on changes in moral reason-
ing to looking at the extent to which these choices are actually put into action.
An intriguing area of research, known as “judgment-action gap” research, tries
to figure out why there is a difference between what a person judges to be
the right thing to do and what that person actually does in real life situations
( DeTienne et al. 2019). And this is a fourth criticism of Kohlberg – people may
report that they’d do something when posed with a moral/ethical dilemma/
case, but what they actually tend to do when faced with such problems in real-
ity can be quite different.
Psychology 41
Personality Theories
You’ve now examined how humans learn the behaviors they display: social learn-
ing theory says that you learn behaviors by observing others, while moral devel-
opment theory says you develop a sense of morality and ethics (i.e., doing the
right thing) gradually in a series of stages through interaction with other people.
Another explanation for why you behave the way you do has been offered by psy-
chologists: personality theory. Psychologists define personality as an individual’s
unique pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors with different individuals
showing distinct differences and different levels of stability and endurance (Butler &
McManus 2014; Collin 2012; Morris & Maisto 2015). If soft skills are what we’re
eventually looking for – consistent use of best practices in interpersonal interac-
tions with other people – it makes sense to inquire whether our personality is
something learned (as Bandura and Kohlberg would argue) or whether it’s innate
(i.e., part of our genetic make-up), as other theorists we’ll discuss would argue.
Later in this chapter we’ll look at how psychologists suggest we can change per-
sonality and behavior when it’s not optimal (i.e., not pro-social).
Personality theories, which try to account for why we demonstrate the
personalities we do, can be classified into three types: psychodynamic theo-
ries, trait theories, and cognitive-social theories. Psychodynamic theories
of personality see behavior as already contained “within the individual” and
sometimes in our unconscious; in other words, personality is innate. The best
known of the psychodynamic personality theories is the one developed in the
early 1900s by Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud. He theorized that our
personality is a mix of id, ego, and superego, or pleasure, reality, and con-
science. This three-part personality is constantly at war with itself, as part of
it seeks pleasure (e.g., sexual), while other parts seek to “tame” the pleasure
instinct by helping us function in society.
Other well-known psychodynamic theories that tried to rewrite Freud’s
ideas include Carl Jung’s notion of the collective unconscious: our personality
is made up of a sort of “unconscious . . . river of memories and behavior pat-
terns f lowing to us from previous generations”. Building on Freud and Jung
is another well-known psychodynamic personality theory by Alfred Adler,
the theory of innate positive motives. Adler proposed that the most impor-
tant aspect of personality development is the individual’s attempt to strive for
superiority and perfection in his or her personal and social life (which sounds a
bit like virtue ethics). Psychologist Karen Horney took Freud, Jung, and Adler
and reworked their theories by arguing that instead of the pleasure principle
as the source of personality, in fact we are more motivated by anxiety – our
reaction to real and imagined dangers and threats. If we don’t develop coping
mechanisms for life’s anxieties, we can end up as too submissive, aggressive, or
detached in our social relations.
Finally, psychologist Erik Erikson argued that personality isn’t about uncon-
scious conf lict (whether Freud’s pleasure conf lict or Horney’s anxiety conf lict).
Rather, our personality stems from the quality of our early relationship with
our parents. We either leave childhood feeling competent and valuable and thus
develop a secure sense of identity or else we feel incompetent and worthless and
don’t build a secure identity.
The second main type of personality theory is known as trait theory, and it
traces its roots back to ancient Greece, before the advent of modern science and
experimentation. Following the ancient physicians Hippocrates and Galen, for
a long time people in the West explained personality through a theory known
as the four humors/four temperaments. This theory held that all humans con-
tain a balance of four major “humors”: black and yellow bile, phlegm, and
blood that correlate to four major “temperaments”: choleric, sanguine, mel-
ancholic, phlegmatic. If these four humors/temperaments are in balance our,
health tends to be fine, but if one or more of the four humors is out of balance,
then a person can become physically or mentally ill (or more usually demon-
strate a personality quirk such as excess shyness or boisterousness).
Modern trait theories build on the older theory of the humors/temperaments
to explain personality by arguing that each of us “possesses a unique combina-
tion of fundamental personality traits”, which can be determined from the way
we behave. Notice that trait theory doesn’t explain why we behave like we do;
instead, it’s a classifying theory that tries to name the main types of personality.
Trait theory is less interested in early childhood than psychodynamic theories
because an adult’s personality type can be distilled from his or her everyday
actions. Different trait theorists have offered different catalogs of the main per-
sonality traits, but the most accepted one is known as the “Big Five” personality
dimensions, also known as the “five-factor model”.
The big five traits are extraversion (i.e., level of assertiveness, warmth,); agree-
ableness (i.e., level of trust, altruism, compliance); conscientiousness/dependability
(i.e., level of competence, dutifulness, self-discipline); emotional stability (i.e.,
level of hostility, impulsiveness); and openness to experience/culture/intellect
(i.e., interest in art, action, ideas, values, feelings). Trait researchers have found
that the big five personality dimensions do have real-world applications, though
their usefulness is limited (McAdams 1992). For example, one study found that
extraversion and conscientiousness are reliable predictors of strong performance
in sales jobs. Another study found agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emo-
tional stability can predict employee burnout. The big five theory has also been
useful in predicting the job performance of police officers. Other research shows
that workplace absenteeism is related to the conscientiousness, extraversion, and
emotional stability traits. Essentially, the big five personality dimensions have
been found to be reliable predictors of both job performance and job satisfaction.
Researchers have also recently found that genetic factors play a significant role in
shaping abnormal and dysfunctional personality traits. This recent genetic work
Psychology 43
means that unlike what theorists used to think, the big five personality traits
may indeed be hardwired to a large degree into the human species, instead of
being culturally produced.
A third way of looking at personality stems from a lack of comfort with both
psychodynamic and trait explanations of personality. Some psychologists have
wondered whether it makes sense to reduce human complexity to just a few
traits. These psychologists also point out that consistency in human behavior is
not well explained by either of psychodynamic or trait theories, and that a new
theory is needed that accounts for the interaction between personality traits and
the social environment. Cognitive-social learning theories of personality
argue that our personality is not necessarily consistent; instead, it’s a response
to the situation we find ourselves in because we learn to behave in ways that
are appropriate in various situations. Another way of looking at this approach
is to say that individuals have a tendency to behave in certain ways (e.g., the
respectful commuter vs. the gum-chewing, music-listening, seat hogging com-
muter) but that these tendencies might change depending on the situation (e.g.,
the respectful commuter may become quite loud and obnoxious at a sports
match because that’s what he’s been raised to see is appropriate behavior for
that situation).
Whereas a psychodynamic or trait psychologist believes that human behav-
ior is relatively consistent across situations (e.g., agreeable people tend to be
agreeable in most situations most of the time), a cognitive social-learning psy-
chologist believes that people are inf luenced by those around them when they
act. One of the reasons the cognitive social learning theory is seen as a produc-
tive personality approach is because understanding behavior as partly based
on situations has led to helpful therapies through which people can recognize
and change a negative sense of themselves. This approach is known as cogni-
tive behavior therapy, or CBT, and it has, among other benefits, helped people
overcome depression. Management experts also like this approach because of
its practical implications for work performance.
Social Psychology
The psychology of learning, development, and personality is not quite enough
to understand soft skills. We also need to understand the basics of our social
interactions. What happens in our mind when we’re interacting with others?
Social psychology emerged in the 1930s as a way of exploring interactions
between individuals in groups and in society as a whole; it can also be defined
as the scientific study of how the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of one indi-
vidual are inf luenced by the real, imagined, or inferred behavior of other
people. Social psychology is divided into three main areas: attitudes, social
inf luences, and social actions (Butler & McManus 2014; Collin 2012; Morris &
Maisto 2015).
Attitudes are defined as your organization of beliefs, feelings, and tenden-

cies toward something or someone; they’re important because they tend to
inf luence your behavior. An attitude (e.g., “I don’t like most customers”) has
three components: your evaluation of the object, your feeling about the object,
and your behavioral tendency toward the object. For example, your evaluation
might be customers don’t treat you well. Your feelings may be that you dis-
like most of them. And your behavioral tendency might be to act defensively
instead of in a friendly way. Psychologists have shown that the three compo-
nents of an attitude tend to be consistent with each other. That said, not all our
actions can be predicted by our attitudes. Someone who hates dentists may still
keep her appointments twice a year.
The tricky question of how attitudes are related to behavior has fascinated
social psychologists for many years. They have found it to be not always a
straightforward relationship because it depends on the strength of the attitude,
how often it comes to mind, and how relevant it is to the behavior in question.
Also, studies have found that attitudes predict behavior for some people better
than for others. So, people who rate highly on tests of self-monitoring – the
tendency to observe a situation for clues on how to react – are more likely
to override their attitudes and behave in line with others’ expectations. On
the other hand, people who score low on self-monitoring express and act on
their attitudes more frequently, showing little regard for situational clues. For
example, commuters can either recognize that they have to share public space
and therefore act quietly and non-obtrusively or not recognize this pro-social
behavior and instead act loudly and obtrusively.
Psychologists have found that attitudes come from early, direct personal
experience – often experiences that were either encouraged by parents or
disapproved of by parents. Attitudes can also be formed by imitation of oth-
ers’ behavior, including parents, siblings, teachers, friends, and people on TV.
Another source of attitudes is the mass media, especially television and social
media. According to psychologists and findings from social neuroscience – a
field that investigates what’s going on in the brain while humans are in a social
situation – attitudes can be adapted. However, this requires the person holding
the attitude to be open to two types of attitude change: self-ref lection and new
information. In addition, attitudes can be changed through successful persua-
sion and a process known as cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance is the feeling you get when a new action, belief, or
perception contradicts your preexisting attitude. For example, if you generally
don’t like dealing with strangers, but then find yourself being trained for a new
customer service role at a retailer in which being friendly and helpful with
strangers is expected, you may experience cognitive dissonance. Persuasion,
on the other hand, is the communication process by which someone gets your
attention, then gets you to understand and accept (and perhaps even act on) a
message. While persuasion from a third party (e.g., advertiser, teacher) can be
Psychology 45
effective, studies have found the most effective persuasion is self-persuasion,

when you convince yourself to change an attitude.
Social inf luences are the processes through which psychologists have
shown other people can affect our attitudes and actions. Attitude change,
which we just looked at, is one form of social inf luence. However, psycholo-
gists have also observed that the presence or actions of others can actually
control our behavior, without regard to underlying attitudes. Three common
situations that demonstrate this social inf luence are conformity, compliance,
and obedience.
Conformity takes place when there is a conf lict between an individual and a
group that’s resolved when the individuals’ beliefs/attitudes yield to the expec-
tations and norms of the larger group. An experiment by Polish psychologist
Solomon Asch conducted in the early 1950s showed that when people come
up against a majority opinion, their own belief in what is true may lose out
to their tendency to conform to the majority opinion. Asch’s experiment was
conducted with 123 male subjects, each of whom was placed in a group of five
to seven other men. These other group members were “in” on the experiment,
while the subject was not. The group was shown a card with a line on it, and
then another card with three lines labeled A, B, and C. They were asked which
of A, B, or C matched the length of the line from the first card.
The room was organized so the subject would be the last or second-last to
answer. In 18 trials, the group members who were “in” on the experiment were
instructed to provide correct answers the first six times, and then an identical
incorrect answer the next 12 times. The idea was to see whether or not the
subject would answer correctly: the right answer was quite obvious. Or, would
the subject instead choose a response that conformed to the rest of the group?
The results of the experiment were surprising and a bit disturbing: “When
surrounded by a group of people all giving the same incorrect answer, subjects
gave incorrect answers on almost a third (32 percent) of the questions” and “75
percent of subjects provided an incorrect response for at least one question”
(Collin 2012).
The experiment demonstrated that virtually all subjects would conform to
the group. The small number of subjects who didn’t conform to the group
opinion were found not to do so over a number of trials, while the subjects who
did comply with the majority “seemed unable to break this pattern” (Collin
2012). While Asch’s experiment has been very inf luential, subsequent studies
have shown, for example, that levels of conformity tend to vary among cultures
(e.g., European cultures showing less conformity while Asian and African cul-
tures show more). Also, some psychologists have criticized Asch on the basis
that he “overstated the power of the majority to inf luence the minority” and
that “an active minority could inf luence the majority and bring about change”.
Compliance is the social influence by which we change our behavior in response
to a request from another person or group. Psychologists have found there are
three ways in which compliance takes place. First, “foot-in-the-door effect” takes
place when an individual says yes to a small request, and is therefore more likely
to comply with a larger related one. In a 1960s experiment, certain residents of a
California city were approached and asked to place large ugly signs saying “Drive
Carefully” in their front yards: over 80% said no. Other residents were asked to
sign a petition calling for more safe-driving laws. When this second group was
approached a second time and asked later to place the ugly “Drive Carefully” sign
in their yards, almost 60% agreed. Compliance with the first small request (peti-
tion) more than tripled the rate of compliance with the larger request (ugly sign).
Another way of achieving compliance is the “lowball effect”, which asks
you to do something for a relatively low cost (whether in money or time, etc.).
Then, the inf luencer raises the cost of compliance. Although the original inf lu-
ence was a low price, once committed, people tend to remain committed to
the now pricier, more time-consuming, request. Finally, “door-in-the-face-
effect” has been shown by psychologists to be a third way that people get others
to comply. In this strategy, an individual is asked to make an unreasonably large
commitment (e.g., volunteering in a homeless shelter for two years); almost
everyone declines. Then, when asked later to make a much smaller commit-
ment (e.g., volunteering one night in a food bank), many people quickly agree.
This effect appears to work because we see the smaller request as a concession
and feel pressured to comply with it.
REAL WORLD EXAMPLE

Noreen is a new manager at a logistics company. As part of her job she
attends weekly senior management meetings. At these meetings, a couple
of the other managers, who’ve been with the company for a long time,
make fun of the junior employees. No one reprimands the managers or
asks them to stop. One day, Noreen says something negative about one of
her direct reports. The other managers laugh loudly and she feels like she’s
been accepted by the senior management team.
Which of the social influences has Noreen displayed and why? If she had
decided to take the ethical “high ground”, what behavior might she have dis-
played instead?
Obedience takes place when you change your behavior in response to a

command from another person, such as an authority figure. Asch’s work on
conformity, which we’ve looked at, led to a similarly famous experiment by
psychologist Stanley Milgram, who happened to be a student of Asch. Mil-
gram’s 1961 experiment demonstrated that most people are capable of causing
extreme harm to others when told to do so by a figure of authority. Partly
inf luenced by the atrocities of World War II and fascism, the experiment was
Psychology 47
designed to see if normally kind, likable people could be made to act against
their own moral values by an authority figure.
In the lab, Milgram created a fake but realistic-looking electric shock gen-
erator with 30 switches marked in 15-volt increments. The switches had labels
that indicated the intensity of different ranges of shock from “slight shock”
to “extreme intensity shock” and “danger: severe shock”. The experimenter
introduced himself to participants, and in order to give the impression of
authority, he was dressed like a lab technician in a white coat. He was also told
to keep his face stern and emotionless throughout the experiment.
The subject, who was told he was participating in a learning experiment, was
introduced to two “volunteers” in the room, one of whom would play teacher
and the other learner. In full view of the subject, the “learner” was strapped
into an “electric chair” with an electrode attached to his wrist; the subject was
told that this electrode was attached to the shock generator in the other room.
Then, the subject heard the “scientist” tell the “learner” that although the
shocks can be extremely painful, they cause no permanent damage. Next, the
subject was moved to the room containing the shock generator and asked to
assume the role of “teacher”. He was asked to read a series of word pairs aloud
(e.g., blue-girl, nice-day) for the learner to memorize.
After this he was to read a series of single words and the learner was to recall the
pairing word. If the learner’s answer was correct, the questions continued, if not,
the subject was instructed to tell the learner the correct answer, announce the level
of shock he was about to receive, and press a switch to administer the shock, which,
remember, was not really there. Subjects were told to increase the shock level
with every wrong answer. As the experiment took place, the “learner” would
answer incorrectly roughly every four questions and would pound the wall once
the volts were at 300, and shout, “Get me out of here! You can’t hold me here!”
When the shock level increased, the “learner” would shout even more frantically.
If the subject vocalized any problems with the experiment, he would receive a
verbal encouragement from the “scientist” suggesting he continue.
Before conducting the experiment, Milgram had asked the public as well as
psychologists and psychiatrists how far they thought subjects would go when
asked to administer the shocks. Most thought the subjects would stop at a level
that caused pain, and psychiatrists predicted only one in a thousand subjects
would continue to the highest level of shock. According to Collin (2012),
after the experiments, Milgram was able to show that all 40 of the participants
obeyed commands to administer shocks up to 300 volts; and 65% of the subjects
obeyed the instructions of the “scientist” right to the end, to shock levels at the
top level – 450 volts. Afterward, subjects were debriefed so they understood
what had actually taken place and were reunited with the “learner” to see that
no actual shocks had been administered.
Milgram concluded that people have a very strong need to obey authority
figures even in the most extreme circumstances. This was a controversial and
uncomfortable conclusion given that many people at the time thought only
Germans could be evil in this way. In addition, he theorized that this sense of
obedience comes from the fact that we are socialized from a young age to be
obedient and to follow orders. Milgram also noted that the internal conf lict
between a person’s moral/ethical conscience and the authority figure’s demands
creates extreme distress. Interestingly, a colleague of Milgram’s, Philip Zim-
bardo, would go on to conduct another famous experiment in a similar situa-
tion. He would show that when given the chance to act as an authority figure (a
jail guard), normal people would relatively quickly (within 36 hours) turn into
torturers. Zimbardo’s conclusion was that any horrible deed is possible for any
of us to do – given the right or wrong situational pressures.
It has been pointed out that social inf luence studies reached their height by
the mid-1980s, and that the field has begun to change to remain relevant (Wil-
liams & Harkins 2017). For example, a promising area of research is the effects
of social media on people’s compliance or conformity with various opinions. As
well, researchers are looking at the effects online teamwork apps such as Slack and
Zoom are having on people’s obedience or conformity in teamwork situations.
Social actions are a specific form of social inf luence: ones that take place
when other people are around us. The social inf luences of conformity, compli-
ance, and obedience that you’ve just read about tend to occur as often when
there’s no one around (e.g., stopping at a stop sign, dressing up in a tie for a
formal occasion, turning down music so your neighbors won’t complain). And
although I went into quite a bit of detail to explain the experiments that proved
how conformity and obedience work among human beings, in reality you’ll
experience social actions as often as social inf luences. The main types of social
actions that occur between individuals are deindividuation, altruism/bystander
effect, group dynamics, and leadership.
Deindividuation, also known as bystander effect, takes place when individuals
are regularly immersed in a large, anonymous group (like a city sidewalk). The
process involves a loss of a sense of personal responsibility for one’s actions (e.g.,
being rude on the subway or in a car). The process can sometimes lead to vio-
lence of other forms of irresponsible or non-pro-social behavior, for example,
one acute side-effect of deindividuation if what’s known as mob behavior. The
Capitol Hill uprising in Washington, DC, in early 2021 is a good example
of deindividuation taken to an extreme: people losing their personal sense of
responsibility in a group. Psychologists have found that the greater the sense of
anonymity, the more the deindividuation effect occurs. They’ve also found that
in extreme cases of deindividuation like mob situations, an effect known as the
snowball effect can kick in: one persuasive and dominant person can convince
people to act in a certain way, and then they pass that on, and they pass that on
until the group becomes an unthinking mob.
While mob behavior is thankfully rare, if you think of your own life, espe-
cially if you live in a city, you can see various examples of deindividuation in
Psychology 49
which people act not very respectfully toward each other because they don’t
think they have to take responsibility for their actions because they happen to
be in an anonymous commuting situation or in an anonymous long line at a
store or some other public situation. Of course, it’s not true that when individu-
als get together they are always likely to become more destructive or irrespon-
sible than they would be as individuals.
The best proof of this is another type of social action: altruistic behavior. Altru-
ism takes place when we act in a helpful way without expecting any recognition
or reward in return, except perhaps the good feeling that comes from helping
someone in need. The APA Dictionary of Psychology does however note that “the
degree to which such behaviors are legitimately without egoistic motivation is
subject to debate” (Altruism). Recent work on altruism and altruistic behavior,
in areas such as viral/online altruism (van der Linden 2017) and altruism and
gaming (Riar et al. 2020), shows that in certain situations, altruism can be suc-
cessfully created by the Internet, social networks, and gaming.
The final two social actions, group dynamics and leadership, often go
together because they tend to be witnessed when we’re working together in
teams. Recent scholarship into group dynamics is finding that the “conditions
that help teams manage their own processes” are more important than any one
element or skill an individual team member might bring to a team (Levi 2015).
FIGURE 3.1 Altruism is a positive social action: doing things for others without the
expectation of anything in return
Credit: SDI Productions/Getty Images
As well, group dynamics theory has moved beyond the idea that that there is
a “best” way of managing team and group processes. Instead, researchers are
recognizing there are “many ways for teams to operate successfully”. Scholar-
ship of leadership is varied and growing, but instead of discussing it here, I’ll ask
you to wait until the upcoming chapter on Teamwork, where leadership and
followership are discussed in more detail.
Stress and Coping and Changing Problematic Behaviors

There are many mental health issues that psychiatrists and psychotherapists deal
with, including situational issues such as life adjustments, anti-social behavior,
marital problems, and bereavement. One of the most common situational issues
with a psychological source is stress, which psychologists define as the state of
being faced with a tense or threatening situation that requires us to change or
adapt our behavior (Morris & Maisto 2015). A byproduct of stress, not surpris-
ingly, can be lack of attention to soft skills (Collins & O’Rourke 2009).
Sources of stress: Stress is not always negative: we experience stress before
positive events like a wedding, job promotion, or presentation. Understanding
stress is important as it’s been shown to affect our health, and when it gets out of
hand, stress can contribute to both physical and psychological disorders. Morris
and Maisto (2015) classify the three important sources of stress as change,
everyday hassles, and self-imposed stress. Change/adaptation/adjustment is a cause
of stress because we are socialized (and perhaps biologically programmed) to
appreciate order, continuity, and predictability in our life. Even if a change is
good (e.g., new house, different job, new baby), we tend to experience stress in
a similar way to the way we would if it were a bad change.
Everyday hassles “can be as stressful as major life events, because these seem-
ingly minor incidents give rise to feelings of frustration and conf lict”. Frustra-
tion is a common hassle that happens when we can’t achieve “a goal because
something stands in the way”. This could be a delay, a lack of resources, a loss,
a failure, or discrimination (e.g., frustration due to subway delay; due to traffic
congestion). Conf lict is another common hassle that happens when we’re faced
with two or more incompatible demands, opportunities, needs or goals. Con-
f licts are rarely completely resolved; usually we have to give up some of our
goals, modify them, or delay pursuing them, or not attain them at all (e.g., need
to be at work on time/need to take kids to school; need to buy a house/lack
of funds to do so). Another hassle is self-imposed stress, by which people “create
problems for themselves” by carrying “around a set of irrational, self-defeating
beliefs that add unnecessarily to the normal stresses of living.”
Coping Strategies: The ways we tend to deal with stress fall into a few main
strategies: direct coping, defensive coping, and proactive coping (Aldwin 2007;
Morris & Maisto 2015). In direct coping, we make intentional efforts to change
an uncomfortable situation. We do so in one of three ways: confrontation,
Psychology 51
compromise, or withdrawal. Confrontation means attacking the situation

head-on and trying to create a solution – which could be learning a new skill,
asking for help, trying harder, or changing yourself or the situation. Confronta-
tion sometimes includes expressions of anger; the trick is to restrain your anger
instead of letting it explode. Compromise means settling for a less-than-ideal
solution to the situation, but one in which both you and the others involved
are at least partially happy. Withdrawal means exiting the situation, and it can
be positive if “our adversary is more powerful than us, there is no way we
can modify ourselves or the situation, or there is no possible compromise”.
However, withdrawal can be a mixed blessing because it has a tendency to be
repeated: a person just begins to avoid all similar situations.
In defensive coping, we confront stress whose source we can’t identify, or
can’t deal directly with (e.g., sickness). Defense mechanisms are techniques for
deceiving oneself about the causes of stressful situations as a way of reduc-
ing pressure, frustration, conf lict, etc. There are a number of well-understood
defense mechanisms. The two basic ones are denial and repression. We deny
by blocking “out situations that we can’t handle”. We repress by blocking “out
unacceptable impulses or stressful thoughts”. We can also project, attributing
our own repressed motives, ideas or feelings onto others; or identify, taking on
the characteristics of another person so we can vicariously share in that person’s
triumphs and overcome feeling inadequate. Sometimes we regress, reverting to
childhood behavior; or intellectualize, turning our feelings about our problems
into ideas to analyze, almost as if they belonged to other people. We can also
displace, redirecting our repressed motives and emotions from their original
object onto substitute objects (e.g., a parent frustrated at work takes out aggres-
sion on a child at home); or sublimate, transforming our repressed motives and
feelings into more socially acceptable such as channeling anger and aggressive-
ness into a lot of working out at the gym or extreme sports.
The APA Dictionary of Psychology says that proactive coping is, on the other
hand, a “stress-management strategy that ref lects efforts to build up resources
that facilitate promotion toward challenging goals and personal growth”. Put
more simply, the ideal type of stress coping strategy is one that looks ahead
and predicts sources and times of stress on the horizon and makes moves ahead
of time to lessen the amount of stress that will take place. For example, a stu-
dent juggling full-time studies and a full-time job can predict that exam week
will be very stressful. As a result, she books it off work as holiday time if
possible.
Changing Problematic Behaviors: Sometimes an individual’s coping mecha-
nisms and strategies are not enough to deal with personality or behavior disor-
ders in personal relationships and in the workplace, and so they seek professional
help from licensed professionals. Psychotherapies come in various types, from
less invasive to quite invasive. We’ll brief ly discuss these therapies, concentrat-
ing on the one this book is an example of, behavioral modeling.
Insight therapies such as psychoanalysis, client-centered therapy, and Gestalt

therapy were developed in the early 20th century, and while they differ in their
specifics, what’s common is that they use face-to-face talking to help people
become more aware of their feelings and conf licts. Insight therapies take a sub-
stantial amount of time – visits over years, sometimes. Recent developments in
insight therapy ref lect the nature of our busier modern world by trying to limit
the amount of time people spend in therapy through more f lexible options such
as online therapy.
Behavior therapies such as classical or operant conditioning contrast sharply
with insight therapies; they are focused on changing behavior rather than dis-
covering insights into feelings. Behavior therapies are based on the belief that
all behavior, normal and abnormal, is learned (remember Bandura’s Bobo the
clown experiments . . .) and that the objective of therapy is to teach people new,
more satisfying ways of behaving. For example, in modeling therapies clients
learn new behavior by watching other people perform them. Modeling therapy
has been used to teach fearless behaviors to phobic people and to improve the
behavior of people who consistently demonstrate poor behavior. Psychologist
P.J. Taylor (2005) demonstrates that such modeling techniques have been used
successfully in various job training programs. The cases you’ll read and work
on later in this book offer opportunity for modeling.
Cognitive therapies such as stress-inoculation, rational-emotive, and Beck’s
cognitive therapy focus less on poor behavior and more on poor ways of think-
ing. By changing a person’s distorted and self-defeating ideas about themselves
and the world, cognitive therapy helps encourage coping skills and adjustment.
Group therapies are based on the idea that psychological issues are partly inter-
personal and therefore, best approached in a group setting. Group therapies
such as family or couples therapy offer a circle of support and shared insight, as
well as psychotherapy at a lower cost.
Researchers believe that two-thirds of people treated in one of these four
psychotherapy methods are better off than someone who gets no treatment at
all. Instead of claiming that one type of psychotherapy is better than the others,
practitioners today tend to be more eclectic and holistic, that is, they use the
four methods at their disposal as needed.
SUMMARY
• Psychology is the study of behavior and mental processes. As a scien-

tific field, psychology uses observation and experimentation to derive
truths about how people behave and why. One of the most impor-
tant areas of inquiry within psychology is into how we learn to behave
Psychology 53
the way we do. Social learning theory says we learn largely by having
witnessed behaviors modeled by authority figures in our lives. Moral
development theory says we become increasingly more moral as we
get older, moving from pre-conventional morality to conventional
morality, with some of us displaying post-conventional morality.
• Our behavior can also be explained by personality theories, such as
the big-five model that argues human personality includes varying
amounts of traits such as extraversion and introversion. When we are
with others, social psychology can be used to describe our behaviors,
including our attitudes, our tendency to be influenced by others (e.g.,
conformity, obedience), and our tendency to act in certain ways with
others (e.g., deindividuation, altruism, etc.).
• One common influence on our ability to behave in appropriate ways
is stress. Stress, while sometimes productive, is often negative, caus-
ing anxiety, lack of productivity, and sometimes health problems. We
tend to deal with stress by coping directly, defensively, or proactively.
When our behaviors remain problematic even after using coping strate-
gies, therapeutic methods such as insight therapy, behavior modeling
therapy, and cognitive behavior therapy can be used to reorient us back
toward pro-social behavior.
References
Aldwin, C. (2007) Stress, Coping, and Development: An Integrative Perspective. New York:
Guilford Press.
Altruism. APA Dictionary of Psychology. https://dictionary.apa.org/altruism, Accessed
March 26, 2021.
Bandura, A. (1977) Social Learning Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Bandura, A. (1986) Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Bandura, A., & Walters, R. H. (1963) Social Learning and Personality Development. New
York: Holt Rinehart & Winston.
Beauchamp, M. R., Crawford, K. L., & Jackson, B. (2019) Social Cognitive Theory and
Physical Activity: Mechanisms of Behavior Change, Critique, and Legacy. Psychol-
ogy of Sport and Exercise, 42, 110–117.
Butler, G., & McManus, F. (2014) Psychology: A Very Short Introduction. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Collin, C. (2012) The Psychology Book. London: Dorling Kindersley.
Collins, S. D., & O’Rourke, J. (2009) Managing Conflict and Workplace Relationships.
Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
DeTienne, K. B., Ellertson, C. F., Ingerson, M. C. et al. (2019) Moral Development in
Business Ethics: An Examination and Critique. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.
org/10.1007/s10551-019-04351-0
Gilligan, C. (1982) In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kohlberg, L. (1976) Moral Stages and Moralization: The Cognitive-Developmental

Approach. In T. Lickona (Ed.), Moral Development and Beahavior: Theory, Research and
Social Issues. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 31–53.
Levi, D. (2015) Group Dynamics for Teams, 5th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
McAdams, D. P. (1992) The Five-Factor Model in Personality: A Critical Appraisal.
Journal of Personality, 60.2.
Morris, C. G., & Maisto, A. A. (2015) Understanding Psychology. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson.
Riar, M. et al. (2020) How Game Features Give Rise to Altruism and Collective
Action: Implications for Cultivating Cooperating by Gamification. Proceedings of
the 53rd Hawaii Inernational Conference on System Sciences 2020. https://scholarspace.
manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/63825/1/0069.pdf
van der Linden, S. (2017) The Nature of Viral Altruism and How to Make It Stick.
Nature Human Behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-016-0041
Williams, K. D., & Harkins, S. G. (2017) The Future of Social Inf luence in Social Psy-
chology. In S. G. Harkins et al. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Social Influence. New
York: Oxford University Press, 433–435.
4
INTERPERSONAL
COMMUNICATION
Most of us who take public transit regularly will admit that part of living in a
big city is adopting see-nothing/hear-nothing attitude and behavior when we
are part of a crowd. It’s as if we try to enter into a cocoon of isolation to protect
ourselves. Young people tend to pad this cocoon even more than older people,
by wearing headphones or earbuds. And drivers are the same: how many times
have you heard about hit and runs in which a driver causes bodily harm to a
pedestrian, cyclist, or another driver, and takes off instead of staying behind? In
part, this chapter is an argument against the idea that’s taken hold in our culture
that it’s okay to ignore others as a way of maintaining our own peace of mind.
The rapid growth of many North American cities in the past 20 years has
led to poor interpersonal communication among people while out in public,
and I’d also bet that this poor interpersonal communication in public has a
large effect on people once they come inside to work or to family or friends. If
you’ve adopted a me-against-the-world policy while you commute, in which
you don’t look at people, pretend you don’t hear people, don’t help people who
need help, etc., it makes sense that it’s a difficult transition to doing the oppo-
site, that is, being friendly, helpful, and empathetic once you enter work and
personal space.
Interpersonal communication is the study of how to communicate so the
relationship between you and the people you’re with is improved. Whereas in
writing and speaking you’re trying to be accurate and get your point across to be
understood and to be persuasive, interpersonal communication is the relational
side of communication: how to be accurate and persuasive, but at the same time
respectful and thoughtful towards the person or people with whom you’re com-
municating. Put simply, interpersonal communication adds an ethical aspect
to the transmission-of-meaning that occurs in everyday speaking and writing.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003212942-5

• A definition of interpersonal communication and why it’s important

• How we can demonstrate interpersonal communication competence
and operate in an appropriate interpersonal communication climate
• The uses of politeness theory in explaining interpersonal communication
Why Communicate With Others?

Researchers who study interpersonal communication say that humans have an
innate need to communicate and that there are at least four main reasons why we
do so (Adler & Proctor 2017). Communicating with others improves our physical
health, according to doctors. Numerous studies have shown that people who are
isolated and don’t communicate with others are more susceptible to disease, have
poorer memory and intellectual function, as well as higher stress levels. At the
same time, communicating with other people fulfills our identity needs; in other
words, by communicating with our parents, siblings, friends, coworkers, etc., we
get a sense of who we are as a person: without such communication, we would
have no sense of actually being a human, and of how to relate to other humans.
According to research, communicating with others also satisfies the social
needs we have as a species, such as pleasure, affection, companionship, relax-
ation, control, etc. We learned this the hard way during the Covid-19 crisis
of 2020–2021, when so much of our communicating with others was taken
away for a time. Recent research has also shown a strong link between effec-
tive interpersonal communication and happiness. Interestingly, research is also
showing that the number of close friendships we have is in decline – perhaps
social media, in supplanting traditional face-to-face friendships, is hurting our
ability to truly fulfill our social needs.
Finally, communicating with other people satisfies practical or instrumental
goals, which basically means our need to get things done. You need to commu-
nicate to bank, to get your hair cut, to work effectively, to raise your children, to
buy a car, etc. Many studies over the years have shown that employers hire and
promote people who can communicate effectively. By communication, employ-
ers don’t just mean the ability to read, listen, write and speak clearly to achieve
certain aims. They also mean the interpersonal dimension of communication
including the ability to demonstrate positive attitudes and behaviors towards
others, to be adaptable, to work cooperatively with others on teams, etc.
The phenomenon of mediated communication – using some form of media
for human interaction, whether that be email, texting, blogging, tweeting,
Interpersonal Communication 57
whatsapping, face timing, or any of the other technology-driven communica-

tion tools – has provided other ways for humans to interact than the older forms
of in-person or phone (Adler & Proctor 2017). Recent research into the ben-
efits of mediated communication shows that, overall, it enriches social networks
across generations. For example, mediated communication has been shown to
encourage off line, real-world interaction, and has the ability to keep relation-
ships alive and active. Another finding is that text-only communication (e.g.,
texting) can bring people closer by minimizing the perception of differences
due to gender, class, ethnicity, and age. Also, text-only communication has
been shown to stimulate both self-disclosure and direct questioning between
strangers, resulting in greater interpersonal attraction.
People who study mediated communication conclude that it isn’t a replace-
ment for face-to-face interaction but that it can reinforce relationships: people
who communicate online tend to also call and see each other more often. On
the other hand, competing research into the challenges of mediated communica-
tion has shown that there are three important issues that make mediated com-
munication challenging. Mediated communication includes leaner messages,
which can lead to miscommunication and difficulty in interpretation. Leaner
means shorter, as in the short Twitter messages people are now sending, or even
the abbreviated emails people send at work. For example, if I haven’t heard
from a good friend for weeks and decide to text her saying, “Is everything
ok?”, I may receive an email back saying, “I’m fine”. If this was a face-to-face
exchange, the short response “I’m fine” would be supplemented by my friend’s
facial expression and vocal tone that would truly let me whether she is fine or
not. With the text, however, her short response is open to interpretation: is she
lying, angry, sarcastic, unhappy, or truly “fine” as she says?
The fact of leaner messages means that people tend to communicate much
more online than they would have to in person. One in-person exchange is often
enough to assure that people understand each other, whereas with texting, tweet-
ing, emailing, etc., it can take many messages before understanding is reached.
The question is, is all this extra time taking away from other important functions
in our lives? Mediated communication also causes disinhibition, the social action
we looked at in the last chapter. Disinhibition comes in two forms. In one form,
people send messages and images that, if they were in a face-to-face environment,
they wouldn’t want others to see. In the second form, people are much more
direct, often in a critical way, than they would be in face-to-face interaction. The
extremes of this behavior are known as flaming or trolling, sending vicious emails
and texts (or posting vicious comments) because there are perceived to be fewer or
no consequences to doing so. One area of research I’m interested in is whether
or not online disinhibition transfers into face-to-face life. Does the fact that for
years now people (and Presidents!) have seen it as okay to send angry, bullying,
sarcastic, mean, etc. emails, texts, and tweets lead to us becoming more angry,
sarcastic, mean in face-to-face life. What do you think Bandura would say?
A final issue with mediated communication is its relative permanence –

nothing really goes away on the Internet. A regrettable text, email, or other
posting can be archived for a very long time, and it may be found and used
in ways that are not positive for the poster. The best advice that stems from
this reality is, like in face-to-face communication, think twice before posting
something you may later regret.
Being a Competent Interpersonal Communicator

Interpersonal communication researcher Jack Gibb (1961) developed a theory
of communication competence, which has been refined over time by other
researchers (Anders & Tucker 2000; Fetro et al. 2010; Rubin & Martin 1994).
The theory defines communication competence as the ability to accomplish
your goals in a manner that maintains or even enhances the relationship in
which it occurs. Another way of saying this is that someone with good inter-
personal communication competence speaks and writes in such a way that the
people he’s communicating with feel like improving their relationship is upper-
most in his mind. They sense this via signals of respect, politeness, concern,
endorsement, etc. You may have thought until now that competent communi-
cation is about being persuasive, or writing without grammar errors: and that’s
all true. But the interpersonal communication dimension adds an important
necessity: always to consider improving the relationship. Six suggestions can
help you to achieve this improvement (Adler & Proctor 2017).
First, competent interpersonal communicators have been found to be people
who understand that communication competence is situational: the things you
say to a person in one situation are a huge mistake in another situation. You’ll
sometimes see unskilled competence among students: they think that because
they talk to their friends a certain way, it’s okay to bring that way of talking
into the classroom or workplace, which is a more formal situation in which
professionalism is important. This situational nature is directly related to what
we said earlier about the “performativity” of soft skills. Next, competent com-
municators understand that interpersonal communication is relational: behav-
ior that’s appropriate in one relationship isn’t necessarily effective in others. Or,
another way of saying this is that effective interpersonal communication comes
from finding ways to interact that work for the other person involved in the
communication.
Competent communicators also understand that interpersonal communica-
tion is a skill that can be learned and improved upon. It’s not just a f luke that
the employees at Nordstrom and Saks are very relationship-minded compared
to those at some fast-fashion retailers. Nordstrom and Saks invest significantly
in interpersonal communication skills training while the other retailers invest
just a little or not at all. Competent interpersonal communicators also know
that there is a repertoire(i.e., collection)of behaviors and vocabulary that they can
choose in any given interpersonal situation, and they learn which behavior to
choose by considering context, goal, and knowledge of the other person.
A competent interpersonal communicator is empathetic. This skill is some-
times viewed as the single most important one for good interpersonal commu-
nication. It means the ability to feel and experience another person’s situation
almost as they do: putting yourself in someone’s shoes. Being empathetic is
the opposite of being narcissistic: displaying a concern only with yourself and
what’s good for you. Empathy is, of course, a marker of Kohlberg’s highest
level of moral reasoning, the post-conventional stage. Finally, you’re a compe-
tent interpersonal communicator if you regularly self-monitor, meaning, you
ref lect on and recognize the behaviors you are displaying in real-time. The
self-monitoring communicator is the one who can stand apart from the situa-
tion and think things like, “I’m making a fool of myself ”, “I’ve made her suspi-
cious”, “I’d better speak up now”, and “This is working well. I’ll stick with this
approach”. Effective self-monitors can judge others’ emotional states, are less
shy, and are more assertive.
REAL WORLD EXAMPLE

Armand is a customer who comes into the same camera shop about once
a month with a lot of questions: he’s a serious hobby photographer. An
employee named Emily has served him at least four times in recent months.
She has gotten into the habit of looking off to the side and rolling her eyes
when Armand asks her questions.
How can Emily use empathy and self-monitoring to improve her interpersonal
communication?
Exploring Communication Climates

Let’s extend our discussion of interpersonal communication skills to include
the idea of communication climates. Communication climate is a concept used
to describe the emotional tone of a relationship, how people feel about each
other (Adler & Proctor 2017; Costigan & Schmeidler 1984; Forward et al 2011;
Gibb 1961; Myers & Rocca 2001). For example, you may have worked in or
heard about a workplaces in which a backbiting, critical, and suspicious tone is
the norm or you may have worked with colleagues where the relationship was
marked by an easygoing, relaxed tone. Either way, you can understand that there
is a communication dynamic at work depending on the personalities involved in
your communication. If you have to deal with these personalities on a regular
basis, a climate of communication grows up that is sometimes hard to change.
Studies of personal relationships have shown that communication climate
can predict satisfaction among married couples and levels of self-esteem in
children. In other words, couples who use positive, reinforcing language are
happier, and children whose parents use valuing and loving language tend
to grow up with fewer emotional and behavioral problems. The thing about
communication climates is that they are shared – you’ll rarely find a person
describing his relationship as open and positive, while his partner describes
the relationship as cold and hostile. A communication climate is created by the
types of messages that are shared in a relationship, as well as by certain negative
and positive interpersonal communication dynamics.
Types of Messages in a Communication Climate: The difference
between a positive or negative communication climate is simple to explain:
it’s the degree to which the people involved believe themselves to be valued by
one another. I was at a subway station last week and witnessed an interaction
between a customer and a fare collector. The customer asked a question of the
collector in a very hostile tone. The collector answered the question politely
and then added, “Would it hurt you to smile or look friendly instead of being
so rude?” The customer made a sound with her mouth and then muttered to
herself, “Why do I need to be friendly to you?”
Clearly, this exchange demonstrates a negative communication climate: one
of the people involved does not feel valued by the other and the other person
doesn’t feel the need to demonstrate value for the other. According to people
who study communication, messages that convey value, caring, or respect are
supportive messages, whereas messages that show a lack of regard for others and
put them in a position of feeling threatened are defensive messages.
Supportive messages, sometimes also called confirming messages, result in a
positive communication climate. Recognition messages are the first step to creat-
ing a confirming climate: if it’s a face-to-face situation, you need to recognize
the person by looking him or her in the eyes; if it’s an email or text or voice-
mail, you need to respond within a normal time frame. Acknowledgment messages
are the second step in creating a confirming climate: the most common form
of acknowledgment is careful listening (not pseudo-listening). Acknowledging
also includes asking questions, paraphrasing, ref lecting, and soliciting an opin-
ion. Finally, endorsing messages are the ultimate step in creating a confirming
climate: they allow you to agree with another person’s ideas/suggestions, or at
least find them important. Endorsement equals valuing, which is why it’s the
most confirming of the ways of responding. However, you don’t have to com-
pletely agree with another person to be endorsing; you just need to find some-
thing in it you can endorse. “I can see why you were so angry” is an endorsing
message, even though you might not approve of the person’s earlier outburst.
The strongest form of endorsement is praise and congratulation.
Defensive messages, made up of disconfirming and disagreeing messages,
result in a negative communication climate. Disconfirming messages show a
lack of regard for the other person, either by disputing or ignoring an impor-
tant part of that person’s message. Experts have identified seven types of
disconfirming messages. As I go through them, see if you can recall a time

when you either were the deliverer or receiver of such a message. Impervi-
ous responses take place when one person doesn’t even acknowledge the other
person’s message; the blank stare, the walk-on-by, the ignore are examples.
Repeated interrupting responses can’t help but be taken as discouraging and irri-
tating by the receiver: you’ve seen this when a smart-aleck repeatedly pipes up
during a presentation to the point where the speaker’s authority is taken out
from under her. Irrelevant responses are comments that are unrelated to what the
person has just said; they have the effect of negating the value of the original
communication.
Tangential responses take place when a listener doesn’t entirely ignore the
speaker’s remarks but instead uses them as a starting point for a shift to a differ-
ent topic: admittedly, we sometimes have to do this in small talk/networking
situations, but when it happens among teammates, partners, or in a customer-
client situation, it’s rude. Impersonal responses are clichés and similar statements
that don’t really respond to the speaker, such as “Yeah, I hear you”, “Isn’t that
the truth?” Ambiguous responses have more than one meaning and leave the other
person unsure of the responder’s position. If I say, “Can we meet again Tuesday
to nail this down” and my responder says, “Probably”, I’m left feeling unsure
about how to proceed. Finally, incongruous responses contain contradictory mes-
sages, one of which is nonverbal. For example, a couple is watching TV and one
partner says, “Honey, I love you”. The other person says, “I love you too babe”
but says it in a monotone while not taking her eyes off the TV.
Disagreeing communication is messages that say “you’re wrong” in one way or
another; some disagreements are quite hostile, while others are less so. Aggres-
siveness is the most destructive way to disagree because it demeans the worth
of others through name-calling, put-downs, sarcasm, taunting, yelling, and
badgering – often this type of aggressiveness is synonymous to bullying. It can
be hard to deal with when the aggressive communicator is a manager because
not all companies/organizations deal with this behavior in a helpful or consistent
way. Most young employees may feel they have to “suck up” such communica-
tion. Complaining is another form of disagreeing communication. When a com-
municator isn’t prepared to argue but wants you to know he’s dissatisfied, he’ll
complain. Complaints are milder when they’re about behaviors (i.e., habits –
You always leave our socks on the f loor), but when they become personal (i.e.,
character assault – You’re such a slob), they can often lead to escalated conf lict.
Complaining isn’t necessarily a sign of a troubled relationship, but the com-
plainer needs to be coached into behavioral language rather than personal criti-
cism. Finally, argumentativeness is a disagreeing communication in which one
person presents/defends positions on an issue while attacking positions taken
by another person. It doesn’t necessarily lead to a negative communication
climate, especially if the arguing person sticks to attacking issues, not the other
person.
Dynamics in a Communication Climate: Interpersonal communica-

tion climates begin to develop as soon as two or more people begin to com-
municate. If the messages are supportive (confirming), the climate is positive; if
the messages are defensive (disagreeing or disconfirming), the climate will be
hostile or defensive. Remember that many climate-shaping messages are non-
verbal: smiles, frowns, presence or absence of eye contact, tone of voice, use of
personal space, gestures – all these things send messages about how communi-
cators feel about each other. Experts have found that communication climates
tend to grow and take on lives of their own in self-perpetuating spirals
A communication spiral is a reciprocating (i.e., back-and-forth) pattern in
which each person’s message reinforces the other’s. In positive spirals, one part-
ner’s confirming message leads to a similar message from the other, which leads
the first person to be even more confirming (e.g., “I enjoyed your presenta-
tion”. “Thanks – and I really appreciate the questions you asked!”). In negative
spirals, one partner’s disconfirming message leads to a similar message from
the other, and both communicators end up feeling worse about themselves
and each other. The worst examples of spirals are escalatory and de-escalatory
spirals. In the first, people attack each other until a full-f ledged verbal battle
ensues. In the second, instead of fighting, the parties withdraw from each other
and become less invested in the relationship.
Ideally, workplace communicators should try to create positive spirals, even
if the situation is negative or critical. For example, if you’re working in a store
and a customer comes in with a bad attitude, muttering to himself, and pre-
senting an angry face, you could engage with him on this level by becoming
unhelpful or even sarcastic, but interpersonal communication theory shows
that turning this potential negative spiral into a positive spiral, by, for example,
smiling, asking how you can help, ignoring any negativity thrown your way, is
ultimately the better strategy.
Another important interpersonal communication dynamic to be aware of is
face-saving/defensiveness. Face is an idea that’s well known in Asian cultures,
but which we all experience no matter where we live. It’s the idea that we
each have images of ourselves we like to present to the world: competent and
professional at work, witty and fun-loving with friends, etc. When someone
else criticizes one of our self-images (e.g., a boss criticizing work we’ve done as
sloppy or not up to par, a friend telling us we’re acting strange or fake), we tend
to feel threatened and feel the need to “save face”. Communication experts say
that the dynamic of face-saving/defensiveness is not just the responsibility of
the person who feels she’s lost face. In fact, it’s the responsibility of the person
who delivers the critical communication to understand how to deliver it more
effectively so that the other person doesn’t feel the need to save face and act
defensively. Here are some strategies for how to avoid defensiveness.
How to Prevent Negative Communication: Besides conceptualizing
the defensive/supportive message system, Gibb (1961) also offered his Categories
FIGURE 4.1 Negative communication spirals are an interpersonal communication

dynamic in which two or more people act defensively toward each
other instead of cooperatively
Credit: fizkes/Getty Images
of Defensive and Supportive Behaviour as a way of lessening defensiveness in

interpersonal communication. This is a set of six paired spoken behaviors that
can lessen defensiveness and increase support. The first pair is evaluation versus
description. Instead of evaluating in what you say (e.g., using “you” language –
You didn’t do this, you need to do this, etc.), try to use descriptive language
instead (e.g., use “I” language – When you don’t get your stuff to me on time, I
have to . . .). The second pair is controlling versus problem-orientation. Instead
of controlling the outcome in what you say (e.g., We’re going to meet in my
office and sort this out), use problem-orientation language (e.g., “We need to
solve this problem; should we meet in my office to figure things out?). The
third pair is dishonest versus honest. Instead of dishonest/manipulative com-
munication (e.g., “Did you know that Pat and Jen go out to eat at least once
a week?”), be spontaneous and honest (e.g., “I’d like to go out with you guys
more often!”).
The next three pairs include neutrality versus empathy. Instead of neutral-
ity (e.g., “Sometimes things just don’t work out – that’s life”), try empathy
(e.g., “I know you put a lot of time and effort into this project”). Empathy has
been found to make communication appear less indifferent, and make people
feel more valued. Empathy is putting yourself in another’s place by accepting
(though not necessarily agreeing with) their feelings. A big part of empathy
is nonverbal expressions and body language that show support, such as nod-
ding, showing concern, smiling, etc. Next, there is superiority versus equality.
Instead of superiority (e.g., “But you’re doing it all wrong!”), try to show equal-
ity (e.g., “If you want, I can show you a way that’s worked for me”). The final
pair is certainty versus a provisional attitude. Instead of certainty (e.g., That’s
obviously not going to work!), demonstrate a provisional attitude (e.g., I think
you might run into problems following that approach . . .).
A final approach to preventing negative communication dynamics that’s
been suggested is using an assertive message format. This strategy offers a clear,
respectful, assertive way of dealing with defensive communication, without
judging or dictating to others. First, describe the behavior instead of judging or
interpreting it (e.g., “You’ve been disrupting the past few meetings by talking
to the person next to you instead of participating in the meeting”). Second, be
clear about interpreting behavior (e.g., When I didn’t get an email or text back
from you in three days, I figured things were over”). Third, attach a feeling to
your interpretation of behavior (e.g., “When you cc my manager for no reason,
I feel disrespected”). Two more suggestions include attaching a consequence to
your interpretation of behavior (e.g., “I ended up waiting for an hour when I
could have been studying”) and attach an intention to your statement, explain-
ing where you stand on an issue, what request you’d like to make, or how you
intend to act in future (e.g., “Unless we clear this up now, it’s not likely I’m
going to lend you anything again” or “I’d like to know if you’re angry” or “I
want you to know that this bothers me a lot”).
Politeness Theory
You now understand interpersonal communication dynamics, especially the
three types of messages that determine whether the communication climate
around you will be supportive or defensive. You also know that these messages
sometimes lead to negative dynamics like spirals and defensiveness, and you
know some strategies for coming across as less defensive and constructively
assertive. There’s one more interpersonal communication theory/concept that
can help you to make the communication climate around you more supportive,
and it’s known as politeness theory.
How many times in your life have you decided that instead of saying
something directly to someone, you’ll instead “beat around the bush”. For
example, instead of saying to an assistant, “Get me a coffee”, we tend to
express such a request in a way that sounds less blunt, such as “Geoff, could
you get me a coffee please?” Or else, we hint around: “Geoff, is it just me
or is it really dry in here? I’m parched!” Why do we act politely in certain
circumstances? Researchers Brown and Levinson (1987) observed that these
strategies – sounding less blunt, hinting – are present in more languages/
cultures than just North American English such as native Mexican and
Tamil in India. As a result, Brown and Levinson reason that there must
be fundamental social principles that explain why people around the world
would have developed these ways of speaking. In other words, why don’t we
just say what we mean, in the most direct, efficient way possible all the time?
And, how do we explain when and how we depart from directness and how
to make sense of these departures? Politeness theory, which has remained
inf luential despite some critiques (Wilson et al. 1991), offers answers to these
questions.
Features of Politeness Theory: Brown and Levinson say that all people
have a built-in concept of “face” – the public self-image that we all want to
claim for ourselves. In other words, “face” is the image we present to the world
in social situations. This sense of “face” is constantly being threatened. For
example, questioning someone else’s actions, disagreeing, interrupting – all of
these regular occurrences can threaten another person’s sense of “face”, which
is another way of saying another person’s need for respect and esteem. Such
non-pro-social behaviors are called face-threatening acts in politeness theory,
or FTA for short.
According to the theory, language has been developed to save another per-
son’s face when committing an FTA. Consider the following situation: you
work in an open office configuration in a small older building. Air condition-
ing and heat don’t always work optimally and sometimes co-workers resort
to opening windows. Because some people like it to be cooler than others,
conf lict sometimes arises. If I’m freezing because the window is open, but a
co-worker is enjoying the coolness, I may threaten his “face” by asking him to
close the window. This is because he sees himself as a competent professional
and won’t like the idea that I’m calling into question his need to let super-cold
air into the office.
Brown and Levinson’s theory offers four strategies for demonstrating polite
behavior through language, depending on the situation. The first strategy
is called bald on-record, which means you do nothing to minimize a face-
threatening act, possibly because you are close to the person and know you
can be direct, you have a long history with this person, or you are someone’s
direct manager/superior/teacher, for example, and don’t need to worry about
not being direct. Examples of bald-on record strategy all have one thing in
common: they are direct. For example: “Put those away”, “Keep your eyes on
the road”, or “Give me that”.
The second strategy is called positive politeness, which means that in what-
ever you’re about to say you first recognize that your hearer has a desire to be
respected and you understand that this relationship is friendly and reciprocal. In
other words, positive politeness compensates for the face threat of requesting/
advising/requiring/critiquing by playing up the solidarity between the speaker
and the hearer through graciousness and being complimentary. There are four
types of positive politeness strategy:
CONSIDER THE HEARER: “You must be hungry; it’s a long time since break-
fast. How about some lunch?”
AVOID DISAGREEMENT: “A: Is he in good shape? B: Yeah, I mean he’s pretty,
um, not really fit I’d say, but not, you know, unhealthy”.
ASSUME AGREEMENT: “So when are you coming to see us?”
HEDGE YOUR OPINION: “You really should sort of try a bit harder”.
The third strategy is called negative politeness, which means that even though
you’re still explicitly stating a request/advice/requirement/critique, this time
you’re toning down the face threat by being respectful to minimize the imposi-
tion on the other person. There are four types of negative politeness strategies:
BE INDIRECT: “I’m looking for a pen . . .”

REQUEST FORGIVENESS: “Please forgive me but could you take . . .”
MINIMIZE IMPOSITION: “I just want to ask you if I could borrow your laptop
for a few seconds?”
PLURALIZE THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE: “We forgot to tell you that you needed
to buy your plane ticket by yesterday”.
A fourth strategy is called off-record indirectness, which means that you

tone down the face threat by not directly asking/requiring/advising/critiqu-
ing. Instead, you take some of the pressure off yourself by implying what you
want or think instead of saying it. This also leaves some room to maneuver the
conversation. The only problem with off-record indirectness is sometimes you
risk failure because the hearer might not get what you’re implying. There are
three types of off-record indirectness politeness strategies:
GIVE HINTS: “It’s a bit cold in here . . .” OR “I was thinking of joining a gym
myself . . .”
BE VAGUE: “Perhaps someone should have been more on-the-ball . . .”
BE SARCASTIC, OR JOKING: “Yeah, he’s a real genius!”
The fifth strategy, which strictly speaking is an avoidance strategy, is to

decide that the FTA is too risky and to withhold comment altogether. This is
what I find is happening in public space in big cities these days. For example,
someone is being really loud on the subway. You’d like to ask the person to turn
down the music, but you decide that even the most polite or indirect request
would anger the person, so you do nothing. The problem, of course, is that
if you ride the subway 300 days a year, you are going to get frustrated by this
inability to do anything, and your frustration will probably make you an angry
communicator.
Something to keep in mind when using these strategies in real interactions
is that it’s not always as easy as picking a strategy from the list given earlier. You
also need to keep three “social conditions” in mind if possible: power – the
degree to which you can impose your requests on another person (e.g., are we
friends or boss/employee?); distance – the degree to which you are close to this
person or socially similar (e.g., are we strangers, close friends, different sex?);
and rank – knowing whether your hearer culturally shares an understanding
of FTAs (e.g., North Americans would tend to be more sensitive about sugges-
tions about their weight than about advice on finding a good airfare, whereas
other cultures might be less sensitive about the body and more sensitive about
money). Essentially, the combination of power, distance, and rank affects the
degree of face threat in a situation. The greater the weight, the more polite your
strategy should be (i.e., strategy 4 or 3). The less weight a situation has, the less
polite your strategy needs to be (i.e., strategy 2 or 1).
Uses of Politeness Theory: The most common way of using politeness
theory has been to predict behavior. For example, one study (Baxter 1984) asked
students to imagine they were working on a group project and had to ask a
group member to redo his or her part of the project. Such studies have only
found partial support for the effects of power, distance, and rank on the choice
of politeness strategy. Mostly, power seems to be the important predictor of
how politely a speaker will make a request. However, other studies have been
contradictory. For instance, sometimes subjects choose a polite strategy for
people they don’t know well and in other studies they choose polite strategies
for people they know best.
Another set of studies has tried to predict how behavior will be evaluated. For
example, Carson and Cupach (2000) found that when managers reprimand an
employee, the managers were perceived as more fair and competent when they
used positive politeness strategies instead of bald on-record strategies. How-
ever, other researchers (Goldsmith 2007) have shown that the predicted order
of politeness strategies (i.e., bald on-record less polite than positive politeness,
which is less polite than off-record) doesn’t always hold in real life. In some cir-
cumstances, for example, more direct strategies are seen as being more polite.
Finally, some researchers don’t bother with and instead have used polite-
ness theory to simply describe important, recurring, everyday situations. For
example, Aronsson and Rundstrom (1989) found that doctors could be both
positively polite to parents and bald on-record with children in the same inter-
action. For example, one doctor said to the mother of an allergic child, “But
then it’s best to avoid cats, wouldn’t you agree?” Then, to the child, he said:
“WHAT?! You SHOULD NOT do that”. In this case you can use politeness
theory concepts to interpret the interaction as follows: the bald on-record state-
ment from authoritative adult to the child provides a way to clearly tell the
mother what not to do without threatening her face.
Strengths and Limits of the Theory: Since its development, politeness
theory has become inf luential but has also attracted some criticisms (Goldsmith
2008). Chief among the criticisms is that the theory may not adequately explain
diverse cultural beliefs and practices. For example, in some cultures, face and
politeness may be less a type of individual strategic choice than a normative
behavior that allows you to fit into a social group. In other words, using posi-
tive or negative politeness strategies may be a marker of being “cultured” or
“middle or upper class” or some other marker. Similarly, some cultures place
little emphasis on face-wants such as individual freedom or privacy.
Another criticism of the theory is that it is conceptualized in a too disjointed
way; that is, there are five “types” of ways to be polite. In fact, in real inter-
actions between people, the ways may often be combined. As one researcher
(Goldsmith 2008) found, if advice is solicited, bald on-record advice may actu-
ally be less face-threatening than an option like number 5, which is to say
nothing. Imagine I ask my friend, “Do you think I should join a gym?” If that
friend says, “Yes, I think so”, that’s definitely going to be less face-threatening
than if she stares at me and says nothing. If she says nothing, I may assume
she definitely thinks I should get to the gym right away. The order of the five
strategies, and their valence, is less predictable and stable than the theory would
have us believe, and other aspects like nonverbal communication (e.g., facial
expression) also need to be considered.
The main strength of politeness theory is that it allows us to study, predict, and
teach about what people should say and do if they want to be seen as appropriate
and effective in various personal and professional contexts. In other words, it offers
a strategy for successful soft skills. Another strength of politeness theory is that it
has a bold and ambitious scope: with a small handful of concepts, a clear argument
about how these concepts are interrelated, and a bold statement about what is and
is not universal about human communication, the theory has prompted many
tests and refinements and has directed attention to the study of how language
actually builds social life. Politeness theory says that if you want to live in a better
world, there are simple strategies you can put in place to achieve this.
SUMMARY
• Interpersonal communication is the study of how we can improve the

relationship between ourselves and the person or people with whom
we’re communicating. Communication is important to humans for a
number of reasons, including fulfilling our needs to be social, as well
as various physical and instrumental needs and goals. Mediated com-
munication has impacted interpersonal communication in positive
and negative ways. For example, while social media have allowed us
to be in touch with more people more often, they have increased our
sense of disinhibition.
• Expertise in interpersonal communication can be measured using the

concept of communication competence. Competent communicators
accomplish their goals at the same time maintaining or enhancing
their relationship with the people they’re dealing with. They do this
by demonstrating behaviors such as situational/relational communi-
cation, empathy, and self-monitoring. Another way of demonstrating
mastery of interpersonal communication is to understand communi-
cation climate, or the emotional tone of relationships. The climate is
usually either supportive or defensive. Confirming messages create a
supportive tone and climate, whereas disconfirming and disagreeing
messages create a defensive tone and climate.
• Recognizing that the biggest barrier to effective interpersonal com-
munication is a climate marked by defensive (or face-threatening)
dynamics such as negative spirals, effective interpersonal communi-
cators use strategies from politeness theory to counter defensiveness/
face-threatening acts. They do this through a number of language-
based strategies including negative politeness, positive politeness,
and off-record indirectness.
References
Adler, R., & Proctor, K. (2017) Looking Out Looking In. Boston: Cengage Learning.
Anders, S. L., & Tucker, J. S. (2000) Adult Attachment Style, Interpersonal Communi-
cation Competence, and Social Support. Personal Relationships, 7, 379–389.
Aronsson, K., & Rundstrom, B. (1989) Cats, Dogs, and Sweets in the Clinical Negotia-
tion of Reality: On Politeness and Coherence in Pediatric Discourse. Language in
Society, 18.4, 483–504.
Baxter, L. (1984) An Investigation of Compliance-Gaining as Politeness. Human Com-
munication Research, 10.3, 427–456.
Brown, S., & Levinson, P. (1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Carson, C. L., & Cupach, W. R. (2000) Facing Corrections in the Workplace: The
Inf luence of Perceived Face Threat on the Consequences of Managerial Reproaches.
Journal of Applied Communication Research, 28.3, 215–234.
Costigan, J. L., & Schmeidler, M. A. (1984) Exploring Supportive and Defensive Com-
munication Climates. In J. W. Pfeiffer & L. D. Goodstein (Eds.), The 1984 Handbook
for Group Facilitators. San Diego, CA: University Associates, 112–114.
Fetro, J. V., Rodhes, D. L., & Hey, D. W. (2010) Perceived Personal and Social
Competence: Development of Valid and Reliable Measures. Health Educator, 42.1,
19–26.
Forward, G. L., Czech, K., & Lee, C. M. (2011) Assessing Gibb’s Supportive and
Defensive Communication Climate: An Examination of Measurement and Con-
struct Validity. Communication Research Reports, 28.1, 1–15.
Gibb, J. (1961) Defensive Communication. Journal of Communication, 11, 141–148.
Goldsmith, D. J. (2007) Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory. In B. B. Whaley &

W. Samter (Eds.), Explaining Communication: Contemporary Theories and Exemplars.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, np.
Goldsmith, D. J. (2008) Politeness Theory: How We Use Language to Save. In L. A.
Baxter & D. O. Braithwaite (Eds.), Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communication:
Multiple Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 235–263.
Myers, S., & Rocca, K. A. (2001) Perceived Instructor Argumentativeness and Verbal
Aggressiveness in the College Classroom: Effects on Student Perceptions of Cli-
mate, Apprehension, and State Motivation. Western Journal of Communication, 65,
113–137.
Rubin, R. B., & Martin, M. M. (1994) Development of a Measure of Interpersonal
Communication Competence. Communication Research Reports, 11.1, 33–44.
Wilson, S. R., Kim, M., & Meischke, H. (1991) Evaluating Brown and Levinson’s
Politeness Theory: A Revised Analysis of Directives and Face. Research on Language
and Social Interaction, 25.1–4, 215–252.
PART 2
Outward-Facing Soft Skills

5
COMMUNICATION
To simplify, we can divide soft skills into two main categories. The first cat-
egory is outward-facing soft skills. The three main soft skills that fall under
this category – communication, teamwork, and customer service orientation –
will be covered in this part of the book. If you research soft skills online,
you’ll often see a distinction made between interpersonal and intrapersonal
skills. Outward-facing and inward-facing is another way of saying interper-
sonal and intrapersonal. According to the U.S. National Research Council
definition, successful outward-facing/interpersonal soft skills involve con-
tinuously correcting your social performance based on the reactions of oth-
ers (Assessing 21st Century Skills 2011). In other words, outward-facing/
interpersonal skills are the ones you use to manage your interactions with
other people. If you notice someone is unhappy with something you’ve just
said, to be effective at soft skills, you would correct what you just said using
a number of potential strategies. Most frequently, you find yourself doing
this kind of interaction management in situations such as teamwork, cus-
tomer service, and meetings. Of course, correcting your social performance
is also a feature of your everyday personal life. You correct your performance
in family interactions, in commuting interactions, or in interactions with
friends.

• What’s meant by workplace communication and why it’s important
DOI: 10.4324/9781003212942-7
74 Outward-Facing Soft Skills
• The recent communication research being done by scholars and how

this translates into practical communication strategies you can use to
demonstrate your soft skills
• What problematic communication looks like in a real-world setting
and the language and gestures you can use to demonstrate effective
communication
What Are Communication Skills and Why Are They Important?

Workplace communication is a sub-discipline at most colleges and universities,
where it’s known as business, organizational, or professional communication.
Workplace communication courses are housed in the institution’s faculty or
school of communication, or else are found within certain academic divisions,
like the business school. Other academic divisions that teach workplace com-
munication include engineering schools, which usually offer a “communica-
tion for engineering” course, and health sciences schools, which often include
a “communication for nursing” course. Whether in business, engineering, or
health sciences, what workplace communication courses have in common is a
focus on teaching students the writing, speaking, and listening skills required
to function effectively in specific workplaces. These communication skills can
be divided into two main categories. The first includes the various communi-
cation formats and styles required in the particular workplace; the second is the
various communication skills required to foster effective relational and situational
aspects of communication.
Knowing the appropriate formats and styles with which to commu-
nicate at work is an essential part of demonstrating competence in workplace
communication. This means everything from being comfortable with tradi-
tional written correspondence like letters and memos, through contemporary
correspondence like emails and texts and social media posts, as well as lon-
ger written documents like proposals/pitches/briefs and reports. An impor-
tant aspect of such a course is learning to writing accurately and with the
appropriate style (e.g., professional, informal) using effective grammar and
style techniques. This can include everything from how to structure an email
to a customer to whether or not to use a lot of contractions (e.g., can’t, won’t)
in your written correspondence. Besides writing, workplace communication
also includes significant amounts of oral/spoken communication, such
as presentations, phone calls, and voicemail, as well as certain structured con-
versations that happen regularly (e.g., client meetings, team meetings). This
can include everything from how to structure a presentation, to what not to
say during small talk, to how to use rate, pitch, and tone to speak effectively.
Written and spoken formats are taught using models, with the understand-
ing that workplaces sometimes impose their own models or templates that
Communication 75
employees must learn how to use. For example, I can teach my students to
write a standard proposal; however, once they graduate and find jobs they may
find in their workplaces that a specific format is used for proposals, which var-
ies slightly (or a lot) from what they’ve learned in college. Therefore, f lexibility
and adaptability (which will be discussed in more detail in the upcoming chap-
ter on productivity) are important aspects of effective communication as well.
The more complex aspect of teaching and learning effective workplace com-
munication is the relational and situational aspect of communication.
These are the various techniques you can use in different communication
situations to ensure the person or people with whom you’re communicat-
ing leave the encounter knowing you considered more than just getting your
point across. In other words, relational communication is how you communi-
cate so as to improve the relationship with the person you’re communicating
with. Clearly, it’s challenging to teach this aspect of communication because
no teacher or textbook can ever hope to account for all the communication
situations you’ll find yourself in at work. That said, in writing, there are a
number of common techniques that achieve the goal of improved relations
including polite salutations, closings, signals of emotion (e.g., emojis, exclama-
tion marks), and vocabulary that can aid relational communication. In speak-
ing, a different group of techniques can be used to achieve the goal of improved
FIGURE 5.1 Gestures and nonverbal messages such as smiles and raised eyebrows
signal active listening and effective communication
Credit: SolStock/Getty Images
relations. These include using your tone of voice, your gestures, and your body
language to aid relational communication. These techniques will be revisited
later in this chapter.
The 350 employers who answered the soft skills survey I discussed in
the Introduction had a lot to say about communication. The f irst thing
they said is that they’re not overly concerned by written communication,
ranking it relatively low among a list of soft skills they want their employ-
ees to demonstrate effectively. From this finding, I would extrapolate that
employers find that postsecondary education provides graduates enough
practice at writing effectively in various formats, or, that writing on the job
is not important or frequent as it once was. The second thing the employ-
ers said loudly and clearly is that communication is the most important soft
skill, by which they meant specifically its relational aspects: all the things you
can write, say, or do that let the person you’re communicating with know
you consider the relationship to be important. In their comments, employers
clearly foregrounded the importance of strong oral/spoken communi-
cation skills. Employers offered numerous examples of what they mean
by strong oral communication, including knowing how to make small
talk, knowing how to show deference and respect when required, and
knowing how to control anger and frustration when speaking with clients and
coworkers.
Why do employers consistently say relational communication skills are a
soft skill they very much want their employees to be able to demonstrate? An
answer can be found in the numerous research studies conducted in recent
years that report a positive relationship between effective employee communi-
cation and organizational effectiveness, competitive advantage, and customer/
client loyalty (Kharouf et al. 2019; Koermer & McCroskey 2006; Mikkelson
et al. 2015; Mohanty & Mohanty 2018; Nwabueze & Mileski 2018; Webster &
Sundaram 2009). In these studies, various methodologies including surveys and
observation are used to demonstrate that communication styles that foreground
relationality (the improvement of the relationship between communicators)
are a consistent predictor of positive organizational metrics such as increased
loyalty of customers and clients. This general finding holds true across fields
as diverse as medicine (e.g., physician/patient communication), hospitality
(server/diner relationship), and retail (customer service associate/customer)
among many others.
Another newer area of research is the relationship between employee com-
munication and social media which may also provide an answer for why
employers consistently rate effective communication as a valued employee soft
skill. Yee et al. (2021) report, citing Henkel et al. (2007):
As social media blur the lines between work and life, an increasing
number of employees share work-related information on social media
Communication 77
platforms. . . . Therefore, what employees say about their employers . . .

plays a critical role in employers’ success and external reputation.
In other words, it’s not just what employees say in real-time to customers
and clients and each other that may predict, to a degree, an organization’s suc-
cess. It’s also what’s being said by employees online that is of importance. Pre-
sumably, employers are looking for employees who understand the magnified
optics of social media and will rein in any unnecessarily negative, damaging
comments they are tempted to make about the organization.
Case Study: Communication

In the following case study, which is based on incidents that took place
in a real workplace, problematic relational communication skills are on
display. What I’d like you to do is read the case carefully to get a sense
of what’s going on between the various characters. Then, read the five
questions at the end of the case. Go back into the case and scan it again,
making notes as you go that will help you answer the five questions.
Some of the answers will require online research; others will require you
to go back to Part 1 of this book and look for answers in our ethics, psy-
chology, and interpersonal communication concepts and theories. Fol-
lowing the case and questions, I’ll offer my partial answers to some of
these questions to help get you started. The chapter ends with a practical
section that offers concrete language and behaviors you can use to dem-
onstrate your ability to communicate effectively.
Problematic Communication in a Very Public Workplace

Kevin Van Roostjen lives in the Yonge and Eglinton neighborhood.
He takes the subway downtown to work and back each day. In the past
five years or so, he’s noticed that the trains and stations are often over-
crowded, and that this is leading to all sorts of issues.
Today, Kevin is heading out of his condo at 8:10 am, heading for the
station. When he gets there, there is a line-up leading up the stairs toward
the doors on Yonge St. The people in the line do not look happy. Kevin
remembers that because it’s the first of the month, these people are prob-
ably waiting to load value onto their monthly transit passes.
“Can you do that any slower?” one woman shouts, toward the front of
the line.
The transit employee in the booth hears the woman but keeps doing
his work. Other people in the line have various reactions: most turn
around to look at the woman who did the shouting, and some are nodding
in agreement, while others, like Kevin, are embarrassed that she would
shout her thoughts out loud.
“I mean, it’s not like this is rocket science – speed it up. Please!” says
the same woman again, very loudly, as if she wants everyone in the sta-
tion to hear her thoughts.
The transit employee in the booth decides to reply. He turns on the
speaker that allows him to be heard outside the booth and says:
“I’m doing my job, thanks. People who want to pay cash on the
first of the month will find lines – it’s just the way . . .”
But before he can finish what he’s saying, the loud woman in line speaks
over him:
“It’s NOT just the way it is. Other cities have MUCH better sys-
tems, and they don’t rely on INEFFEFICIENT people!”
Another person in the line, a teenaged boy, chimes in loudly after the
woman is done. “Just hurry the hell up, man! It’s not that hard!”
Kevin shakes his head in disbelief and bypasses the line – he added
value to his pass online yesterday. He can hear the southbound train
coming into the station, so he picks up his pace.
*
Unfortunately, Kevin misses the train because the platform is so
packed when he gets downstairs that he has no choice but to let the
people in front of him get on the train, while he positions himself as near
to the front of the platform as possible, waiting for the next train to take
him downtown.
People are jockeying for position; they all want to make sure they get
on the next train. Kevin feels someone pushing into his back, trying to get
closer. He doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t want to cause a scene.
Again, the person pushes into him, and again Kevin doesn’t say anything
because he thinks that saying something, even politely and respectfully, may
lead to an escalation of emotions. He just wants to get to work in peace.
The next train arrives and Kevin is one of the first ones on. He imme-
diately heads for the opposite side of the car, as he wants to be close to the
door when it opens at Yonge-Bloor station.
Standing next to him on the five-station ride to Yonge-Bloor is an
elderly woman with a cane and a shopping bag. She appears to be hold-
ing on to the pole with every ounce of her strength. Surprisingly, in the
Communication 79
seat next to the door, which is supposed to be reserved for people with
special needs, a young woman is sitting, and also taking up the seat next
to her with her purse and lunch bag. She is wearing sunglasses and staring
straight ahead, oblivious to the fact that she is taking up an extra seat for
no good reason, and that there is an elderly person who could use the seat
standing right in front of her.
Kevin and the elderly woman exchange a couple of looks, and it’s clear
in these looks that they both feel the younger woman should offer her seat
to the older woman and clear off her bags from the other seat. Interest-
ingly, however, no one says anything. Not Kevin, not the elderly woman,
and not anyone else. Slowly but surely, the train arrives at Yonge-Bloor
station.
As the doors open, Kevin is thankful for the transit corporation’s
recent decision to add traffic f low measures at the station, restoring some
courtesy and civility to the country’s busiest subway station.
Barriers have been placed at the north end of the platform where the
south and northbound Yonge trains come in, to ensure that people coming
upstairs at this point from east- and westbound Bloor trains have to walk
in a different direction from the people exiting Yonge trains. Otherwise,
there would be a huge collision of people heading in opposite directions.
*
In practice, what this means is that people exiting the southbound
Yonge train, and who would like to get downstairs to the Bloor trains,
or upstairs to the exit, have to take a detour around the wooden barrier
which slows them down by about 15 seconds. Similarly, people coming
up from the Bloor trains and who want to get on the Yonge trains have
to walk around the barriers which also takes about 15 seconds.
As he’s making his way off the train and to the right along the Yonge-
Bloor platform to go upstairs and exit the station (he works in one of
the office towers nearby), Kevin witnesses an angry-looking man knock
back one of the wooden barriers and head straight from the Bloor trains
to the Yonge train.
“Fucking stupid transit”, the man says loudly as he knocks aside the
barrier.
“Hey you idiot”, says a transit employee standing nearby. “Respect
the barrier and walk to your right. You can catch your train farther down
the platform”.
The man doesn’t say anything or even look at the employee who
just said this. But as he brushes past Kevin, Kevin decides to finally say
something.
“Why don’t you try not just thinking about yourself next time, man?
You might feel happier”.
The man glares at Kevin as he rushes by to get on the train Kevin just
exited.
Questions About the Case

1. Identify and comment on at least five examples of communication
interaction in this case.
2. Which of these examples is most problematic and why?
3. How can concepts from ethics, psychology, and/or interpersonal
communication be applied to think through the interactions in this
case, and to offer solutions?
4. Given what you’ve learned so far, rewrite the three scenes in this
case (the line-up at Eglinton station, the Eglinton platform and the
ride downtown, and the platform at Yonge-Bloor station) to show
how the people in this case could demonstrate more effective soft
skills. Your scenes should include both dialogue and description of
improved behaviors. Choose one of the following methods to model
your improved behaviors: act out your revised script in your class,
shoot and edit a video using your phone and play it in class, use a
free animation software like Toonboon or Animoto to create an
animated version of your improved script and play it in class, or use
PowerPoint’s audio function to record yourself reading your revised
script with improved behaviors.
5. Use Google Scholar or a research database at your school library
(e.g., Academic Search Complete) to research communication issues/
problems or communication successes in the contemporary work-
place (i.e., the last ten years). Quoting from at least two articles you
find, what can you say about the state of communication in today’s
workplace?
A Partial Analysis of the Case

The first thing I’d say is that the customers who shout, “Can you do that
any slower!” and “Just hurry the hell up . . . it’s not that hard!” are behaving
in highly problematic and non-pro-social ways. They are not demonstrating
any soft skills. Besides this, their communication skills are ineffective because
they’re not trying to improve the relationship with the person they’re com-
municating with. Their language, and the way it’s delivered, is not going to
accomplish what they set out to accomplish, and in the process, they’re going
Communication 81
to make themselves stressed out and angry, and they’re going to harass/incite
the other people around them.
These customers are not recognizing that their sarcastic and belittling com-
ments, shouted out loud in front of other people, constitute a serious face-
threatening act (FTA) as far as the transit employee is concerned. Instead of
ensuring her first comment is neutral or respectful or complimentary (e.g.,
“Excuse me, just wondering if there’s any way we could speed up this pro-
cess?”), the first customer begins with an explicit critique of this employee’s
performance, delivered loudly in front of other people. Perhaps she feels okay in
doing this because of the social psychology phenomenon of deindividuation –
no one knows her in this public setting, so she feels free to act in a less respectful
way than she would if she were at home, or at her own workplace, with people
she knows. The young man who swears at the ticket seller is also clearly expe-
riencing deindividuation and perhaps a form of social learning or conformity –
other people are acting this way, so I can act this way too. The comments
made by the people in line are also examples of pre-conventional moral rea-
soning, which we discussed in Chapter 2. In other words, the customers are
concerned solely with their own needs and don’t take into consideration the
experience of the ticket seller or that of the other people around them.
A number of other concepts and theories from Chapters 2–4 could be used
to explain the behavior of these characters, including social contract and vir-
tue ethics, obstacles to acting ethically, attitudes, conformity, and personality/
introversion. And clearly, it’s not just the customers who are at fault here. The
transit employees also have some communication and soft skills work to do.
At this point, please go back into the case, and look at the various interac-
tions between characters in the three scenes, analyze what’s going on using
at least three more concepts/theories from Chapters 2– 4 as I’ve done previ-
ously, and answer the case questions. Keep in mind that because you’re look-
ing at communication, sometimes lack of communication is the problem. Your
instructor will take up the responses with you after you’ve had a chance to
work on and present your answers, including your modeling of improved soft
skills.
Language and Behaviors to Demonstrate Effective

Communication Skills
As you’ve seen in the case, our spoken workplace communication skills are not
always optimal. Often, this is because we feel threatened/criticized and we lash
out instead of recognizing that lashing out does not help us, nor does it improve
the relationship with those around us. At other times, our spoken communica-
tion is not optimal because we can’t be bothered; in other words, we’re feel-
ing one of the “obstacles to acting ethically” from Chapter 1. Here are some
concrete strategies for how to communicate effectively in workplace situations.
When You First Interact With Someone at Work

Smile and/or shake hands +
“Good morning!” or
“Good afternoon!” or
“Good evening!” or
“How are you?” or
“How’s it going?” or
“Welcome!”
“How can I help?” or
“Hi/hello there, what can I . . . ?” or
“It’s nice to meet you . . .”
When You Need to Make a Request

Look into the person’s eyes and/or smile +
“Could you please . . .?” or
“Could I please get . . .?” or
“Would you mind . . .?” or
“Hi, I need . . .” or
“Hello, I was hoping/looking . . .”
“When you have a minute, could you please . . .?”
When You Receive a Request

Look into the person’s eyes and/or smile and/or nod head up and down +
“Absolutely . . .”
“No problem/not a problem . . .”
“Sure thing . . .”
“Give me a minute and I’ll . . .”
“I’m not sure, but let me ask and get right back to you . . .”
“It’ll just take me a moment . . .”
“Unfortunately, I can’t . . . . right now. However, I can . . .”
When You Need to Critique/Offer Suggestions/Change

Someone’s Mind
Look into the person’s eyes +
“I thought you did a great job with X and Y. Next time, though, with A and
B, please try . . .”
“Thanks very much for that. If I could make a suggestion, next time . . .”
“I understand why . . . but instead could you please . . .?”
“I absolutely see why . . . however, what would you think about . . .?”
Communication 83
“I see what you mean. I wonder, though, if you’d consider . . .?”

“We definitely agree on most of this. I just think that . . .”
“Sorry to jump in, but can I ask/suggestion/request . . .?”
When You Receive Criticism/Suggestions/Attempted Persuasion

Do not ignore the comment + Look into the person’s eyes and/or nod head up
and down +
“That’s a good idea, I’ll give that a try next time”.
“Absolutely – sounds good. I’ll make sure to do that”.
“Sure, why not. Let’s try that”.
“I have thought about it, but wasn’t sure if it would work. I’ll try it next time”.
“I appreciate the feedback, and will ensure that . . .”
“Let me think about your that and get back to you”.
“Appreciate the feedback. Doing my best here, thanks”.
TRY THIS
Using the above language and behavior suggestions, provide an effective
response to the following three situations. Then, develop another effec-
tive response on your own, not from these lists. Finally, for each situation,
provide a response that’s not effective because the soft skill of effective
communication is not demonstrated.
• A colleague criticizes you for taking too long to get a document to her.
What do you say?
• A manager suggests you end your presentations with a clear conclu-
sion instead of letting it fizzle out. What do you say?
• A customer criticizes your pronunciation or enunciation skills in a
phone call. What do you say?
• You’re unhappy with a teammate’s performance in your team so far.
What can you say?
SUMMARY
• Effective workplace communication is the use of writing, speaking, and

listening skills so that your intended audience successfully receives your
messages. For messages to be successful they should both conform
to the expected format (e.g., email, report) and, through their word
choice, tone, and corresponding gestures, foster a positive relationship
between you and the person you’re communicating with by lessening
any face threats.
• The reas ons why employers consistently rank effective communication
as among the most important soft skills required for their employees
is that this skill has been shown to lead to higher levels of organiza-
tional effectiveness, competitive advantage, and customer/client loy-
alty. Effective employee communication on social media is also key to
maintaining a positive organization reputation.
• Practical gestures for demonstrative effective communication include
smiling, making eye contact, and nodding your head to show agreement.
Practical language to demonstrate effective communication includes
polite greetings upon first meeting someone; polite language when
requesting something; when receiving a request/criticism, acknowledg-
ing the request/criticism and agreeing to make the requested change;
and, when offering criticism, beginning with a positive comment about
the person’s recent behavior before moving into your criticism.
References
Assessing 21st Century Skills (2011) National Research Council (US) Committee on the
Assessment of 21st Century Skills. Washington, DC: National Academies (US) Press.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK84218/
Henkel, S., Tomczak, T., Heitmann, M., & Herrmann, A. (2007) Managing Brand
Consistent Employee Behaviour: Relevance and Managerial Control of Behavioural
Branding. Journal of Product and Brand Management, 16.5.
Kharouf, H., Sekhon, H., Fazal-e-Hasan, S. M., Hickman, E., & Mortimer, G. (2019)
The Role of Effective Communication and Trustworthiness in Determining Guests’
Loyalty. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 28.2.
Koermer, C. D., & McCroskey, L. L. (2006) Sociality Communication: Its Inf luence
on Customer Loyalty with the Service Provider and Service Organization. Com-
munication Quarterly, 54.1.
Mikkelson, A. C., York, J. A., & Arritola, J. (2015) Communication Competence,
Leadership Behaviors, and Employee Outcomes in Supervisor-Employee Relation-
ships. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 78.3.
Mohanty, A., & Mohanty, S. (2018) The Impact of Communication and Group Dynam-
ics on Teamwork Effectiveness: The Case of Service Sector Organisations. Academy
of Strategic Management Journal, 17.4.
Nwabueze, U., & Mileski, J. (2018) Achieving Competitive Advantage through Effec-
tive Communication in a Global Environment. Journal of International Studies, 11.1.
Webster, C., & Sundaram, D. (2009) Effect of Service Provider’s Communication Style
on Customer Satisfaction in Professional Services Setting: The Moderating Role of
Criticality and Service Nature. Journal of Services Marketing, 23.2.
Yee, Y., Cho, S. Y., Sun, R., & Li, C. (2021) Public Responses to Employee Posts on
Social Media: The Effects of Message Valence, Message Content, and Employer
Reputation. Internet Research, 31.3, 1040–1060.
6
TEAMWORK
Another important outward-facing soft skill is your ability to work effectively

in a team. This is an important soft skill because employers in most countries
(including Australia, Canada, the United States, and others) consistently rate
teamwork as one of the top three skills they require (Riebe et al. 2017). Accord-
ing to the taxonomy of outward-facing soft skills developed by Klein et al.
(2006), and adopted by the U.S. National Research Council, there are between
three and five sub-skills (besides communication, which we dealt with in the
last chapter) that make up the multi-faceted soft skill known as teamwork. These
sub-skills are active listening, cooperation and coordination, conf lict resolution,
and successful inf luencing/persuading (Assessing 21st Century Skills). In this
chapter we’ll examine these skills in more detail, solve a case study where these
skills aren’t being used effectively, look at some research that’s been done on
their teaching, and provide language for how to express them.

• What’s meant by effective teamwork and why it’s important

• The recent teamwork research being done by scholars and how this
translates into practical teamwork strategies you can use to demon-
strate your soft skills
• What problematic teamwork looks like in a real-world setting and the
language and gestures you can use to demonstrate effective teamwork
DOI: 10.4324/9781003212942-8
What Are Teamwork Skills and Why Are They Important?

A standard explanation for why organizations require employees to work in
teams is “the expectation that they will carry out some tasks more effectively
than individuals and so further organizational objectives overall” (West 2012).
This is clearly true in the case of tasks that require more than one person for
completion (e.g., a surgery), but a bit more muddy in the case of tasks that could
be completed by one person (e.g., drafting a strategy), but which are assigned
to a team instead. In the former case, everybody’s role is crystal clear (anesthe-
siologist, nurse, surgeon), whereas in the latter case, teams are often created
and given tasks without clear role assignment. Role assignment becomes part
of the team’s work, besides its given task. As you can imagine, this sometimes
leads to friction. For example, the digital marketing specialist on the team may
reasonably assume she is the team leader, whereas the information technology
specialist may make the same assumption. It’s for this reason that Widmer et al.
(2009) argue that one fundamental quality of successful team workers is team
ref lexivity – the ability of each team member to adjust to changes including
fellow team members’ various opinions and perspectives as well as external
changes (e.g., shortened deadline, client changes) .
Another way of saying this is that in any team, members have to be f lex-
ible both about the task at hand (e.g., open to changes about coming up with a
digital marketing strategy) and f lexible too about the reality of working closely
with other people (e.g., being patient with fellow team members’ different
work and personality styles). In reality ref lexivity means recognizing a not-
often-discussed dynamic within teams: leadership/followership. According to
Kellerman (2007), “leader-follower relationships, no matter the situation . . .
are more similar than they are different. Underlying them is some sort of domi-
nance and some sort of deference”. These last two adjectives – dominance and
deference – while largely ignored in textbooks and other how-to guides to
teamwork, are highly important. I’d argue that a second fundamental skill in
successful teamwork is your comfort with both being dominant while
at other times deferring to someone else. While there are numerous pre-
scriptions for excellent leadership including textbooks, courses, and academic
programs, there is also a growing number of prescriptions for followership. If
you search Google Scholar for “followership theory” you’ll see that since the
mid-2000s, a lively scholarly debate around the nature of followership and
its relationship to leadership has taken place. For example, McCallum (2013)
lists eight characteristics of effective followers, including “ego management”,
by which followers can view success as the achievement of goals, instead of
through a personal recognition of self-promotion lens, the way some leaders do.
Besides being open to change and being able to play both the leader/follower
roles, as mentioned earlier, the soft skill of teamwork is made up of a number of
other discrete sub-soft skills. For example, successful team members practice
Teamwork 87
active listening. Based on the pioneering work of Rogers and Farson (1957),
contemporary active listening advice includes a few common techniques. First,
concentrate on what your teammate is saying and show this through body
language, such as direct eye contact and frequent but subtle head nodding.
Next, instead of interrupting to provide judgment or your own opinion, repeat/
paraphrase what your teammate has said, at least once, to show that you’ve been
listening. Finally, summarize what your teammate has just said and ask a clari-
fying question or two if necessary (Chung 2017; Hoppe 2006). Tied to active
listening is your ability to demonstrate cooperation/collaboration, which
includes discrete actions such as sharing input you have and asking others to do
the same; checking for, instead of assuming, agreement and understanding on
the part of your teammates; and helping others with their tasks and asking for
help when you need it (Teamwork & Collaboration).
In addition, both as leaders and as followers, successful team members
know how to demonstrate the sub-soft skill of successful inf luencing/
persuading. What this means on a daily basis is that when necessary, you can
use the words and other tools (e.g., data, presentation software, logic/argumen-
tation, etc.) to guide your teammates towards agreeing with and/or adopting a
direction or point of view you believe in (Klein et al. 2006; Penczynski 2016;
Wadsworth & Blanchard 2015). As any experienced team member knows, you
FIGURE 6.1 Effective teamwork includes actively listening to and checking for
agreement from fellow team members
Credit: LumiNola/Getty Images
have to be careful to limit how much inf luencing/persuading you try to do,
so that you aren’t accused of dictating to your team members or “taking over”
the team. Once you’ve listened to each other actively, collaborated and coop-
erated, and tried inf luencing/persuading each other, if your team is still stuck
without a workable direction to follow, as an effective team member, you can
now deploy the final sub-soft skill, which is conf lict resolution. In its most
common integrative bargaining form, conf lict resolution is about seeing what
kind of agreement you can make with each other about your disagreement so
that everyone feels they’ve “won” something (Cross & Rosenthal 1999). You
do this by using the language of compromise: giving and taking aspects from
competing options to create a third option that everyone can agree with.
In our survey of 350 employers, when we asked them what actions/
behaviors they associated with the end result of “effective teamwork”, employ-
ers rated most highly the idea that effective teamwork means team members
who are “reliable” and team members who can “cooperate with each other
towards a common goal”. This meshes well with what the somewhat limited
literature has to say about employer requirements for teamwork. According to
Chhinzer and Russo (2018), the small number of studies that “explore how
employers define employability” by actually speaking with employers, tends
to show that the ability to work effectively in a team is among the top three
to five qualities looked for, which corroborates what we saw earlier in Riebe
(2017). When asked specifically to explain their views of teamwork, employer
responses (again, in the few studies to consider this question) “clustered around
the mutual support competency” (Paguio & Jackling 2016). This corroborates
the findings of our own 2013 survey and suggests that what’s really at stake
in teamwork is your ability to complete a task while at the same time main-
taining an atmosphere in which each member of the team feels satisfied with
the workings of the team. This implies a challenging type of continuous self-
monitoring of problematic behaviors (e.g., anger, sarcasm, etc.) that we’ll discuss
in more detail in Chapter 10 on likability.
While specific employer definitions and requirements for teamwork are less
frequently studied, a lot of effort has gone into studying the teaching of team-
work skills in academic settings. A literature search shows that the amount of
teaching of teamwork skills in business (Dunn et al. 2020; Hobson et al. 2014),
nursing and medicine (Barton et al. 2018; Lerner et al. 2009), and engineer-
ing (Chromik et al. 2020; Long et al. 2017) among many other disciplines is
steady and growing. While it’s difficult to generalize about this large amount
of research, what it does tend to show is that teamwork skills can be taught
through a variety of methods including modeling, gaming, ref lection, and
other strategies. A new trend in research into the teaching of teamwork has to
do with teaching virtual teamwork, which has become especially prevalent in
the recent past because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Researchers have begun to
show that the skills required for successful online teamwork are both similar to
Teamwork 89
traditional teamwork but also different especially around potential productivity

challenges inherent in the use of meeting software (Schulze & Krumm 2017;
Vidovic et al. 2020).
Case Study: Teamwork

in a real academic setting, problematic teamwork skills are on display.
What I’d like you to do is read the case carefully to get a sense of what’s
going on between the various characters. Then, review the five questions
at the end of the case. Go back into the case and scan it again, making
notes as you go that will help you answer the five questions. Some of the
answers may require online research; others will require you to go back
to Part 1 of this book and look for answers in our ethics, psychology, and
interpersonal communication concepts and theories. Following the case
and questions, I’ll offer my own partial answer to these questions to help
get you started. The chapter ends with a practical section that offers con-
crete language and behaviors you can use to demonstrate your effective
teamwork skills.
Problematic Teamwork in an Academic Setting

Grace missed the first class in one of her part-time MBA courses, Stra-
tegic Field Report. She noticed that Professor Doshi had posted an
announcement online saying the first class would involve introduc-
tions, understanding the course and assignments, and team forming for
the major assignment, a three-month in-depth study of a real-world
organization that ends with the production of a strategic recommen-
dation report. Grace decided she could miss this first class, which
wouldn’t be that important in the long run. She had a lot of work to
catch up on from her job as Manager of Inclusivity for a large nonprofit
organization.
It’s now the second week of the course, and Grace comes to class on
time. The professor starts to give a mini-lecture on recent developments
in strategy post-Mintzberg. Grace scans the faces in the room. She rec-
ognizes only one other student – there must not be a lot of other students
from the Human Resources stream in this course.
Just before the break, the professor says he needs to place students who
missed Week 1 on a team for the major assignment that’s coming up. He
says to Grace, “Please work with Emily, Nadia, and Jacob. They need a
fourth. That’s them behind you in the far corner”.
Grace doesn’t turn around to make eye contact with the team. She
fidgets with her iPhone instead. The professor says “Grace – could you
please introduce yourself to your team?” Grace does a half turn (only her
head, not her body) and brief ly looks toward the far corner. She sees a
man and two women looking at her intently. Carefully, she looks over
their heads, not making eye contact.
“Okay”, she says to the professor.
The professor has to deal with other team situations, but he does
notice Grace walking over very slowly toward her team.
When Grace gets to the far corner, her new teammate Jacob announces
in a loud and authoritative voice, “Hi there. I’m Jake. We’ve already
exchanged numbers, email, and Whatsapps. What’s your contact info?”
Grace is a bit put-off by Jake’s in-command tone, but she gives her
new teammates her contact information. She begins to say, “What have
you guys done so far . . .” but Jake interrupts and says that Grace’s task
in the assignment will be to interview senior managers in HR at their
chosen organization (a credit union) and analyze the interviews in terms
of strategic theory. He tells her the assignment criteria are online in the
assignment handout. “Add it to our Google Docs by next Sunday at 9 pm –
preferably earlier – that’s what we’ve agreed”, he says.
*
On that next Sunday night Grace is busy doing research for the
major recommendation report she’s working on at her job. She’s been
asked to research and recommend an inclusivity strategy for the next
five years, and the pressure is high. There never seems to be enough
time in the workday to get her work done, between meetings, training,
and phone calls, so she finds herself doing work on weekends. Added to
her responsibilities in the part-time MBA, she’s feeling overwhelmed.
When she puts the finishing touches on her research at 10:45 pm, she’s
tired. Her son is staying with her mother, so at least she doesn’t have to
worry about putting him to bed tonight. She’ll call and check in with her
mother first thing Monday morning.
She f licks on her tablet, opens her MBA email inbox, and sees three
emails from Jake, her team member in the Strategy course. Each of the
emails is marked “high priority” and the subject line of the latest one,
typed in all caps, is: “WHERE IS YOUR PART OF THE ASSIGN-
MENT?” Grace notices Jake has copied their teammates Nadia and
Emily, as well as Professor Doshi.
Grace has not got the assignment done; she hasn’t really thought
about it since she talked with the team last Friday night. She realizes
Teamwork 91
she’s screwed up, but the way she figures it, the final strategic recom-
mendation report isn’t due for five more weeks – she doesn’t under-
stand why there’s this rush to have small pieces of the work done in
stages weeks ahead of time. Pieces that are only worth 5% of the total
grade . . .
She sends Jake back a one-line email: “Relax Jake. I’ll get it done”.
She doesn’t copy Nadia or Emily or the professor.
*
It’s now three weeks later, Week 5 of the course and one week before
the team’s interim literature review and primary research presentation is
due (this smaller assignment allows the professor to see if the team is on
track or not to complete its eventual strategic report).
Without telling Grace, Jake, on behalf Nadia and Emily, has asked
Professor Doshi to “intervene” with his team, because according to him,
Grace “hasn’t attended a single virtual team meeting or replied to any of
our emails or other messages or submitted any work”.
At break in the Week 5 class, the professor meets with the team mem-
bers outside in the hallway.
“I don’t understand why I’m being made to feel like I’ve done some-
thing so wrong”, Grace says, in a tone Professor Doshi can only describe as
unprofessional. “I told Jake I’d get the work done, and it’s done”, she says.
“That’s not the point!” Jake exclaims. “The point is that you didn’t
work with the team the way you agreed to the first time we met. You
haven’t sent us any work over the past two weeks, you haven’t checked
in with us once online, and you haven’t participated in putting together
next week’s interim presentation. We want you off the team!”
“This is ridiculous!” Grace says. “It’s not like I’m the only one in this team
who might be problematic. You”, and she looks at Jake, “are manipulative
and bullying!”
The professor steps in and says that because it’s one week before the
interim presentation is to be given, he can’t allow the team to break up.
Instead, he instructs the team to leave class after the break, iron out their
differences, and put together their presentation.
Professor Doshi ends on an ominous note: “You may have forgotten,
but the effectiveness of your teamwork is worth 10% of the final assign-
ment – and I reserve the right to assign failing grades on that criterion if
I choose to. In the real world, the consequences might be significantly
more serious . . .”
Her teammates are staring at her with barely suppressed anger. Grace
folds her arms across her chest and looks away.

1. Identify and comment on up to five instances of teamwork interac-
tion in this case.
2. Which of these instances is most problematic and why?
case (second week of class; Grace’s place late Sunday night; fifth
week of class) to show how the people in this case could demonstrate
more effective soft skills. Your scenes should include both dialogue
and description of improved behaviors. Choose one of the following
methods to model your improved behaviors: act out your revised
script in your class, shoot and edit a video using your phone and play
it in class, use a free animation software like Toonboon or Animoto
to create an animated version of your improved script and play it in
class, or use PowerPoint’s audio function to record yourself reading
your revised script with improved behaviors.
5. Use Google Scholar or a research database at your school library (e.g.,
Academic Search Complete) to research teamwork issues/problems
or teamwork successes in the contemporary workplace (i.e., in the
last ten years). Quoting from at least two articles you find, what can
you say about the state of teamwork in today’s workplace?

The first observation I’d make is that Grace’s decision to miss the first Strategy
class is also a decision to handicap her team. She must know this because the
case clearly says that the professor has been in touch ahead of time explaining
that it’s an important class because of team formation. Before she’s even met
her teammates, Grace is essentially demonstrating a lack of reliability. And we
know, from our earlier discussions of the 2013 employer survey, that when
employers say, “teamwork” what they really mean is “reliability of team mem-
bers” plus “cooperation among team members to get the task accomplished”.
As anyone who’s worked with an unreliable team member knows, it can be
hard for that person to change the rest of the team’s impression of them once
they’ve shown they’re unreliable.
As well, thinking back to our discussion of normative ethics theories, I would
say that the kind of mutual responsibility that’s being damaged by Grace’s deci-
sion to miss the team-forming week of class is an example of ethics gone wrong.
Teamwork 93
What social contract ethics says is that for our society and civilization to work,
individuals must acknowledge some constraints on their own freedoms in order
to live in a society with other people (e.g., stopping at red lights). Grace’s actions
are the actions of a person who is not recognizing this constraint. Instead of
owning up to her responsibilities as a new team member, she decides to shirk her
responsibilities. Perhaps she has bitten off more than she can chew between her
job, her responsibilities as a parent, and now her responsibilities as a part-time
MBA student. We could also say, using virtue ethics, that Grace is choosing not
to cultivate team-related virtues like trustworthiness, because she has decided
that the course and the team are not as important as her other responsibilities.
If this analysis is beginning to sound too Grace-centered, rest assured that in
addition to Grace, other team members, notably Jake, are also contributing to a
challenging communication climate, by not demonstrating effective interper-
sonal communication skills. Yes, Grace does everything she can to ignore her
new team (her lack of eye contact, enthusiasm), but Jake is also at fault through
his aggressive tone and propensity to create defensiveness in Grace (and perhaps
in his other two teammates who are strangely silent . . .).
Clearly, a number of other concepts and theories from Chapters 2– 4 could
be used to explain the behavior of these characters, including duty and conse-
quentialist ethics, obstacles to acting ethically, attitudes, compliance, person-
ality, FTA/defensiveness, communication spirals, and politeness theory. And
clearly, it’s not just Grace who is at fault here. Her fellow team members and
perhaps even the professor may share some responsibility as well.
tions between characters in the three scenes, analyze what’s going on using at
least three more concepts/theories from Chapters 2–4 as I’ve done previously,
and answer the case questions. Keep in mind that although you’re looking at
teamwork, sometimes communication will inevitably be part of the problem –
it’s impossible to separate communication from teamwork. Your instructor will
take up the responses with you after you’ve had a chance to work on and present
your answers, including modeling improved soft skills.

Teamwork Skills
As you’ve seen in the case, our teamwork skills are not always optimal. One
reason for this may be that we feel excluded from the leader role in the team
and are unhappy about being a follower. Another reason is that we feel we have
no choice but to take on the leader role, and we aren’t happy that the followers
may not be “doing their part” of the work. Other reasons for teamwork dissat-
isfaction may include lack of clarity about roles or poor communication within
the team. Here are some practical strategies for how to effectively demonstrate
the soft skill of teamwork.
When You Want to Demonstrate Reflexivity

Make eye contact + smile
“Sounds like we need to change our plan . . .”
“Let’s change the direction we were going in based on this new information”.
“Dave’s just made a suggestion. What do we think of it?”
When You Want to Demonstrate Collaboration/Cooperation

“I’m definitely open to discussing your idea . . .”
“Last week we tried Brianna’s suggestion. What if we go with Todd’s idea this
time?”
“Just checking everyone got that?”
“So are we all on board with this idea?”
When You Need to Demonstrate Leadership or Followership

“Let’s divide up the tasks and get started. Mary, could you . . .?”
“Can I suggest we brainstorm for about ten minutes then move on to the client’s
specific requests?”
“I think it’s a good idea if . . .”
“I like that plan. Let’s do it”.
“Absolutely. What do you need from me?”
“I’ve finished the task I was assigned. What else can I do?”
When You Want to Demonstrate Active Listening

Make eye contact + nod your head
“So you’re saying we need to take social responsibility into consideration?”
“What you mean is social responsibility needs to be part of our plan, right”.
“Just to summarize: you’re most concerned that while we grow our social
media hits, we don’t forget our CSR commitments”.
“I think I understand what you’re saying, but when you mentioned growing
the audience, did you mean just social or traditional website visits as well?”
When You Want to Reach a Compromise

Make eye contact with both individuals/groups
“There are clearly strong opinions in favor of both options, so let’s . . .”
“Why don’t we each say which option we prefer?”
“Now that we know where we stand, how about if we combine aspects of each
option and create a team option we can all agree on?”
“I like the idea of expanding our social channels, but at the same time I see the
value in expanding our e-commerce capabilities”.
Teamwork 95
“Maybe we can/let’s/why don’t we present a combined strategy where we

grow our social footprint over the next two years, at the same time that we
invest in expanded e-commerce capability?”
When You Need to Resolve a Conflict

Make eye contact with both individuals/groups
“Let’s concentrate on our task instead of making things personal, okay?”
“How can we get past this/deal with this so we can still meet our deadline?”
“Amanda could you please apologize to Kevin so we can move on as a team?”
“It’s inevitable there will be different opinions, but let’s not let it get in the way
of showing the client what we can do”.
“We have several good ideas here. Which one should we try first? We’re look-
ing for consensus – which doesn’t mean unanimous . . .” (Runion 2012)
TRY THIS
response to the following three situations. Then, develop another effec-
tive response on your own, not from these lists. Finally, for each situation,
provide a response that’s not effective because the soft skill of effective
teamwork is not demonstrated.
• A teammate in a healthcare setting has skipped the past couple of

virtual team meetings. What do you say to her as a team leader?
• A teammate has done most of the work on a proposal himself. The
night before it’s due, he sends out a group message saying, “You guys
weren’t pulling your weight, so I completed the proposal”. What do
you say to him? What do you do?
• A team follower disagrees with the digital marketing actions her team
leader is proposing to take based on the strategy they’ve agreed on, but
doesn’t know how to express her disagreement. What does she say?
• A manager criticizes a team’s data analysis in a report. The analysis was
done by one team member and not reviewed in enough detail by the oth-
ers. All members are being criticized. What do the other team members
say? What does the member who did the analysis say? What do they do?
SUMMARY
• Effective teamwork and collaboration in the workplace involve work-

ing with others on projects while maintaining a collegial, positive, and
helpful attitude. For teams to be successful their members need to prac-

tice reflexivity, which is a positive embracing of change. Team mem-
bers also need to be able to successfully perform one of two common
team roles: leader and follower. They should also demonstrate active
listening skills such as paraphrasing what a teammate has just said, and
practice collaboration skills such as checking for agreement among the
team instead of assuming it.
• Employers consistently rank effective teamwork/collaboration as among the
top three soft skills required for their employees. Specifically, employers
cite the need for employees to be reliable when working with others and
to offer mutual support to others in the workplace as the most important
aspect of the kind of teamwork/collaboration they’re looking for.
• Practical gestures for demonstrating effective teamwork include mak-
ing eye contact with all members of the team, smiling, and nodding
your head to show agreement and active listening. Practical language
to demonstrate effective teamwork includes friendly but direct phrases
that demonstrate leadership (Let’s . . .; Why don’t we . . .) and follower-
ship (That’s sounds good . . .; I can help make that happen . . .); ability
to compromise (If we use Leo’s suggestion as well as something Susan
said, we might be able to . . .); and help resolve conflicts (Without for-
getting this disagreement, can we park it until the end of the meeting
and concentrate on . . .).
References
Barton, G., Bruce, A., & Schreiber, R. (2018) Teaching Nurses Teamwork: Integrative
Review of Competency-Based Team Training in Nursing Education. Nurse Educa-
tion in Practice, 32.
Chhinzer, N., & Russo, A. M. (2018) An Exploration of Employer Perceptions of
Graduate Student Employability. Education + Training, 60.1.
Chromik, R. R. et al. (2020) Teamwork Training as a Means of Mastering More
Equitable, Diverse, and Inclusive Practices in Engineering Curricula. Proceedings
of the 2020 Canadian Engineering Education Association Conference. https://ojs.library.
queensu.ca/index.php/PCEEA/article/view/14194
Chung, S. (2017) Are You an Active Listener?: These 4 Steps Will Prove It. Inc. www.
inc.com/stephanie-chung/heres-how-science-active-listening-can-take-your-
selling-process-to-next-level.html
Cross, S., & Rosenthal, R. (1999) Three Models of Conf lict Resolution: Effects on
Intergroup Expectancies and Attitudes. Journal of Social Issues, 55.3.
Dunn, S. S., Dawson, M., & Block, B. (2020) Teaching Teamwork in the Business
School. Journal of Education for Business. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/
Teamwork 97
08832323.2020.1840322?casa_token=662FHEYVXzEAAAAA%3AcFf4dhtm1j
3HlnY-jZCxI2xWmdy-70v6aECVM-pTdrU5lZ8A0D7h57wIlw4DIm3_wBT6-
S7CUGs7jbQ
Hobson, C. J., Strupeck, D., Griffin, A., Szostek, J., & Rominger, A. S. (2014) Teach-
ing MBA Students Teamwork and Team Leadership Skills: An Empirical Evaluation
of a Classroom Educational Program. American Journal of Business Education, 7.3.
Hoppe, M. H. (2006) Active Listening: Improve Your Ability to Listen and Lead. Greenboro,
NC: Center for Creative Leadership.
Kellerman, B. (2007) What Every Leader Needs to Know about Followers. Harvard
Business Review. https://hbr.org/2007/12/what-every-leader-needs-to-know-about-
followers
Klein, C., DeRouin, R. E., & Salas, E. (2006) Uncovering Workplace Interpersonal
Skills: A Review, Framework, and Research Agenda. In G. P. Hodgkinson & J. K.
Ford (Eds.), International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2006, vol.
21. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 79–126.
Lerner, S., Magrane, D., & Friedman, E. (2009) Teaching Teamwork in Medical Edu-
cation. Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine, 76.4.
Long, J., Rajabzadeh, A. R., & MacKenzie, A. (2017) Teaching Teamwork to Engineer-
ing Technology Students: The Importance of Self-Ref lection and Acknowledging
Diversity in Teams. Proceedings of the 2017 Canadian Engineering Education Association
Conference. https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/PCEEA/article/view/9486
McCallum, J. S. (2013) Followership: The Other Side of Leadership. Ivey Business
Journal. https://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/followership-the-other-side-of-
leadership/
Paguio, R., & Jackling, B. (2016) Teamwork from Accounting Graduates: What Do
Employers Really Expect? Accounting Research Journal, 29.3.
Penczynski, S. P. (2016) Persuasion: An Experimental Study of Team Decision Making.
Journal of Economic Psychology, 56.
Riebe, L. et al. (2017) Teaching Teamwork in Australian University Business Disci-
plines: Evidence from a Systematic Literature Review. Issues in Educational Research,
27.1. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/35305/1/riebe.pdf
Rogers, C. R., & Farson, R. E. (1957) Active Listening. Chicago: University of Chicago
Industrial Relations Center.
Runion, M. (2012) Perfect Phrases for Virtual Teamwork. Toronto: McGraw Hill.
Schulze, J., & Krumm, S. (2017) The “Virtual Team Player”: A Review and Initial
Model of Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other Characteristics for Virtual Col-
laboration. Organizational Psychology Review, 7.1, 66–95.
Vidovic, M., Hammond, M., Lenhardt, J., Palanski, M., & Olabisi, J. (2020) Teaching
Virtual and Cross-Cultural Collaborations: Exploring Experiences of Croatia- and
U.S.-Based Undergraduate Students. Journal of Management Education.
Wadsworth, M. B., & Blanchard, A. L. (2015) Inf luence Tactics in Virtual Teams.
Computers in Human Behavior, 44.
West, M. A. (2012) Effective Teamwork: Practical Lessons from Organizational Research. Mal-
den, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Widmer, P. S., Schippers, M. C., & West, M. A. (2009) Recent Developments in Ref lex-
ivity Research: A Review. Psychology of Everyday Activity, 2.
7
CUSTOMER SERVICE
ORIENTATION
A final important outward-facing soft skill is your ability to display an effec-

tive customer service orientation. This is your inclination or tendency to want
to be helpful and pleasant with customers and clients. You should want to do
this because there’s significant evidence that shows a direct, positive relation-
ship between employees who demonstrate such an orientation and customers’
rating of the service quality they’ve received and of their overall satisfaction
with the organization (Keillor et al 2000; Liao & Chuang 2004; Popli & Rizvi
2017). In the taxonomy of outward facing soft skills developed by Klein et al.
(2006) and adopted by the U.S. National Research Council, service orientation
is described both as a discrete skill set (build rapport, maintain positive client
relationship, satisfy needs) and as an important inclination or predisposition. In
other words, it’s a built-in desire/part of your personality to want to be polite
and helpful with people (Assessing 21st Century Skills 2011). In this chapter
we’ll examine these service orientation skills in more detail, solve a case study
where these skills aren’t being used effectively, look at some research that’s been
done on their teaching, and provide language for how to express them.

• What’s meant by customer service orientation and why it’s important

• The recent customer service research being done by scholars and how
it translates into practical service-orientation strategies you can use to
demonstrate your soft skills
DOI: 10.4324/9781003212942-9
Customer Service Orientation 99
• What problematic customer service looks like in a real-world setting

and the language and gestures you can use to demonstrate strong cus-
tomer service orientation
What Are Service Orientation Skills and Why Are They

Important?
As you can imagine, there’s a large, diverse literature on customer service and
customer service orientation. This is because entire parts of the economy con-
sider these skills to be fundamentally important, including hospitality, retail,
and sales. In the past couple of decades, there’s evidence that even fields that
have not traditionally considered themselves as offering “customer service”
(e.g., medicine, postsecondary education, libraries) are beginning – if not quite
to see the people with whom they interface as “customers” – then to at least
borrow some of the best practices from customer service in their interactions
with the people they serve. For some critics, this move has been controversial.
They resist the move to casting everyone in every situation as a customer,
instead of the more traditional “patient” or “student/learner” or “reader/
researcher” (Budd 1997; Soucy 2018; Torpie 2014). In a nutshell the criticism is
that not all aspects of our world need to or should be predicated on a monetary
exchange (even if only a metaphorical one, as when a person who uses a free
public library is considered a customer by the library’s managers).
Regardless of the criticism, customer service as both a real-world activity
and behavior/inclination is widely studied. There are peer-reviewed journals
that solely publish research on customer service, including the Journal of Service
Theory and Practice, Journal of Customer Service in Marketing & Management, and
the Journal of Service Research. A recent development in the field is the explo-
ration of new modalities of customer service over and above the traditional
in-person and phone service, including virtual chatbot service and robotic
process automation service. In McLeay et al. (2021), for example, the positive
and negative implications of humanoid robot service provision are examined.
The authors conclude that depending on customer type (i.e., customers who
value innovativeness vs. customers who value the ethics of dealing with real
people), the provision of customer service by robots may be either positive
or negative. Similarly, van der Groot and Pilgrim (2019) and Gnewuch et al.
(2018) examine the efficacy of online chatbot customer service. The first article
demonstrates how acceptance of chatbot service varies with the age customers,
while the second article considers the effect of “dynamic response delays” on
human-chatbot interaction and concludes that these delays, rather than creating
impatience among human customers, actually “increase users’ perception of
humanness and social presence [and] lead to greater satisfaction with the overall
chatbot interaction”.
Despite these new customer service modalities, most service interactions

still take place in person and over the phone, and sometimes in electronic mes-
saging such as email and text messages. The skills required to effectively dem-
onstrate a service orientation begin with building rapport. When you say you
have a “good rapport” with someone, it means that you get along because you
trust that person and see things in a similar way. To create this feeling of get-
ting along/trusting, break the ice by mentioning something you have in com-
mon that’s not directly related to the business at hand (e.g., the weather). Next,
listen actively to what the customer has to say as discussed in Chapter 4 on
communication. Finally, mirror the customer’s conversation, which means try
matching his or her tone, volume, and rate as best as you can. Your matching of
the customer subtly signals you’re following his or her lead in this interaction.
Other hints for achieving rapport include using the customer’s name if you
know it/can find it out, showing empathy/understanding, and speaking about
a solution you’ll provide (How to Build Rapport with Customers n.d.; How to
Build Rapport on the Phone: 10 Key Steps to Success n.d.).
Once rapport has been built, demonstrate your effective customer ser-
vice orientation by maintaining a positive relationship with the client or
customer. An important way you do this is by consciously choosing to use a
friendly/informal tone of voice. The tone of your voice is the emotion with
which you infuse your natural voice. A joking tone, a sarcastic tone, an angry
tone, a defensive tone – if you stop to think about it, you’ll be able to iden-
tify the things you do to/with your voice to demonstrate those kinds of emo-
tions. You can, for instance, recognize a serious/formal tone when you hear
it: it’s slower, deeper, doesn’t vary a lot, and is not necessarily enthusiastic. On
the other hand, you can also recognize a friendly/informal tone: it’s faster,
higher, shows some variation, and is enthusiastic (Basu 2021). It’s this friendly/
informal tone that you should strive for in order to maintain a positive rela-
tionship during a service interaction. An easy way to demonstrate a friendly
tone is to interject into the conversation with a confirming word or phrase
such as “Absolutely”, “I hear you”, “I understand”, “That’s right”, all of which
signal friendliness. This advice applies to the customer as well as the customer
service provider. Gone are the days when by virtue of being the customer (i.e.,
of having money to spend, being the client) people could feel entitled to act in
a superior way to those providing service to them. Today, the relationship is
more reciprocal – friendliness and respect going both ways. Still, I’d argue it
is the service provider’s responsibility to establish rapport and show positivity,
while for the customer it’s a nice-to-have if he or she follows suit.
So far your customer service orientation has been shown by engaging a
customer/client through rapport building and maintaining positivity. The
crux of any customer service encounter is satisfying the client’s/customer’s
needs. In many service interactions, this isn’t difficult as you have the product
or service the customer requires. In other interactions, the customer’s needs
can’t, or can’t easily, be satisfied, or are unreasonable. It’s when such a mismatch
exists between the service-providing organization and the customer that your
service orientation has to shine. It’s your job to step in to deal with the mis-
match between customer need and what you can provide with language that
assures the customer that even though the solution is challenging, multi-step,
impossible, etc., satisfying his or her need is of utmost importance to you. Or,
when no solution is possible, your ability to politely walk away from the service
requirement. Typical phrases to bridge over such a mismatch might include “I
can definitely do that for you; however, it’s going to . . .”, “I’ll ask my manager
to help out with your request if that’s ok . . .”, “I’m not sure about that, but give
me a couple of minutes and I’ll look into it . . .” In the rare situation when you
can’t satisfy a customer’s needs because it goes against the organization’s policies
or is unreasonable, you’ll need to firmly let the customer know this by using
a polite let-down phrase such as “As much as I’d love to help . . .” While not
satisfying the customer’s needs, it is at least polite, truthful, and not as abrupt as
just saying “No” (Carlyle n.d.).
Building rapport, maintaining positivity, and satisfying needs in the context
of a customer interaction/conversation can, to a great degree, be taught. The
fourth aspect of a customer service orientation, which underpins your demon-
stration of these first three skills, is an inclination to be polite and help-
ful. This aspect of a customer service orientation is more complex because an
inclination is not a skill. Whereas a skill is something you do or execute well
(sometimes because you’re naturally talented; most times because you’ve been
trained to do it), an inclination is the way you are. Who or what inf luences the
ways we are? You’ll recall from Chapter 2 that personality theory argues that
while your main five personality traits are innate, they are also susceptible to
change with the correct behavioral modification techniques. Which of the big-
five personality traits most closely predicts your inclination to be polite and
helpful? Probably the trait of “agreeableness”, though some part of being polite
and helpful also comes from the other big-five trait of “conscientiousness”, in
the sense of thinking of other people. Torpie (2014), who I cited earlier, warns
that politeness/helpfulness in customer service “can be scripted superficially.
Detached, but polite. Anyone who has contacted a customer service center by
phone will recognize the familiar scripted catch phrases”. For those of us not
naturally prone to demonstrating politeness and helpfulness, a helpful approach
is to perform customer service orientation (in the sense discussed in the Intro-
duction), but to ensure this performance is authentic, and not “detached” or
“superficial”.
In our survey of 350 employers, when we asked them what actions/behaviors
they associated with the end result of “customer service orientation”, employers
rated most highly the idea that a customer service orientation means workers
who “listen actively and respectfully” and workers who can “be responsive to
customer demands”. This meshes well with what the extensive literature has to
FIGURE 7.1 A positive customer service orientation is shown by your inclination to

be helpful and pleasant with customers and clients
Credit: SDI Productions/Getty Images
say about employer requirements for customer service orientation. According

to Sutherland et al. (2020), the move in many industries toward using online
tools, including social media, to provide customer service skills – especially
inf luenced by the Covid-19 pandemic – means that customer service skills
deployed via social media have become one of the most important areas of con-
cern for employers. Sutherland goes on to note that “employers of university
graduates require staff who know how to interact with customers and represent
their organization in a positive way on social media”, and they find this use
of social media to be more important than other social media competencies
such as content production, analytics, and strategy. Other researchers looking
more broadly at the differing expectations employers and students have around
employability skills consistently show that employers seek strong customer care
skills, while students don’t recognize this as top skill (Lisa et al. 2019).
It’s possible that students, usually a younger demographic than employ-
ers, associate customer service orientation with the kinds of jobs they’ve typi-
cally worked at already (e.g., in retail, in restaurants) and not as a skill that’s also
required in the professional settings to which they aspire. Whatever the truth
of the situation, given that employers do see customer service orientation as
very important across all workplace settings, we might assume that this skill is
being taught widely at colleges and universities. A search of research databases,
however, shows that unlike the other outward-facing soft skills we’ve examined
(communication and teamwork), there is relatively little evidence in the literature

that service orientation is taught in the postsecondary sector, despite validated
measures of service orientation being available (Carraher et al. 1998; Hogan et al.
1984). There are some exceptions, of course, including retail management pro-
grams, financial advising programs, sales and marketing programs, hospitality
programs, and some aspects (i.e., patient interaction) of healthcare programs, but
overall, few if any studies provide evidence of the teaching of customer service
orientation as a transferable skill across academic settings.
Case Study: Customer Service Orientation

in a real workplace setting, problematic customer service orientation
skills are on display. What I’d like you to do is read the case carefully
to get a sense of what’s going on between the various characters. Then,
review the five questions at the end of the case. Go back into the case and
scan it again, making notes as you go that will help you answer the five
questions. Some of the answers may require online research; others will
require you to go back to Part 1 of this book and look for answers in our eth-
ics, psychology, and interpersonal communication concepts and theories.
Following the case and questions, I’ll offer my own partial answer to
these questions to help you get started. The chapter ends with a practical
onstrate your effective customer service orientation skills.
Problematic Customer Service Orientation in a Workplace

Tina Fairley, a recent retiree, banks with Moneybank, a low-cost online
bank. She owns a condominium in Florida, where she spends between
four and six months of the year. From time to time, she needs to transfer
funds between her Canadian and her U.S. banks.
On the Moneybank website, Tina enters her login and password and
takes a look at her accounts. She decides she will transfer $10,000 from
her Canadian savings account to her U.S. checking account to get her
through her upcoming four months in Tampa. Because Moneybank does
not have any brick-and-mortar branches, Tina will have to call the 1–800
number and speak to a representative.
After a few minutes on hold, she gets through and states her request.
“Good afternoon, could I please set up an international money transfer
from my savings account to my U.S. checking account in Florida?” she
asks Sebastian, the customer service representative who answered her call.
“What was that? I didn’t understand what you said”, replies Sebastian,
perhaps a bit too sharply, given the circumstances.
“I’m sorry. I asked if I could set up an international money transfer”,
Tina replies, more slowly.
“Yeah, I think so? Did you say “international transfer of money?”
Sebastian asks.
“Yes, that’s what I said”, Tina replies.
“I’m pretty sure we will deal with this for you. Give me a minute, okay?”
Sebastian places Tina on hold suddenly and is gone for about a minute.
“I’m back Mrs. Tina. I got my supervisor; her name is Kelly. She’s
gonna help you with your problem”, he says.
*
Tina is now speaking with Kelly, Sebastian’s supervisor.
“Ms. Fairley, thanks for your patience. I understand you’d like to
make an international money transfer”, Kelly says.
“This isn’t going to be a problem, is it? I’m a long-standing customer
with fairly significant savings at Moneybank. . . . And I’m quite surprised
by the lack of training demonstrated by your employee Sebastian”, Tina
says, standing up for herself somewhat.
“It will absolutely not be a problem”, Kelly replies. “If you could just
calm down I’m sure we’ll sort this out and I’m sorry Sebastian wasn’t able
to complete this request for you in a satisfactory way”.
“Fine then”, Tina says. “Please transfer $10,000 from my savings account.
It’s going to the Citibank, branch number 10–395, at 344 West Columbus
Drive in Tampa. The account number at Citibank is 88904327”, Tina says
all in one breath.
“I’ll need you to repeat the branch number and the account number
Mrs. Fairley”.
Tina sighs audibly. She is incredibly frustrated at this point.
“1-0-3-9-5”, Tina says, more loudly than she’s been speaking up to this
point. “8-8-9-0-4-3-2–7. Do I have to repeat it again?” Tina asks, impatiently.
“That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Fairley; I’ve got your information”,
Kelly replies. “I’ve processed the transfer, and it will clear your bank in
Tampa in ten business days”.
“Ten business days! Since when?” Tina asks in amazement.
She then spends another five minutes on the phone listening to Kelly’s
explanation about recent changes to the length of time it takes interna-
tional money transfers to clear. Tina swears that the last two times she
made such a transfer, it happened within 48 hours.
“In that case, reverse the transfer. I’ll figure out something else. I’m
going to be in Florida in 36 hours!” she says to Kelly.
“I’m sorry Mrs. Fairley, but that’s a problem. . . . It’s not possible to
reverse transfers once they’ve been processed . . .” Kelly replies.
At this point, the normally mild-mannered Tina is f lustered, angry,
and far from her usual polite self.
“I’d like the name of your supervisor”, she says.
*
Tina has been speaking with Kelly’s supervisor Shane for a few min-
utes and it’s not going well.
“Mrs. Fairley”, Shane is saying, “the policy has changed and we must
follow the new policy. We appreciate the fact that you are a long-time
customer with significant savings, but we will not be changing our inter-
national money transfer policy because you are unhappy with today’s
transaction, nor can we reverse the transfer”.
“Your president will be receiving a letter from me shortly about this”,
Tina says. “And it’s quite possible that I’ll be using social media to let
other customers of Moneybank know about the service I received today”.
“Is there anything else we can do for you today, Mrs. Fairley?” Shane
replies, per Moneybank training on how to end a call.
Tina hangs up without saying another word.

1. Identify and comment on up to five instances of customer service
interaction in this case.
2. Which of these instances is most problematic and why?
4. Given what you’ve learned so far, rewrite the three scenes in this case
(Tina’s conversation with Sebastian; Tina’s conversation with Kelly;
Tina’s conversation with Shane) to show how the people in this case
could demonstrate more effective soft skills. Your scenes should
include both dialogue and description of improved behaviors. Choose
one of the following methods to model your improved behaviors: act
out your revised script in your class, shoot and edit a video using your
phone and play it in class, use a free animation software like Toonboon
or Animoto to create an animated version of your improved script and
play it in class, or use PowerPoint’s audio function to record yourself
reading your revised script with improved behaviors.
5. Use Google Scholar or a research database at your school library (e.g.,
Academic Search Complete) to research customer service orientation
issues/problems or successes in the contemporary workplace (i.e., the

last ten years). Quoting from at least two articles you find, what can
you say about the state of customer service in today’s workplace?

The first thing that strikes me about this case is customer Tina Fairley’s under-
standing that as a customer, she still has responsibilities to create a positive
communication climate. She begins to do this with her polite request: “Good
morning, could I please set up . . .” which signals to Sebastian, the service
representative, that he is being respected and his face not threatened. It’s clear
pretty quickly, however, that Sebastian is not returning the favor. His lack of
active listening, demonstrated by his “What was that?” question, is not a good
way of building rapport in this customer service interaction. Going back to our
first three chapters, we could say that Tina recognizes her responsibility to be
polite in this interaction, that is, to consider the person she’s communicating
with, either because she sees it as her duty, she knows it’ll make the greatest
number of people happy, she recognizes the social contract between customer/
service representative, or she personally believes politeness to be a virtue. On the
other hand, Sebastian lets obstacles to acting ethically get in the way – perhaps
his egoism is getting the better of him after a long shift of speaking with clients.
Recalling what you learned earlier about politeness theory, you could also
argue that Sebastian’s “I didn’t understand what you said” is too bald-on record
of a response for the situation. As you learned, too much bald-on record lan-
guage in a workplace interaction will lead to the other person experiencing a
face-threatening act and retreating into defensiveness, which is exactly what
happens in this case. Instead of this bald-on record declaration, Sebastian could
instead have said, “I’m sorry Ms. Fairley, would you mind repeating that? I
don’t think I heard you correctly”. Despite Sebastian’s bald-on record lack of
positive politeness, Tina continues to use positive strategies from politeness
theory to try to maintain a respectful interaction – she actually apologizes
even though it’s Sebastian who’s not been listening. “I’m sorry”, she says, “I
asked if . . .” Once again, perhaps due to her greater age and experience, Tina
consciously decides not to begin a negative communication spiral or series of
defensive statements. Essentially, she gives Sebastian the benefit of the doubt.
A number of other concepts and theories from Chapters 2–4 could be used
to explain the behavior of these characters, including attitudes, social learning
and moral reasoning theories, personality theories, various interpersonal com-
munication concepts including competence, spirals, and politeness. And it’s not
just Sebastian, Kelly, and Shane who are at fault here. Tina, after the positive
politeness she displays with Sebastian, finds herself descending into problematic
ways of communicating, which we can call out, even though she is the cus-
tomer. Something to consider as well, even though you haven’t yet read Chapter
7 on problem-solving orientation and Chapter 9 on likability, is the degree to
which these soft skills are or aren’t being displayed by the characters in this case.
tions between characters in the three scenes, analyze what’s going on using at
least three more concepts/theories from Chapters 2– 4 as I’ve done previously,
and answer the case questions. Keep in mind that although you’re looking at
customer service orientation specifically, sometimes communication and team-
work, from Chapter 3 and 4, will be part of the problem – it’s tricky to separate
customer service from communication especially. Your instructor will take up
the responses with you after you’ve had a chance to work on and present your
answers, including modeling improved soft skills.

Customer Service Orientation Skills
As you’ve seen in the case, our customer service orientation skills are not always
optimal. One reason for this may be that on a particular day you feel tired or
stressed out and unable to separate this personal stuff from your workplace
behavior. Another reason is that you may have recently had a problematic
encounter with a customer/client and feel like there’s no point in being too
helpful or friendly with other customers. Other reasons for not performing an
effective customer service orientation may include a philosophical notion that
due to your level of pay or due to their not being mentioned explicitly in your
job description, such an orientation is “above your pay grade”. Here are some
concrete strategies for how to communicate effectively in service situations.
When You Want to Demonstrate Courtesy/Politeness

Make eye contact + smile + shake hands (if appropriate)
“Hi I’m Frances. It’s nice to meet you”.
“Welcome to Nordstrom/Thanks for calling Moneybank. I’m Larry . . .”
“Thanks for calling/coming in/being in touch. I’m Stephanie”.
“It’s been a pleasure speaking with you today!”
When You Want to Demonstrate Helpfulness

“How can I help today?/If I can be of help, please let me know”.
“What are you looking for today?”
“I see you chose ‘investments’ from our phone menu. What specifically can I
help you with?”
“Is there something I can help you with/help you find?”
When You Want to Build Rapport

Make eye contact + smile + (if in person and if appropriate) add a gesture such
as a quick touch of the person’s shoulder
“Great weather we’ve been having this week . . .”
“So Dave, what’s the specific issue you’ve looking for help with?”
“Okay, so just to confirm, you’re looking to broaden your portfolio to include
some equities?”
“I completely understand your frustration, but I think I can help . . .”
“I can definitely solve that issue for you today . . .”
When You Want to Maintain Positivity

“Absolutely!”
“I hear you . . .”
“I completely understand . . .”,
“You’re right about that!”
“I appreciate that; thank you!”
When You Want to Satisfy a Customer’s/Client’s Needs

Make eye contact
“Here’s what I can do right now . . .”
“It’s not in stock right now, but I can place an order and have it here within
48 hours”.
“I can definitely help you with that”.
“What I’d like to suggest is . . .”
“If it’s alright with you, I propose that . . .”
When a Client/Customer or a Service Provider Is Frustrated

Make eye contact + look serious
“I appreciate your frustration. I’m going to try to solve this for you quickly”.
“I’m sorry you’re angry/unhappy/frustrated. This process does take some time
unfortunately, but I’ll work as fast as I can . . .”
“I know we haven’t been able to offer you the solution you were looking for
today; I promise we’ll do better in future”.
“I understand you’re unhappy about this. What else can I do to help?”
“I’d appreciate your understanding; I’m doing my job as best as I can under the
circumstances”.
(Bacal, 2010)
TRY THIS
Using the above language and behavior suggestions, provide an effec-
tive response to the following situations. Then, develop another effective
response on your own, not from these lists. Finally, for each situation, pro-
vide a response that’s not effective because the soft skill of customer ser-
vice orientation is not demonstrated.
• A customer walks into your store and asks where to make a return.
However, your store doesn’t allow returns in the three days after Christ-
mas. What do you say to him?
• A customer has been on hold for over 30 minutes, including having to
make numerous selections on your insurance company’s automated
menu before finally getting through to you. You can tell by her tone
when you finally speak to her that she’s very unhappy. What do you say
to her before dealing with her policy renewal?
• A customer you’ve been helping in the printer section of your office
supply store has an unreasonable request – a laser printer that is also a
copier and fax machine, that prints double-sided, and which must be
below $100. What do you say to him?
• A customer is applying for a mortgage renewal, and as the broker,
you’ve been exchanging numerous emails with the customer over the
past two weeks. At one point the customer writes, “Can you just stop it
with all these emails and just process the renewal?” What do you write
back to her?
SUMMARY
• An effective customer service orientation is an inclination or ten-

dency to want to be helpful and pleasant with customers and clients.
To demonstrate such a service orientation you can build rapport by
getting to know the person with whom you’re interfacing, maintaining
positivity through an informal and friendly tone of voice, satisfying the
customer’s/client’s needs by providing the good or service requested,
and if that’s not immediately possible, minimizing the process of
fulfilling the need. In addition, you can ensure that when you’re interfac-
ing with customers/clients, you perform courteousness/politeness and
helpfulness as naturally as possible.
• The reasons why employers consistently rank customer service ori-

entation as among the most important soft skills required for their
employees is that this skill has been shown to lead to customer loyalty
and retention. Traditional customer service situations (in-person,
phone) are evolving to include technology-mediated service situations
including chatbots and robotic interfaces. Despite these newer ways
of providing service, employers still widely report the requirement for
their employees to be service-oriented.
• Practical gestures for demonstrating a customer service orientation
include smiling, making eye contact, and nodding your head to show
agreement and active listening. Practical language tips to demonstrate
effective customer service orientation include ensuring that the tone of
your voice is friendly/informal instead of serious/formal and enthusias-
tic. Also, concrete language that describes what you’re doing for the
client/customer is important to show that needs are being fulfilled.
References
Bacal, R. (2010) Perfect Phrases for Customer Service. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw Hill.
Basu, A. (2021) Why the Right Customer Service Voice Matters. Zendesk. www.
zendesk.com/blog/right-tone-of-voice/, Accessed April 14, 2021.
Budd, J. M. (1997) A Critique of Customer and Commodity. College & Research Librar-
ies, 58.4.
Carlyle, J. (n.d.) 7 Powerful Customer Service Phrase You Need to Use, Qminder. www.
qminder.com/customer-service-phrases/, Accessed April 14, 2021.
Carraher, S. M., Mendoza, J. L., Buckley, M. R., Schoenfeldt, L. F., & Carraher,
C. E. (1998) Validation of an Instrument to Measure Service-Orientation. Journal of
Quality Management, 3.2.
Gnewuch, U., Morana, S., Adam, M., & Maedche, A. (2018) Faster Is Not Always
Better: Understanding the Effect of Dynamic Response Delays in Human-Chabot
Interaction. Research Papers, 113.
Hogan, R., Hogan, J., & Busch, C. (1984) How to Measure Service Orientation. Journal
of Applied Psychology, 69.
How to Build Rapport on the Phone: 10 Key Steps to Success (n.d.) Fraser Market-
ing Group. www.fmgroup.com.au/portfolio_page/how-to-build-rapport-on-the-
phone-10-key-steps-to-success/, Accessed April 14, 2021.
How to Build Rapport with Customers (n.d.) Webeducator. www.webucator.com/
how-to/how-build-rapport-with-customers.cfm, Accessed April 14, 2021.
Keillor, B. D., Parker, R. S., & Pettijohn, C. E. (2000) Relationship-Oriented Char-
acteristics and Individual Salesperson Performance. Journal of Business and Industrial
Marketing, 15.1.
Klein, C., DeRouin, R. E., & Salas, E. (2006) Uncovering Workplace Interpersonal
Skills: A Review, Framework, and Research Agenda. In G. P. Hodgkinson & J. K.
Ford (Eds.), International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2006 Vol-
ume 21. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Liao, H., & Chuang, A. (2004) A Multilevel Investigation of Factors Inf luencing
Employee Service Performance and Customer Outcomes. Journal of Academy of Man-
agement, 47.1.
Lisa, E., Hennelova, K., & Newman, D. (2019) Comparison between Employers’ and
Students’ Expectations in Respect of Employability Skills of University Graduates.
International Journal of Work-Integrated Learning, 20.1.
McLeay, F., Osburg, V. S., Yogananthan, V., & Patterson A. (2021) Replaced by a
Robot: Service Implications in the Age of the Machine. Journal of Service Research,
24.1.
Popli, S., & Rizvi, I. A. (2017) Leadership Style and Service Orientation: The Catalytic
Role of Employee Engagement. Journal of Service Theory and Practice, 27.1.
Soucy, R. (2018) A Critique of the Customer Model of Higher Education. New York: Peter
Lang.
Sutherland, K., Freberg, K., Driver, C., & Khattab, U. (2020) Public Relations and
Customer Service: Employer Perspectives of Social Media Proficiency. Public Rela-
tions Review, 46.4.
Torpie, K. (2014) Customer Service vs. Patient Care. Patient Experience Journal, 1.2.
https://pxjournal.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1045&c
ontext=journal
van der Groot, M. J., & Pilgrim, T. (2019) Exploring Age Differences in Motivations
for and Acceptance of Chatbox Communication in a Customer Service Context. In
A. Følstad et al. (Eds.), Chatbot Research and Design. Conversations. Lecture Notes in
Computer Science, Cham: Springer, 11970.
PART 3
Inward-Facing Soft Skills

8
PROBLEM-SOLVING
ORIENTATION
You learned in the previous part of the book that soft skills can be divided into
two categories: outward-facing (interpersonal) and inward-facing (intrapersonal).
In this part of the book, you’ll explore the three main soft skills that fall under the
inward-facing category: problem-solving orientation, productivity/work ethic, and
likability. According to the U.S. National Research Council definition, successful
inward-facing/intrapersonal soft skills “are talents or abilities that reside within
the individual” and which “contribute to adaptive behavior and productivity”
(Assessing 21st Century Skills 2011). In other words, inward-facing/intrapersonal
skills are the ones we use to manage ourselves and change as needed so that we can
achieve the best results possible in the workplace and in life in general. Whereas
outward-facing/interpersonal soft skills allow you to manage your interactions
and social performance, which by definition take place with other people (in
teams, meetings, client interactions, etc.), the main goal of inward-facing/intrap-
ersonal soft skills is your ability to self-regulate. Self-regulation is when we change
our behavior “in the service of goal pursuit” (Assessing 21st Century Skills 2011).
For example, you might decide not to join your team members in complaining
about a project, and instead propose a way forward to get the job done. Or, you
might decide not to respond to a customer’s slightly sarcastic comment with more
sarcasm, and instead continue to be helpful and polite.

• What’s meant by a positive problem-solving orientation and why it’s

important
DOI: 10.4324/9781003212942-11
116 Inward-Facing Soft Skills
• The recent problem-solving research being done by scholars and how

this translates into practical problem-solving orientation strategies you
can use to demonstrate your soft skills
• What a negative problem-solving orientation looks like in a real-world
setting and the language and gestures you can use to demonstrate this
soft skill effectively
What Are Problem-Solving Orientation Skills and Why

Are They Important?
Problem-solving orientation is defined as “a person’s cognitive, emotional, and
behavioral attitudes towards a given problem”; in other words, it’s your dem-
onstration of a willingness to solve problems combined with your belief in
how effective you can be at doing so (Shim et al. 2019). Psychology research-
ers have described problem-solving orientation as a two-dimensional concept:
your problem-solving orientation is either positive or negative (D’Zurilla et al.
2002, 2004). Each orientation (positive problem-solving orientation, negative
problem-solving orientation) is in turn “displayed in a particular behavioral
style . . . whenever an individual deals with a significant problem” (Shim et al.
2019). According to the same researchers:
People who act according to a positive orientation tend . . . to view their

problems as challenges or opportunities to display their abilities, and they
tend to believe they can surmount whatever problem confronts them.
They also tend to believe that positive outcomes will be obtained once a
problem is solved. Thus, they tend to employ a rational problem-solving
style, one that will likely involve a series of problem- solving steps exe-
cuted in a systematic and goal-directed way.
(Shim et al. 2019 citing Robichaud & Dugas 2005)
On the other hand, people with a negative problem-solving orientation will

display actions that get in the way of effective problem solving, including avoid-
ance, procrastination, or other gestures and behaviors that interfere with solv-
ing the problem. Interestingly, researchers have found that the behaviors that
go along with a negative problem-solving orientation are often self-imposed:
people might believe, for example, that “completing a task will involve more
difficulty than it actually does” (Hebing 2016; Shim et al. 2019).
Problem-solving orientation is the subject of a variety of different research
studies. In one group of studies, researchers have examined the relationship
between problem-solving orientation and people’s daily intrapersonal prob-
lems like controlling their emotions and dealing with health issues. Baker
(2006) tests the relationship between positive problem-solving orientation
Problem-Solving Orientation 117
and people’s reporting of fewer daily hassles and more desirable daily events
and finds a positive relationship exists. Another group of studies looks at the
relationship between problem-solving orientation and various interpersonal
problems such as conf lict with other people. In her study of problem-solving
orientation among Japanese students, Sumi (2011) finds that “individuals with
an optimistic attitude toward tackling problems or a systematic approach to
solving problems may be more likely to initiate and maintain intimate relation-
ships as well as to manage interpersonal conf licts”. A final group of studies
looks at problem-solving orientation in the context of our potential develop-
ment of certain negative and positive mental health conditions. Gosselin et al.
(2002) and Clarke et al. (2017), for example, find evidence for a relationship
between negative problem-solving orientation and the development of worry
and anxiety disorders.
As mentioned here, there are a number of ways you can demonstrate a posi-
tive problem-solving orientation. The first is to view and verbalize problems
as challenges/opportunities to demonstrate your abilities. How can you
demonstrate such a proactive view? One way is to consciously acknowledge
there’s a problem to be solved, instead of ignoring or shying away from the
problem. Another way is to specifically acknowledge your interest in solving
the problem or helping to solve the problem, instead of hoping that someone
else will do this work (this has clear parallels to the leadership/followership
discussion in Chapter 5). Yet another way to demonstrate a proactive view of
problem solving is to compare the current problem you face to one you’ve suc-
cessfully faced or solved in the past. Finally, you can demonstrate a challenge/
opportunity view of problem solving by previewing how you think the prob-
lem might be solved. This type of forward-looking, leadership lens for problem
solving is especially valuable when you’re in a team because your opinion tends
to be persuasive and cause others around you to also feel the problem is solvable.
After the case study later in this chapter, I’ll offer some specific language for
how to verbalize that you see problems as challenges/opportunities.
Once you’ve viewed and verbalized the problem as a challenge and/or
opportunity to demonstrate your abilities, another way of manifesting a posi-
tive problem-solving orientation is to verbalize the belief that you’ll be
successful in solving the problem and that your success will lead to posi-
tive outcomes. This kind of strategy will be familiar to people who’ve worked
or participated in an athletics context. Hardy and Oliver (2014) are among a
number of researchers who have examined the mechanics of what’s known as
“positive thinking” and “motivational self talk” among athletes. Their findings
are that “the available research does support the belief that positive self-talk
(e.g., saying ‘I can’ to yourself regularly before executing a task) can lead to
enhanced performance”. Numerous books, websites, and articles exist offer-
ing techniques for practicing this sort of verbalization. Common among them
is the idea that positive thinking, while not ignoring life’s challenges, is about
approaching these challenges “in a more positive and productive way” (Mayo
Clinic 2020). Some examples for verbalizing positive thinking through self-
talk are offered later in the chapter.
The final step in demonstrating a positive problem-solving orientation is
using a thoughtful problem-solving style made up of rational steps to
execute in a systematic and goal-directed way. Often, this last step is taken out
of context as the only aspect of problem solving. For example, many books you
can find in the Business/Self-help section of your local bookstore that claim
to teach you how to be a great problem solver are actually only giving you
this third step in demonstrating a positive problem-solving orientation. These
books are less interested in (or not aware of ) the important earlier strategies:
view/verbalize the problem as a challenge/opportunity and verbalize the belief
you’ll be successful at solving the problem. They’re not alone in this. Often,
advice on soft skills such as communication and teamwork proceeds from the
assumption that it’s only the final product (e.g., the business presentation) that is
important. As a result, these advice givers are always offering five steps or three
steps or ten steps to designing the perfect presentation, etc. They tend to forget
that it’s your attitude or orientation towards the task (e.g., customer service,
problem solving) that is as important as the execution. In the introduction, I
called this the “performative” aspect of soft skills.
FIGURE 8.1 An effective problem-solving orientation is shown by your willingness

to solve problems, and your confidence that the solution will work
Credit: Drazen_/Getty Images
Conn and McLean (2018) and Watanabe (2009) offer two examples of
thoughtful step-based advice on problem solving. Their approaches are some-
what different – Conn and McLean focus on communicating a “storyline” after
your analysis of a problem, while Watanabe focuses on finding the “root cause”
of a problem and solving it. What they have in common (besides each offering
seven steps to successful problem solving!) is the recognition that the process
of solving a problem always involves two tasks. The first is to break down the
problem (into smaller issues, into hypothesized root causes), and the second
task is to build up a solution (by researching the issues/a solution, by com-
municating your results/solution/action plan). Within this two-part process,
both Conn and McLean and Watanabe stress the importance of certain tools
useful to problem-solvers, such as logic trees. Logic trees are the diagrams we
intuitively draw when we want to divide or categorize or classify or show the
parts of something. For example, if you’ve been asked to help solve the prob-
lem of shrinking foot traffic in a retail location you could start by drawing a
two-branch logic tree under this main problem, one branch might be labeled
“move to online shopping” and the other might be labeled “neighborhood
deterioration” – both of which are anecdotal observations you and your team-
mates have made. From there, you’ll be able to draw separate branches under
each of the two branches you’ve already drawn, and eventually offer a hypoth-
esis (an educated guess) as to why foot traffic has been shrinking, which can be
proved through data collection and analysis, which in turn leads to a series of
potential solutions/actions.
In our survey of 350 employers, when we asked them about the top actions/
behaviors they associated with the end result of “positive problem-solving ori-
entation”, employers rated three competencies highly: listening effectively to
understand the problem, analyzing issues quickly and accurately, and offering
clear solutions to problems and issues that are responsive to client or customer
needs. You’ll notice this sounds quite similar to Conn and McLean and Wata-
nabe’s seven steps to solving a problem. But our employers also rated highly
the competency of “showing initiative”, which is aligned with our first two
pieces of advice for demonstrating a problem-solving orientation: verbalize the
problem as a challenge/opportunity and verbalize your confidence in solv-
ing the problem/gaining positive outcomes. These results from our employer
survey mesh well with the literature on employer requirements around prob-
lem solving and problem-solving orientation. Rios et al. (2020) find problem
solving to be the third most frequently required soft skill in contemporary job
advertisements after communication skills and teamwork/collaboration skills.
Hämäläinen et al. (2017) highlight the increasingly important role that human
problem solving plays in many workplaces as numerous routine tasks begin to
be replaced by computer/robotic automation, while Tekin and Akin (2021)
demonstrate the direct relationship between problem-solving confidence and
taking initiative.
The high importance ascribed to employee positive problem-solving orienta-

tion and problem-solving skills by employers would lead you to believe that this
soft skill is a significant part of the curriculum in various postsecondary education
programs. As with customer service orientation, however, a search of research
databases shows there are few if any examples in the literature that show problem-
solving orientation being formally taught in the postsecondary sector (there is
slightly more evidence that problem-solving skills of the “seven steps” variety
are being taught). If you broaden your search, you’ll find a number of studies
about teaching specific types of problem-solving skills, notably in the mathematics
and science curriculum as well as the curriculum for teacher training of aspiring
math and science teachers. However, there is little evidence of the teaching of
positive problem-solving orientation/problem-solving skills as a transferable skill
across university or college curricula. A few articles point out the need for prob-
lem-solving training especially in the context of analytics/data science programs
(Stanton & D’Auria-Stanton 2020). One interesting exception to this gap in the
literature is the rise of new technologies as potential ways of teaching transfer-
able problem-solving skills. Emihovich et al. (2020) and Araiza-Alba et al. (2021)
investigate the usefulness of immersive virtual reality (IVR) and video gameplay
respectively as tools to teach transferable problem-solving skills.
Case Study: Problem-Solving Orientation

In the following case study, which is based on incidents that took place in a
real workplace setting, negative problem-solving orientation skills are on dis-
play. What I’d like you to do is read the case carefully to get a sense of what’s
going on between the various characters. Then, review the five questions at
the end of the case. Go back into the case and scan it again, making notes as
you go that will help you answer the five questions. Some of the answers may
require online research; others will require you to go back to Part 1 of this
book and look for answers in our ethics, psychology, and interpersonal com-
munication concepts and theories. Following the case and questions, I’ll offer
some partial answers to these questions to help you get started. The chapter
ends with a practical section that offers concrete language and behaviors you
can use to demonstrate your positive problem-solving orientation skills.
Negative Problem-Solving Orientation in a Workplace

Curtis Braithwaite is the owner of a downtown Canna-Smoke cannabis
boutique franchise. His staff of 15 includes eight sales representatives who
sell the store’s products, and three managers who manage these employ-
ees, as well as logistics, finance, and marketing staff.
The store has been open for just over two years. Before the Covid-19
pandemic, the location was doing brisk business. Customers included
people who live downtown, as well as people who work downtown.
Both groups would drop by regularly (sometimes up to three times a
week) to pick up various cannabis products. In the first six months his
location was open, Curtis’ sales were growing at around 6% per week and
head office was very happy.
In the winter of 2019–2020 the Covid-19 pandemic led to workplace
shutdowns and at various times retail shutdowns; as a result, fewer people
had reason to come downtown. Office workers were working at home and
weekend shoppers who would normally come downtown were no longer
coming downtown as all but essential retail (e.g., pharmacies, groceries)
were allowed to stay open. Soon, sales were declining rapidly, even though
as a “medicinal” retailer, Canna-Smoke was allowed to stay open during
all the various shutdowns and lockdowns.
After some prodding from head office, Curtis decides to create a team
consisting of his managers: Cathy, Steve, and Harpreet to try to solve
the problem of declining sales. He’s given the team four 30-minute paid
meeting times on Tuesdays over the next month to meet, figure things
out, and report back to him.
At their first meeting the team sits around a table in the back of the
store. They are looking at each other across the table, not really knowing
what to say or do. This lasts for the first five minutes. Finally, Harpreet
says, “What are we going to do?” Steve replies: “This is kind of above our
pay-grade if you ask me . . .” Cathy nods her head in agreement. Harpreet
checks her phone. Soon 30 minutes is up . . .
*
A week goes by. None of the teammates has been in touch with the
others to discuss the problem Curtis has asked them to solve. It’s now the
second Tuesday and they are meeting again before their shift.
“I think we need a plan”, Steve says to the team.
“I agree”, Cathy replies, “but whenever I’ve tried helping my boss out
with a problem, it always ends up coming back to haunt me”.
“What do you mean?” Harpreet asks.
“Simple”, Cathy says. “They have something challenging to figure out
and so they give it to their employees to deal with instead of dealing with
it themselves! They say it’s empowering us, but it’s actually a no-win situ-
ation. If you come up with a good solution to the problem, they take the
credit. If you don’t come up with a good solution they blame you and
maybe even get rid of you”.
“Wait a sec, though”, says Harpreet. “If we used that kind of logic
we’d never do anything our boss asked us in case it didn’t work out well . . .
Shouldn’t we at least try?”
Harpreet looks around the table but the eyes of her teammates are
focused on the table they’re sitting at. And in the case of Steve, on his
phone.
“Well, what would you suggest?” Cathy says to Harpreet.
“I mean let’s at least brainstorm some ideas”, Harpreet says. “Most of
us have can take an educated guess about the decline in sales, right?”
“I’m with Cathy – I don’t want to go out on a limb for Curtis”, Steve
says, looking up from his phone. “But I also don’t want to lose this job
by doing nothing. So, here’s my two cents: sales are down for obvious
reasons: Covid, Covid, and Covid”.
Harpreet can’t help rolling her eyes. She feels like they owe Curtis a
decent attempt at solving the problem. Should she just do the work by
herself?
*
It’s the fourth Tuesday, and Curtis is expecting a short presentation
from the team about what they found out and what they propose.
Cathy and Steve have contributed very little. After the team’s last
meeting, Harpreet and Steve stayed back for a while and did some brain-
storming. They decided to focus on reasons other than Covid, which
they reasoned was not controllable by Curtis or head office. Still, Steve
left the meeting and didn’t get in touch with Harpreet by the weekend,
like he said he would.
So Harpreet did research by herself. She looked at their competitors,
potential for growing online sales, and suggestions for temporary cuts
to store staff. Without doing any secondary research, however (she rea-
soned their 30-minute meetings didn’t give them enough time to do
more than observational primary research), she was only able to create a
three-slide PowerPoint. The first slide explored the problem, the second
slide offered three solutions, and the third slide simply said “Questions?”
She hasn’t shown the slide deck to Cathy and Steve, because they haven’t
bothered being in touch with her. And she doesn’t want to look like too
much of a keener
When they present the slides to Curtis that morning, he’s visibly
underwhelmed. It’s clear the team hasn’t discussed the slides ahead of
time. But still, he makes a point of thanking the team and telling them
he’ll give their suggestions some thought. Privately, he starts to consider
slimming down his staff and cutting back opening hours.

1. Identify and comment on up to five times in this case when a prob-
lem-solving orientation is not being effectively demonstrated. Is it
ever effectively demonstrated?
2. Which of these negative times is most serious and why?
communication be applied to think through the ineffective problem-
solving orientation in this case, and to offer solutions?
case (the team’s first meeting; the team’s second meeting; the team’s
presentation) to show how the employees in this case could demon-
strate effective soft skills. Your scenes should include both dialogue
and description of improved behaviors. Choose one of the following
5. Using Google Scholar or a research database at your school library
(e.g., Academic Search Complete) to research problem-solving ori-
entation challenges or successes in the contemporary workplace
(i.e., in the last ten years). Quoting from at least two articles you
find, what can you say about the state of problem solving in today’s
workplace?

The first thing that I notice in the first scene of this case is how strong the
obstacle of egoism is in keeping these characters from behaving in an ethical/
professional way. Neither Cathy, Harpreet nor Steve wants to think about any-
thing but his or her own concerns. Steve shows this most obviously by making
the lame joke about this problem being “above his pay grade”. Cathy shows this
by nodding her head in agreement with Steve’s joke. And Harpreet shows her
egoism by looking at her phone (either to check the time or to find some sort of
distraction) instead of being proactive. You could say that these characters are
clearly demonstrating a pre-conventional form of moral reasoning, in which
their own interests are more important than the interests of their manager or of
their company. The one glimmer of positive soft skill in this part of the case is
Harpreet’s question “So what are we going to do?”, which although it sounds
like it may be voiced in a complaining tone (creating a negative communication
climate), is at least a step in the right direction, which is recognizing that the
team can be successful – and can solve this problem.
Recalling what you learned earlier about social learning theory, you might
also notice that in this first scene, there’s clearly a form of “group think” going
on in which people in a team don’t want to “rock the boat” by behaving dif-
ferently from each other. Groupthink is a form of social learning, and in this
case Steve is clearly the “leader” – his comment about the task set by Curtis
being “above his pay grade” gives Cathy the permission she needs to also “mis-
behave” or follow suit. Harpreet may be on the fence – wanting to be part of
the team by not rocking the boat but also feeling some stress if she doesn’t do
what Curtis has asked.
It’s clear that a number of other concepts and theories from Chapters 2– 4
can also be used to explain the behavior of these characters, including commu-
nication competence, communication climate, defensiveness/face-threatening,
personality, conformity, etc. And something not so obvious to consider may be
the role Curtis plays or doesn’t play in the success of the team he has created.
Could he have done anything differently? Another thing to consider, even
though you haven’t yet read Chapter 8 on productivity/work ethic and Chapter 9
on likability, is the degree to which these soft skills are or aren’t being displayed
by the characters in this case.
At this point, please go back into the case, and look at the various interactions
between characters in the three scenes, analyze what’s going on using at least
three concepts/theories from Chapters 2– 4 as I’ve done previously, and answer
the case questions. Keep in mind that although you’re looking at problem-
solving orientation specifically, sometimes communication and teamwork from
Chapter 5 and 6 will be part of the problem – it’s difficult to separate problem
solving from teamwork especially. Your instructor will take up the responses
with you after you’ve had a chance to work on and present your answers and
model improved soft skills.
Language and Behaviors to Demonstrate Positive

Problem-Solving Orientation
As you’ve seen in the case, our problem-solving orientation skills are not
always positive. One reason for this may be that we don’t want to go out on
a limb and risk looking foolish if our solution isn’t taken seriously. Another
reason may be that we feel the problem is too big for us to handle/be respon-
sible for. Other reasons for dissatisfaction with problem solving may include
interpersonal conf licts (e.g., one person on the team is known as a loafer, and
now you’ve been put on yet another team with him/her!). Here are some
concrete strategies for how to communicate so you’re demonstrating a positive
problem-solving orientation.
When You Want to Verbalize Problems

as Challenges/Opportunities
Make eye contact + raise eyebrows
“That sounds like an interesting challenge to figure out . . .”
“Thanks for assigning me to this problem – I appreciate the opportunity”.
“Thanks for trusting me with this problem – I’ll do my best”.
“Okay, I understand what you need. Let’s see what we can come up with!”
When You Want to Verbalize the Belief That You’ll

Be Successful at Solving the Problem
Make eye contact + smile/nod head
“I’ve dealt with issues like this in the past and I’m confident I can offer a way
forward”.
“I can already envision some solutions so I’ll get started right away”.
“With the right targeted research, I’m sure we can figure it out”.
“That’s a serious challenge, but there are going to be a number of ways we can
tackle it”.
When You Want to Verbalize the Belief That Your Solution

Will Have Positive Outcomes
“The solutions we come up with are definitely going to transform the situation
for the better”.
“Our solution will be workable and lead to a bunch of process improvements”.
“I was involved in solving a problem like this at my last job – it’s going to be
great!”
“I’m glad we’re tackling this now – there’s a definite need for positive change
in this area”.
When You Want to Engage in a Thoughtful Process

for Solving a Problem
Make eye contact + smile/nod head
“Why don’t we start by breaking down the problem into any smaller issues?”
“I think there are two main parts of this problem – does everyone agree?”
“So we’re agreed we’ll look into a combination of improved website design as
well as more customer service training for our frontline staff?”
“What kind of research do we need to do to investigate those problems?”
“Probably a customer survey plus a few focus groups for in-store customers.
What do you think?”
“Now that we have some ideas about what’s going on, what kind of data do
we need?”
“Okay that’s great data – let’s transform it into a few workable recommendations”.
“I think the data is clearly showing us what we need to propose as a way for-
ward . . .”
TRY THIS
tive solution to the following situations. Then, develop another effective
vide a response that’s not effective because the soft skill of positive problem-
solving orientation is not demonstrated. Your answers can include scripts.
• A nonprofit organization that is used to receiving a large annual dona-

tion from a local family foundation has just found out the foundation
will no longer be making the donation. The manager of major gifts
creates a team including herself and two business developers to figure
out how to plug the hole in the organization’s financing. At the first
meeting, the two business developers, who clearly don’t like each
other, spend most of their time criticizing each other’s ideas.
• A cross-functional healthcare team in a medical facility (including a
doctor, a nurse, and a communications executive) has been providing
free Covid-19 vaccinations to anyone over 12 in the local community for
the past few weeks. Yesterday, the team found out the supply of vac-
cines is temporarily suspended, and they will have to close the clinic.
There’s a disagreement between team members about how to proceed
after this bad news.
• A project manager in the engineering and works department of a large
city has found out that the five crews responsible for tree maintenance
(cutting, pruning, etc.) have been caught on video taking excessive breaks.
He forms a team made up of himself, a manager of the tree crews, and
a manager from HR. The first meeting is negative because the manager
of the tree crews says the others are “ganging up on” him and he wants
his union representative present.
• A retail manager of a clothing store in a suburban mall has just been
told that her location is closing at the end of the month. She knows sales
have been declining for the past six months, but she also knows she has
a dedicated group of regular customers who will be upset about the
store closure. The head office asks the manager to work with her senior
staff to figure out the best way to plan the closure so that loyal clients
aren’t lost forever.
SUMMARY
• A positive problem-solving orientation is a positive attitude towards

any given problem; it’s your demonstration of a willingness to solve
problems plus a belief that you’ll be effective at doing so. To demon-
strate such a problem-solving orientation you should view/verbalize
problems as challenges/opportunities; verbalize the solution as reach-
able and leading to successful outcomes; and, know the steps in prob-
lem solving, including breaking down a problem into smaller issues,
researching the data to support a number of solutions, and communi-
cating a realistic path forward.
• Employers consistently rank positive problem-solving orientation and
problem-solving skills among the top three soft skills required for their
employees along with effective communication and teamwork/collab-
oration. Today’s professional workplace is marked by numerous com-
plex problems that cannot be solved by automated solutions.
• Practical gestures for demonstrating a positive problem-solving
orientation include smiling, making eye contact, and nodding your head
to show positivity, understanding, and active listening. Practical language
tips to demonstrate effective problem-solving orientation include ensur-
ing that the tone of your voice is enthusiastic and that you use phrases
that speak to your belief the problem can be solved, that your solu-
tions will be effective, and that you understand the steps to solving the
problem.
References
Araiza-Alba, P., Keane, T., Chen, W. S., & Kaufman, J. (2021) Immersive virtual reality
as a tool to learn problem-solving skills. Computers & Education, 164.
Baker, S. R. (2006) Towards an Idiothetic Understanding of the Role of Social Problem
Solving in Daily Event, Mood and Health Experiences: A Prospective Daily Diary
Approach. British Journal of Health Psychology, 11.3.
Clarke, J. B., Ford, M., Heary, S., Rodgers, J., & Freeston, M. H. (2017) The Relation-
ship between Negative Problem Orientation and Worry: A Meta-Analytic Review.
Psychopathology Review, 4.3.
Conn, C., & McLean, R. (2018) Bulletproof Problem Solving. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley &
Sons.
D’Zurilla, T. J., Nezu, A. M., & Maydeu-Olivares, A. (2002) Social Problem-Solving
Inventory Revised, Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
D’Zurilla, T. J., Nezu, A. M., & Maydeu-Olivares, A. (2004) Social Problem Solving:
Theory and Assessment. In E. C. Chang, T. J. D’Zurilla, & L. J. Sanna (Eds.), Social
Problem Solving: Theory, Research, and Training, Washington, DC: American Psycho-
logical Association.
Emihovich, B., Roque, N., & Mason, J. (2020) Can Video Gameplay Improve Under-
graduates’ Problem-Solving Skills? International Journal of Game-Based Learning, 10.2.
Gosselin, P., Dugas, M., & Ladouceur, R. (2002) Worry and Problem Solving: The
Role of Negative Problem Orientation. Journal de Therapie Comportementale et Cogni-
tive, 12.2.
Hämäläinen, R., De Wever, B., Nissinen, K., & Cincinnato, S. (2017) Understanding
Adults’ Strong Problem-Solving Skills Based on PIAAC. Journal of Workplace Learn-
ing, 29.7–8.
Hardy, J., & Oliver, E. J. (2014) Self-Talk, Positive Thinking, and Thought Stopping, Ency-
clopedia of Sport and Exercise Psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hebing, M. (2016) Perceived Task Difficulty and Procrastination in College Students. Honors
Senior Theses/Projects. https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1097&context=honors_theses&httpsredir=1&referer=, Accessed April 10,
2021.
Mayo Clinic (2020, January 21) Positive Thinking: Stop Negative Self-Talk to Reduce Stress.
www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-
thinking/art-20043950, Accessed April 20, 2021.
Rios, J. A., Ling, G., Pugh, R., Becker, D., & Bacall, A. (2020) Identifying Critical
21st-Century Skills for Workplace Success: A Content Analysis of Job Advertise-
ments. Educational Researcher, 49.2.
Robichaud, M., & Dugas, M. J. (2005) Negative Problem Orientation (Part I): Psycho-
metric Properties of a New Measure. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 43.3.
Shim, S., Serido, J., & Yee, S.-K. (2019) Problem-Solving Orientations, Financial Self-
Efficacy, and Student-Loan Repayment Stress. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 53.3.
Stanton, W. W. & D’Auria-Stanton, A. (2020) Helping Business Students Acquire the
Skills Needed for a Career in Analytics: A Comprehensive Industry Assessment of
Entry-Level Requirements. Decision Sciences, 18.1.
Sumi, K. (2011) Relations of Social Problem Solving with Interpersonal Competence
in Japanese Students. Psychological Reports, 109.3.
Tekin, T., & Akın, U. (2021) The Relationship between Initiative Taking Levels and
Problem Solving Skills of School Administrators. Anadolu University Journal of Educa-
tion Faculty (AUJEF), 5.2.
Watanabe, K. (2009) Problem Solving 101. New York: Portfolio.
9
PRODUCTIVITY AND WORK
ETHIC
Another important inward-facing soft skill is how you demonstrate productiv-

ity and a positive work ethic. In this chapter we’ll use these words as synonyms
for your positive orientation toward work and toward getting work done effec-
tively and in a timely way (Zabel et al. 2017). There are other more techni-
cal definitions of productivity (e.g., Sickles & Zelenyuk 2019) that are based
on mathematical models and used by economists, but we won’t be concerned
with them here. Like customer service orientation and problem-solving orien-
tation from previous chapters, productivity/work ethic is another orientation,
inclination, or state of mind you display that helps employers (and colleagues
and clients) know you’re interested in and happy with your job. Researchers
have shown productivity and a positive work ethic to be closely related, and
even predictive of each other. A strong work ethic has been shown to lead
to increased productivity, increased job satisfaction, organizational commit-
ment, increased conscientiousness, and decreased social loafing (the tendency
to show less effort when working in teams than alone) (Christopher et al. 2008;
Hamilton-Attwell 1998; Meriac et al. 2013; Smrt & Karau 2011).
Effective productivity and work ethic are important soft skills because
employers seek them in the employees they hire (Hill & Fouts 2005; Park &
Hill 2016; Rojewski & Hill 2014). As well, a growing amount of evidence shows
a direct relationship between the psychological wellbeing of workers and their
level of productivity, giving employers an incentive to create workplaces that
include measures to increase employee wellness (Robertson & Cooper 2011).
According to the taxonomy of inward-facing soft skills adopted by the U.S.
National Research Council, productivity and work ethic are demonstrated
through self-management, which includes your ability to be “self-motivating”
and to acquire “new . . . skills related to work” (Assessing 21st Century Skills
DOI: 10.4324/9781003212942-12
2011). For example, if a new piece of software becomes available in your work-
place, your quick volunteering to attend training to learn how to use it would be
an example of productivity/work ethic. In this chapter we’ll examine produc-
tivity and work ethic skills in more detail, solve a case study where these skills
aren’t being used effectively, look at some research that’s been done on their
teaching, and provide language for how to express them.

• What’s meant by productivity and work ethic and why they are important
• The recent productivity and work ethic research being done by scholars
and how it translates into practical productivity strategies you can use
to demonstrate your soft skills
• What problematic productivity and work ethic looks like in a real-world
setting and the language and gestures you can use to demonstrate
effective versions of these soft skills
What Are Productivity and Work Ethic Skills and Why

Are They Important?
As mentioned earlier, I’ll be using the terms “productivity” and “work ethic”
to mean your positive orientation toward work and toward getting work done
effectively and in a timely way. In other words, saying you’re productive or
have a good work ethic means you regularly complete the various duties in
your job description in such a way that you seem genuinely interested in/happy
to be doing them. A productive worker doesn’t give off the impression that
work is difficult, problematic, or “a drag” (in slang terms). In the psychology
literature, this way of viewing productivity and work ethic is tied to the con-
cept of personality and the big-five trait theory that we covered in Chapter 2.
A person demonstrating productivity and a positive work ethic is also demon-
strating the big-five personality trait of conscientiousness. In the same way that
the soft skills of customer service orientation and teamwork are much more
easily achieved when you demonstrate the big-five personality trait of agree-
ableness, the soft skill of productivity/work ethic is more easily achieved when
you demonstrate the trait of conscientiousness. According to Christopher et al.
(2008), conscientiousness is made up of two related behaviors: demonstrating
dutifulness (e.g., sticking to the task, not goofing off ) and demonstrating high
achievement striving (e.g., doing more than is expected of you instead of the
bare minimum).
Productivity and Work Ethic 131
Productivity and work ethic are the subject of a variety of different research
studies. In one strand of research, investigators have been interested in discov-
ering and validating ways to measure productivity and work ethic. For exam-
ple, Boatwright and Slate (2002) and Park and Hill (2016) develop separate
instruments for measuring the work ethic of students and employees. In these
instruments, as you might predict from the way we’ve defined productivity
and work ethic previously, the main variables being tested are initiative (tak-
ing on tasks without being asked to) and dependability (creating a track record
of completing tasks successfully and on time if not earlier). Another strand of
research looks at supposed differences in productivity/work ethic level demon-
strated either by different generations of workers or by different nationalities
of workers. For example, Slabbert and Ukpere (2011) uncover differences and
similarities in the work ethic of Chinese and South African workers, while
Zabel et al. (2017) investigate whether or not there is sufficient evidence to say
that the millennial generation of workers has a different attitude toward work
ethic and productivity than does the Baby Boomer generation.
Yet another development in the study of productivity is how it interfaces
with happiness, mindfulness, and other positive employee states of mind. In
Marques’ The Routledge Companion to Happiness at Work (2021), a number of
scholars contribute research delving into the positive intersection of produc-
tivity with, for example, happiness, mindfulness, and gratitude. Finally, as
with the soft skills we’ve already covered, the impact of new technologies on
productivity/work ethic is a fruitful source of recent research. For example,
Moshiri and Simpson (2011) examine the positive impact of information tech-
nology on organizational productivity in Canada, while Fusi and Feeney (2018) –
and hundreds of other researchers – look at the perhaps less-than-positive
impact of social media on worker productivity. A recent technology that’s
been developed is known as a “wearable”, which is a sensor worn by workers
to “generate, store, and transmit data” ( Jacobs et al. 2019). Less controversial
when used to monitor worker safety, this technology has come under scru-
tiny recently as certain large employers like Amazon now use it to monitor
employee productivity (Yeginsu 2018).
As mentioned earlier, there are a number of ways you can demonstrate pro-
ductivity and a positive work ethic. The first is to be dutiful in the tasks you
execute at work. This is a form of dependability that means you both stick to
the task and do not get distracted by other work-related or non-work-related
activities. The best way to demonstrate this type of dutifulness is for you to
transfer the experience you’ve used in being a successful student into your
workplace practice. For example, you know that successful students manage
their time effectively. To do this, they create plans (either digitally, on paper, or
in their minds) for how their available time will be divided among their various
tasks. As well, part of managing time effectively is not to take on more tasks
than you can manage effectively; while another part is knowing to whom and
where to go for help when you need it. Another thing successful students know
how to do is to shut off temptations to distraction. Often, this means turning
off your phone or your laptop or other devices that cause distraction through
noises or other forms of notification. The reality is that productivity comes
from having the time and space to concentrate on tasks, and experienced pro-
ductive workers recognize this and take advantage of it. This can mean learning
some useful phrases: “I’m working on tasks now and not available to meet until
after 3 pm” or “I’m blocking off afternoons in order to get my work done” that
while being polite are at the same time assertive in letting your co-workers and
managers know that you’re doing work and not available for chat or meetings.
Once you’ve shown you can be dutiful in the tasks you undertake, another
way of manifesting productivity and a positive work ethic is to demonstrate
achievement striving. This is another form of dependability in which you
prove to your managers and co-workers that you can be trusted with tasks
because not only do you have the assigned task completed successfully and on
time, but you push the boundaries of the task a little and do slightly more than
the bare minimum that’s been requested. One way to demonstrate achievement
striving is relatively easy: get the assigned task completed earlier than has been
requested. If you do this on a regular basis, you’ll build a reputation as someone
who can be trusted to get work done efficiently. Another way of demonstrat-
ing achievement striving requires more finesse: get the assigned task completed
but also do a little more than what’s been expected. This “little more” needs,
of course, to be negotiated with any team members you’re working with as
well as with the manager who has assigned the task. Simple ways of doing so
include using the following phrases: “We’re finished the project and since we
have some extra time, we wondered if we could also . . .?” or “While we were
doing the data collection we realized we could also offer a solution to a related
issue. Do you mind if we add that into our report?” When demonstrating
achievement striving in the context of working with team members, remember
to check with them (if you’re the leader) to ensure their buy-in.
The final step in demonstrating productivity and a positive work ethic is
showing self-management through internal motivation to complete tasks
and learn new work-related skills. This is another way of saying “taking
initiative”, which as we defined it earlier means to not sit on your hands as the
saying goes but be the person who makes an internal decision to volunteer to
complete tasks. Of course, not every occupation lends itself to this type of vol-
unteering. Many entry-level or junior jobs have well-defined daily tasks that
need to be met and that leave little time for taking initiative. Still, as you grow
into your job and are there for a bit longer, you’ll want to find small opportuni-
ties to volunteer to complete a task that has not been assigned. And, if you’re
an experienced employee in a more professional setting, you’ll regularly have
opportunities (often in meetings, but sometimes in one-on-one communica-
tions with co-workers and managers) to take initiative. Effective ways of stating
FIGURE 9.1 You can demonstrate productivity and work ethic by knowing how
to prioritize your various tasks so they get done on time, if not earlier
Credit: NicoElNino/Gettty Images
your desire to take initiative include “Hi Bob, would you mind if I go ahead
and . . .?” or “The approach we took last time was pretty successful. What if I
use it and . . .?” It’s important to balance your desire to take initiative with your
ability to deliver. In other words, before volunteering to do more or new work,
always calculate your ability to be dutiful – to get this extra/new work done on
time and as effectively as you’ve done before.
In our survey of 350 employers, when we asked them about the top actions
and behaviors they associated with the soft skill of productivity/work ethic,
employers rated four specific competencies highly. Overall, they want work-
ers who can produce high-quality work and do so on time. As part of this
on-time, high-quality work, employers want workers who can prioritize their
work effectively (i.e., separate the important from the less important tasks and
complete the important tasks first) and who can plan and organize their work
and time effectively (i.e., use a systematic method to get work done, includ-
ing by lessening distractions). Given the clarity with which employers describe
what goes into productivity/work ethic, and how highly they rate its impor-
tance, you might assume postsecondary programs offer opportunities for this
skill to be taught, but there is not a lot of evidence this is so. With the exception
of Hill and Womble (1997), who describe a ten-day work ethic unit delivered
to high school students, little research exists to show teaching of this skill more
widely. Perhaps this is because, as with other soft skills, many instructors at the
college and university level expect students to have developed productivity and
work ethic skills by the time they reach postsecondary education, or, feel that
they are not qualified to teach these skills. Most students submit assignments on
time, which shows a base level of productivity and work ethic. Still, there must
be an aspect of productivity not being shown in the workplace for employers to
consistently remark on its absence.
Case Study: Productivity and Work Ethic

in a real workplace setting, problematic productivity and work ethic
skills are on display. What I’d like you to do is read the case carefully
to get a sense of what’s going on between the various characters. Then,
review the five questions at the end of the case. Go back into the case
and scan it again, making notes as you go that will help you answer the
five questions. Some of the answers may require online research; others
will require you to go back to Part 1 of this book and look for answers in
our ethics, psychology, and interpersonal communication concepts and
theories. Following the case and questions, I’ll offer a partial answer to
these questions to help get you started. The chapter ends with a practical
onstrate your effective productivity and work ethic skills.
Lack of Productivity and Work Ethic in a Workplace

Aga Sikorski is the nurse manager for f loors 2 and 3 at The Vales, a
retirement community with an integrated long-term care facility. The
building is located in a suburban area and has been in operation for five
years; it houses 260 residents. The Vales is a for-profit facility owned
and operated by Livewell, a corporation which, according to its website,
is the “leading provider of seniors’ accommodation, care and services”.
Aga manages a staff of 20 nurses, personal support workers, recre-
ationists, and food service providers; the cleaning and maintenance staff
is managed by the Director of Facilities, Ben Craigey.
Marif lor Castillo works for Aga as a recreationist for f loor 3. Her job
is to manage and run the recreation program for the residents on that
f loor, including daily activities like exercise, games, and speakers, as well
as special events like monthly outings. Todfay Marif lor has her regular
biweekly meeting with Aga to discuss recreation.
“Sorry I’m late, Aga. I was just talking to Stephanie in HR and it
took longer than I thought”, Marif lor says as she walks in – ten minutes
late – to Aga’s office.
“Marif lor, before we talk about recreation, can you tell me what hap-
pened at Sherway Gardens last week? I’ve had complaints from three
residents and at least two family members . . .” Aga says.
Marif lor glances down at the f loor, before quickly looking back into
Aga’s eyes. “I’m not sure what you mean, Aga. We had a great outing”.
“According to Mr. Reyes in 307B and Mrs. McKay in 319A”, Aga
says, “you did not bring the usual snacks and water. Also, according to
what some family members have been told, there were no required wash-
room breaks”.
“It’s true that I didn’t bring snacks this time, but that’s because I talked
to the people on the list and suggested this one time they should bring
money instead for snacks – Sherway has so many options for food . . .”
Marif lor replies.
“Marif lor, I’m afraid it doesn’t matter if Sherway has food options.
The ministry guidelines for outings stipulate that food and beverages are
to be provided. You know this, don’t you?”
“I’m so sorry Aga. I do know the guidelines, but I just thought we could
change the way things get organized and planned this one time”, Marif lor
says.
Aga knows that what has happened requires her to give Marif lor a
first verbal warning because her performance is substandard and has
breached health and safety rules. However, she has so much else on
her plate she decides this is not an important enough matter. She gives
Marif lor another chance.
*
A few minutes later, Marif lor is standing in the hallway outside Ben
Craigey’s office. Ben and Marif lor have been dating for three months.
“I can’t believe she’s going to believe the residents and families instead of
me! I do a great job, and I don’t care if Aga thinks so or not”, Mariflor says.
“Don’t worry. She’s not going to do anything about Sherway. She
has to deal with Family Council this week”, Ben replies. “By next week
she’ll be onto the next thing”.
“I mean, one frickin’ outing is just like all the others”, Marif lor says.
“Do they all have to be amazing and stick to every frickin’ guideline?”
*
Near the end of the workday, around 5 pm, Ben is in his office starting
to go through the day’s email and voicemail. There’s one voicemail he
wishes he could just delete – but, of course, he can’t. He plays it again.
“Mr. Craigey, this is Tim McKay. My mother is in 319A. I’ve left three
voicemails over the past two weeks and you haven’t yet been in touch.
The vinyl baseboards in my mother’s room have peeled off. The cleaners
have swept away the vinyl, but this has left exposed rotting drywall and
gigantic holes. Her room looks like a war zone and nothing’s being done
about it. Please call me and let me know when you will be fixing the
walls and baseboards . . .”
“Screw off ”, Ben says to the phone.
“and as this is my third call about this”, McKay’s voice continues, “it’s
fair to let you know I’ll be in touch with Mr. Cusimano from Family
Council tomorrow morning; hopefully this will make a difference”.
Ben jabs at the button that erases the voicemail.
“Great. Now I have to stay late and do this myself so that Vince frickin’
Cusimano sees it’s been taken care of. Sucks to be me!” says Ben.
He pulls out his phone and texts Marif lor: “Gonna be late babe. Have
to do a last-minute joe-job. Be home by 7:30. XOXO”.

1. Identify and comment on up to five times in this case when produc-
tivity and/or work ethic are not being effectively demonstrated. Are
they ever effectively demonstrated?
2. Which of these ineffective examples is most serious and why?
communication be applied to think through the ineffective produc-
tivity and work ethic in this case, and to offer solutions?
case (In Aga’s office; Ben and Marif lor’s private conversation; in
Ben’s office) to show how the people in this case could demonstrate
effective soft skills. Your scenes should include both dialogue and
description of improved behaviors. Choose one of the following
(e.g., Academic Search Complete) to research productivity and work
ethic challenges or successes in the contemporary workplace (i.e., in
the last ten years). Quoting from at least two articles you find, what
can you say about the state of productivity and work ethic in today’s
workplace?

The first thing that I notice in this case is that neither Aga nor Marif lor nor Ben
is completing the tasks they need to complete as part of their job description.
This is a sure sign of ineffective productivity/work ethic. In the first scene, Aga
is clearly supposed to issue a reprimand or disciplinary caution to Marif lor, but
she decides not to. We don’t know exactly why, but perhaps it’s because she can’t
be bothered to, or is feeling lazy, or doesn’t want to create more work for herself
than she already has. None of these reasons is a sufficient excuse for not complet-
ing her duties as Marif lor’s manager. At the same time, Marif lor first lies then
tries to minimize the fact that she did not complete her duties as she is required
to. Her botched outing to the mall with a group of seniors posed serious and real
health and safety risks, and she is trying to pretend that this is not important.
Recalling what you learned earlier about ethics, psychology, and interpersonal
communication you should be able to offer many different ways of analyzing Aga,
Marif lor, and Ben’s actions in this case. You could argue that in the problematic
outing to the mall, Marif lor is demonstrating a lack of ethics. Cutting corners by
not bringing snacks and not allowing bathroom breaks and then lying about it
shows that Marif lor doesn’t care about her duties. Similarly, Aga is experiencing
an obstacle to acting ethically – probably the obstacle of futility. She probably
reasons that there’s no point in issuing a formal reprimand or discipline to Mari-
f lor because the same thing could happen again, or because if she goes down the
road of eventually firing Marif lor, this will mean having to hire someone else
which she prefers not to do. Lots of other theories and concepts from Chapters
2– 4 are useful in analyzing this case, including personality theory, moral reason-
ing theory, social learning theory (especially in terms of Ben’s and Marif lor’s
relationship), communication climate, and communication competence.
In your analysis, don’t forget to consider other related soft skills behaviors
such as effective communication, problem-solving orientation, and customer
service orientation. As well, while you haven’t read Chapter 9 on likability
yet, consider skipping ahead and learning about this final soft skill, because
it can also be applied to what’s going on in this case. At this point, please go
back into the case, and look at the various interactions between characters in
the three scenes, analyze what’s going on using at least three more concepts/
theories from Chapters 2– 4 as I’ve started to do previously, and answer the case
questions. Your instructor will take up the responses with you after you’ve had
a chance to work on and present your answers and model improved soft skills.

Productivity and Work Ethic Skills
As you’ve seen in the case, productivity and work ethic skills are not always
optimal. One reason for this may be that you’ve been at your job for a while
and have fallen into a routine, and you prefer not to take on any tasks or make
any changes that would disturb what you know so well: your routine. Another
reason may be that you feel there is no reason or reward for striving to dem-
onstrate productivity/work ethic because other workers do even less than you
and are still paid the same, treated the same, etc. In other words, you feel a lack
of incentive to proactively demonstrate productivity and a positive work ethic.
Other reasons for not demonstrating productivity and a positive work ethic
could include a philosophical disagreement with the notion that you should have
to perform a “liking for” or “enthusiasm for” your job above simply doing the
tasks in your job description. Each of these rationales is somewhat faulty, though
I’ll leave it to you to explain why. In the meantime, here are some concrete strat-
egies for how to effectively communicate productivity and a positive work ethic.
When You Want to Demonstrate Dutifulness in Executing Tasks

Make eye contact
“Let’s make a quick plan for how we’ll get this done”. (in a team situation)
“I think we’re getting sidetracked; can we get back to our plan?” (in a team
situation)
“I’m going to consult with Julio in engineering – he’ll be able to help”.
“Happy to help with that, but can you give me until tomorrow? I need to finish
up already-started work today”.
“Let’s go screen-free for a couple of hours so we can get this done, okay?”
When You Want to Demonstrate Achievement Striving

“Getting this to you a bit early – hope it’s what you were looking for”.
“I was able to finish the pitch document today – so I have some capacity if you
need anything else done this week”.
“I took the liberty of doing a gap analysis even though it wasn’t requested; hope
you find it useful”.
“You asked us to do a scan of competitors in the city, but we decided to expand
that to a national scan”.
When You Want to Demonstrate Internal Motivation

“I’m happy to volunteer”.
“I can definitely get that done for you”.
“I’m already on it – not to worry”.
“If it’s ok with you, I’d like to go ahead and . . .”
“Let’s think big – why don’t we take this opportunity to . . .?”
TRY THIS
tive response to the following situations. Then, develop another effective
vide a response that’s not effective because the soft skill of productivity/
work ethic is not demonstrated. Your answers can include scripts.
• A team of three software designers at Feral is developing a new app

that tracks personal spending. The team has just found out that a rival
company, Merj, is planning a similar app. This rival team is about four
weeks ahead in the design process. One Feral team member, Bob, says,
“Oh well, let’s move on to something else”. A second team member,
Adrienne, says, “It so sucks to work here . . .” You are the third member
of the Feral team and you don’t feel the same way as Bob and Adrienne
do about the situation. What can you say?
• You are a new sales representative at PRS Events, an event manage-
ment company. Recently, your manager asked you to attend Bridal
XPO, a large annual trade show. Besides staffing PRS’ booth and talking
to prospective clients, you’re being sent to “learn the ropes” in the
industry and make contacts. At the show, you realize PRS is being left
behind due to its lack of technology-fronting solutions including an
app, digital business cards, and especially streaming video of its past
events. You know you’re new at PRS, but you want to propose a series
of changes to your manager. What will you say?
• The logistics company you work for, HealthGo, is highly specialized:
it’s the leading transporter of sensitive medical equipment and speci-
mens in North America. You’ve been with the company for only a year,
but you notice that the weekly meetings in the business development
department are boring – people rehash old news, and rarely does any-
one bring up new ideas for how to earn new business. You have a num-
ber of ideas based on your own research (expanding long-term care
home contracts, teaming up with cannabis retailers, etc.) and you’d like
to present them to the team but at the same time not disturb too much
the climate of the meetings. What do you say?
• You’re the publisher at a small literary press – each year you publish
about five fiction titles, two poetry titles and some memoir, short story,
biography, and other miscellaneous titles. Your small staff (besides you,
there’s an editorial director and a junior editor) has to wear many hats:
human resources, finance, business development/sales, marketing, and
publicity, among other tasks. You’ve noticed over the past year that
while your two employees are very good at their editorial tasks (working
with authors, editing manuscripts, etc.), they’re letting their other tasks
slide (writing grant applications, developing marketing, and publicity
materials). What do you say?
SUMMARY
• Effective productivity/positive work ethic is your positive orientation

towards work and towards getting work done effectively and in a
timely way. To demonstrate such productivity and work ethic you can
be dutiful in executing workplace tasks. In addition, you can demon-
strate achievement striving. Finally, you can show internal motivation to
complete tasks and learn new work-related skills.
• The reasons why employers rank productivity and positive work ethic
as among the most important soft skills required for their employees
is that they want workers who can produce high-quality work and do
so on time. As part of this, employers want workers who can prioritize
their work effectively (and who can plan and organize their work and
time effectively). Traditional productivity and work ethic are evolving as
a result of technologies like social media (which can lower productivity)
and wearables (which can force workers to maintain an artificial set
level of productivity).
• Practical gestures for demonstrating productivity and a positive work
ethic include demonstrations of concentration and an ability not
to succumb to distraction. Practical language tips to demonstrate
productivity and positive work ethic include ensuring the tone of your
voice is enthusiastic, and using phrases that show you want to get
tasks done effectively, on time; go beyond assigned tasks as often as
possible; and take initiative regularly.
References
Boatwright, J. R., & Slate, J. R. (2002) Development of an Instrument to Assess Work
Ethics. Journal of Industrial Teacher Education, 39.4.
Christopher, A. N., Zabel, K. L., & Jones, J. R. (2008) Conscientiousness and Work
Ethic Ideology: A Facet-Level Analysis. Journal of Individual Differences, 29.4.
Fusi, F., & Feeney, M. K. (2018) Social Media in the Workplace: Information Exchange,
Productivity, or Waste? The American Review of Public Administration, 48.5.
Hamilton-Attwell, A. (1998) Productivity and Work Ethics. Work Study, 47.3.

Hill, R. B., & Fouts, S. (2005) Work Ethic and Employment Status: A Study of Job-
seekers. Journal of Industrial Teacher Education, 42.3.
Hill, R. B., & Womble, M. N. (1997) Teaching Work Ethic: Evaluation of a 10-Day
Unit of Instruction on Work Ethic, Work Attitudes, and Employability Skills. Jour-
nal of Educational Opportunity, 16.1.
Jacobs, J. V., Hettinger, L. J., Huang, Y.-H., Jeffries, S., Lesch, M. F., Simmons, L. A.,
Verma, S. K., & Willetts, J. L. (2019) Employee Acceptance of Wearable Technol-
ogy in the Workplace. Applied Ergonomics, 78.
Marques, J., ed. (2021) The Routledge Companion to Happiness at Work. New York:
Routledge.
Meriac, J. P., Woehr, D. J., Gorman, C. A., & Thomas, A. L. E. (2013) Development and
Validation of a Short Form for the Multidimensional Work Ethic Profile. Journal of
Vocational Behavior, 82.
Moshiri, S., & Simpson, W. (2011) Information Technology and the Changing Work-
place in Canada: Firm-Level Evidence. Industrial and Corporate Change, 20.6.
Park, H. C., & Hill, R. B. (2016) Employability Skills Assessment: Measuring Work
Ethic for Research and Learning. Career and Technical Education Research, 41.3.
Robertson, I., & Cooper, C. (2011) Well-Being: Productivity and Happiness at Work. Bas-
ingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rojewski, J., & Hill, R. B. (2014) Positioning Research and Practice in Career and
Technical Education: A Framework for College and Career Preparation in the 21st
Century. Career and Technical Education Research, 39.2.
Sickles, R. C., & Zelenyuk, V. (2019) Measurement of Productivity and Efficiency: Theory
and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Slabbert, A., & Ukpere, W. I. (2011) A Comparative Analysis of the Chinese and South
African Work Ethic. International Journal of Social Economics, 38.8.
Smrt, D. L., & Karau, S. J. (2011) Protestant Work Ethic Moderates Social Loafing.
Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 15.
Yeginsu, C. (2018, February 1) If Workers Slack Off, the Wristband Will Know. (And
Amazon Has a Patent for It) New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/
technology/amazon-wristband-tracking-privacy.html, Accessed April 28, 2021.
Zabel, K. L., Biermeier-Hanson, B. B., Baltes, B. B., Early, B. J., & Shepard, A. (2017)
Generational Differences in Work Ethic: Fact or Fiction? Journal of Business and
Psychology, 32.
10
LIKABILITY
A final inward-facing soft skill that employers want their employees to show
is likability. In this chapter I’ll use likability as a way of saying your “ability
to create positive attitudes in other people” by making them feel good about
themselves and about the situation you share (Sanders 2005). Likability is a
soft skill you can be said to possess, in the sense that it’s your choice to act in a
friendly, pleasant, and enthusiastic way. This is why likability rounds out the
“inward-facing” section of this book. At the same time, likability is usually
only demonstrated when other people are around you. The exception to this, as
recent research by Batenburg and Bartels (2017) shows, is the likability effects
we produce and perform on social media. Like customer service orientation,
problem-solving orientation, and work ethic from earlier chapters, likability is
also an orientation, inclination, or state of mind you display that helps employ-
ers (and especially colleagues and clients) know you’re positive about work and
about the interactions you have there.
Researchers have shown likability to be closely related, and even predictive
of, a number of positive outcomes such as positive purchaser intention (Abdul-
lah et al. 2020), perceived authenticity (Rivera 2020), and persuasiveness (Shel-
lenbarger 2014). Likability is also important, of course, because it can help get
you hired (Richards 2018). Studies have shown that when candidates for a job
have similar backgrounds and skills (obviously a big “if ”, given that employers
also say they are looking for diversity . . .), the “more likeable” candidate will
be hired almost 90% of the time (Rivera 2012). In addition, research has shown
there are a number of highly specific building blocks that lead to likability,
including voice modulation (Kamiyama et al. 2020) and speech acts like apolo-
gizing for mistakes (Cameron et al. 2020), in addition to the more general lik-
ability traits we’ll discuss later. In this chapter you’ll examine likability skills in
DOI: 10.4324/9781003212942-13
Likability 143
more detail, solve a case study in which these skills aren’t being used effectively,
look at some research that’s been done on their teaching, and learn language for
how to express them.

• What’s meant by likability in the workplace and why it’s important

• The recent likability research being done by scholars and how it trans-
lates into practical strategies you can use to demonstrate this soft skill
• What problematic likability looks like in a real world setting and the
language and gestures you can use to demonstrate effective likability
What Is Likability and Why Is It Important?

As mentioned earlier, I use the word “likability” to describe a positive effect you
have on other people because of your choice to demonstrate friendliness, helpful-
ness, and enthusiasm. You may recall that this sounds a lot like a “positive com-
munication climate” or a “positive communication spiral” from Chapter 4 on
interpersonal communication. In essence, likability is a ref lexive soft skill: your
choice to perform friendliness, helpfulness, enthusiasm, and other positive quali-
ties creates a positive effect on other people. The effect usually consists of both
attitude change (people tend to think about things more positively around you)
and behavior change (people tend to do more positive things around you). In this
way, the effect of likability is similar to that of a positive customer service orien-
tation. Your demonstration of helpfulness and politeness with clients/customers
leads to them being more polite, friendly, and understanding with you.
According to Sanders (2005), likability is the performance of positivity
(an “upbeat” attitude at work), self lessness (an interest in others over your-
self, complimenting others), reliability (getting things done), and extraversion
(asking questions, listening to others, injecting humor into situations). In the
psychology literature, likability has been shown to be demonstrated most effec-
tively by people who are highly rated on three key traits: degree of similarity
shared with the rater, degree of attractiveness (i.e., warmth, friendliness), and
degree to which you use compliments to create likability ( Jensen & Hyldig
2020; Reysen 2005). It’s important to recognize that while likability is made
up of actions, behaviors, and traits that you can perform with authenticity (i.e.,
enthusiasm, reliability, extraversion, attractiveness/warmth), the important
likability-predicting trait of similarity (in outlook, values, background) is less
easy – though not impossible – to perform.
FIGURE 10.1 Likability is a positive effect you create in others by showing positivity,
extraversion, self lessness, and reliability
Credit: alvarez/Getty Images
Likability is the subject of a variety of research studies. In one subset of stud-

ies, investigators, some of whom I mentioned earlier, are concerned with how
to measure this soft skill accurately. Reysen (2005) develops a standardized
scale for rating human likability based on a number of traits, including similar-
ity, attractiveness, and compliment giving. Jensen and Hyldig (2020) review
Reysen’s work and tie it to the analogous concept of brand likability measure-
ment. Marketers for various organizations that sell products and services have
begun to use a similar scale to Reysen’s human scale, called the brand likability
scale, to measure the likability (and by extension, the persuasiveness) of brands
(Nguyen et al. 2015). Another subset of likability research looks at the rela-
tionship between likability and leadership/management. For example, Nowlin
et al. (2019) investigate the positive relationship between salesperson perfor-
mance and higher levels of likability in their managers, while Tsaur et al. (2021)
show the direct relationship between tour leader likability levels and resulting
tour participant positive “citizenship behaviours” in the context of the travel
and tourism industry.
Still another branch of the study of likability is how it affects and is impacted
by gender. In a study of interrupting conversation behavior, Farley (2008) finds
that when the person interrupting in a conversation is a woman, her likabil-
ity score is significantly lower than that of a male making a similar interrup-
tion. Pinto et al. (2017), in their study of gender bias in the hiring of project
Likability 145
managers, paint a similarly dispiriting picture of the “trap” that likability can
pose for female managers:
[They] are generally stereotyped as occupying either the quadrants of

warm/incompetent or cold/competent, suggesting that for women, lik-
ability is either implicitly or explicitly linked to perceived incompetence.
Thus, women are often penalized by negative judgments about their abil-
ity to perform task-related aspects of their jobs, often inversely in relation
to how likable (warm) they are perceived by subordinates and peers.
In other words, this research says that historically at least, women managers
have been rated by their employees as either likable and incompetent or else
unlikable and competent, but not likable and competent at the same time, as
men can be. Hopefully, recent workplace attitudinal changes in the wake of the
Me Too movement are taking place and altering these findings.
As mentioned earlier, there are a number of ways you can demonstrate lik-
ability. The first is to demonstrate positivity through an upbeat or enthu-
siastic demeanor. Your demeanor is an umbrella term for the “vibe” you give
off through your attitude, your behavior, and your appearance among other
things. To perform positivity, your attitude needs to be one of openness and
friendliness as opposed to being closed off and unfriendly. Your behavior can
include a bit of physical contact such as a touch on the arm or a pat on the shoul-
der. Your appearance or body language can include smiling, laughing when
appropriate, and raised eyebrows, all of which signal positivity. Related to per-
forming positivity is your ability to demonstrate extraversion (for some of
us more of a performance than for others). This can include asking the people
you’re with questions to “break the ice”, demonstrating active listening when
you’ve got people around you to open up and talk (via nodding your head,
paraphrasing, and summarizing what they’ve said at certain points), as well as
using warmth and humor such as telling brief stories or anecdotes, non-hurtful
jokes or sometimes even mild sarcasm to get people to like you.
Once you’ve broken the ice using positivity and extraversion, likability can
also be shown by demonstrating self lessness, which could include letting
people talk about themselves instead of talking about yourself, complimenting
people on their job or on recent tasks they’ve completed, as well as not taking
credit personally when a team task is complete, but instead ascribing the suc-
cess to your teammates. Once you’ve demonstrated self lessness, you may be
offered compliments yourself and another aspect of self lessness is knowing how
to accept graciously and quickly, without making a big deal about it. A final
way of demonstrating likability is to demonstrate reliability. There are many
ways this can be done: answering your work emails and texts within a couple of
hours and at the latest by the end of the day; answering your work voicemails
by the end of the day; completing work assigned to you whether individually
or as part of a team ideally a little earlier than expected/agreed; and complet-

ing any work assigned to as high a degree of completeness and accuracy as you
can, each time. In this way, you build up a track record as a likable colleague
and employee.
A final step in demonstrating likability is to try to achieve the quality
of similarity that is so important in the Reysen likability scale. As men-
tioned earlier, similarity can be of background (this is impossible for you to
change unless you lie, which is not a good idea); of outlook (you can definitely
mimic or perform an outlook similar to the one of the person you’re interacting
with); and of values (you shouldn’t need to change your values to be likable,
but sometimes it helps to slightly expand/redirect/alter your personal values to
more closely match those of the organization). An easy way of playing up the
similarity between you and the people around you at work is to use language
that makes the specific similarity come alive, for example: “That reminds me
of when . . .”, “I went through something similar . . .”, “We’re definitely on
the same page there . . .”. While you shouldn’t overuse such phrases (you don’t
want to earn the reputation as the person who’s experienced everything that
everyone else has . . .), when used sparingly, these types of phrases can create a
“similarity effect” that is a good starting point for likability.
In our survey of 350 employers, when we asked them about the top actions
and behaviors they associated with the soft skill of likability, they rated three
specific competencies highly. In employers’ minds, likability is shown when
employees cooperate with other people toward achieving common goals, when
they act with courtesy and respect for clients and co-workers, and when they
show enthusiasm for tasks. You’ll probably notice that there is some overlap
here between how likability is demonstrated and how productivity/positive
work ethic as well as customer service orientation and effective teamwork are
demonstrated. At a certain point, it becomes tricky to not see overlap between
some of the top six soft skills. For example, if you’re not showing likability, it’s
hard to believe you’ll show a positive work ethic or a positive customer service
orientation, and vice versa. Still, we can separate out “acting with courtesy
and respect” as being specifically related to likability, as well as to the big-five
personality trait of agreeableness.
Unfortunately, given its clear importance, there is little evidence that likabil-
ity skills are being taught at the postsecondary level. A search in peer-reviewed
research databases yields no results directly related to “teaching likability” or
“learning likability” or other related phrases. The closest the literature comes
to discussing formal teaching of likability is in robot programming and design.
In “What Makes a Robot Likable?” Mone (2019) shows that a number of spe-
cific aspects in robot design can lead to higher levels of robot likability (as rated
by the humans with whom the robots have interfaced), including providing
the robot with a “backstory” (a short narrative about itself ), making sure the
robot is functional (does what it’s supposed to do effectively), and ensuring the
Likability 147
robot can modulate its tone to match the human’s tone as well as its gaze (not
always making direct eye contact, as this can make humans uncomfortable). In
addition to this advice, there is quite a thriving industry in self-help books that
profess to teach and sometimes even critique likability, including Lederman
(2011), Menendez (2019), and Sanders (2005).
Case Study: Likability

In the following case study, which is based on incidents that took place in
a real workplace setting, problematic or insufficient likability skills are on
display. What I’d like you to do is read the case carefully to get a sense
of what’s going on between the various characters. Then, review the five
questions at the end of the case. Go back into the case and scan it again,
making notes as you go that will help you answer the five questions.
Some of the answers may require online research; others will require
you to go back to Part 1 of this book and look for answers in our ethics,
psychology, and interpersonal communication concepts and theories.
Following the case and questions, I’ll offer my own partial answer to
these questions to help you get started. The chapter ends with a practical
onstrate your effective likability skills.
Poor Likability in a Workplace Setting

Mike Aranjo is a recent graduate from a three-year business diploma
program at a community college. His area of specialty is marketing, but
he hasn’t been successful in finding his dream marketing job yet. It’s now
eight months after graduation, and he reluctantly decides to take a call-
center job at Miratel Solutions Inc. His mother knows the manager, so he
didn’t even have to apply for the job.
On his first day at CallPro, Mike is scheduled to take a six-hour train-
ing course called “Dynamic and Effective Customer Service”. He arrives
at the CallPro office about five minutes late, even though his mother
reminded him more than once to be early. His new manager Sandra
Fairley has already begun the training session with two other employees.
“We’ve already begun Mike, so can you grab a seat quickly? Thanks”,
Sandra says.
“Yeah, it wasn’t my fault; the subway had a delay”, Mike mumbles,
slouching into a seat at the back of the room.
“Lesson 1, Mike: don’t make excuses at work – take responsibility
for things you’re responsible for”, Sandra says. “As I was saying”, she
continues, “today’s training gets you thinking about excellent customer

service in the following three ways . . .”
Mike feels defensive and angry. He wants to tell Sandra to chill out.
It’s not his fault the subway was delayed! Plus, Sandra is a friend of his
mom, so why is she giving him attitude?
The first half of the six-hour training goes well. The three new
employees, including Mike, are shown the “scripts” they will use on
their phone calls this week. They’re also given instruction on how to
use their voices (i.e., tone, pronunciation) to sound friendly on the
phone. Finally, they’re given instruction on how to close a sale and
how to deal with people who are unhappy.
*
On his lunch break, Mike is sitting in a corner of the Miratel lunchroom
with his headphones on. His music is pretty loud and he’s enjoying being
able to relax. He’s not really feeling like going up to anyone and introducing
himself or being overly friendly. He sits by himself and eats his sandwich.
Eventually, one of the other two employees going through training today
comes over. She smiles and asks if she can sit down. Her name is Laura.
“Go cray-cray”, Mike says sarcastically, “enjoy yourself!”
“Thanks, Mike”, says Laura. “So what’s your story?”
Mike and Laura talk for about five minutes – it turns out Laura went to
the same college as Mike, but two years earlier. Laura looks at her watch.
“It’s time to go, Mike. Training’s starting again”.
“I doubt she’ll notice if we’re a few minutes late”, Mike says, looking
to see what Laura’s reaction will be.
“Well, I’m not going to piss off Sandra on my first day. See you there”,
Laura says before getting up and heading back to the training room.
*
Back in training, Sandra is prepping her three new employees to make
a sample call. In this situation, employees will be doing an outbound call
to university alumni offering to sell insurance products.
One trainee will play the part of the person receiving the call, while
another trainee will play the part of the outbound call maker. Sandra
asks Laura and Mike to work together, with Laura being the receiver and
Mike the caller. They read from their scripts.
“Hello?” Laura says.
“Hello, my name is Mike Aranjo. I’m calling on behalf of MBNA
insurance. As an alumnus of Ryerson University, we’re able to extend
incredibly low rates on car and home insuran . . .” He stops. Then he says:
Likability 149
“Sandra do we really have to go through this whole script? It’s so lame.

I feel embarrassed, like I’m supposed to be an actor or something”.
Sandra is stunned for a moment, but she recovers and says:
“Mike, there’s no substitute in this business for practicing live. I’m

surprised you don’t see this. If you don’t practice making outbound
and taking inbound calls, I have no way of knowing the quality of
the work you’re going to be demonstrating once you’re on the f loor
by yourself ”.
“I get it, but I just thought maybe we could practice one-on-one with our
manager, instead of in front of fellow employees”, Mike says.
“Mike, let’s take a break for a second”, Sandra says, pausing for effect.
“I understand where you’re coming from – I respect that as a brand-new
employee you may be nervous or hesitant. All I can say is, having worked
in this industry for over 20 years, I know the kind of training that gets
results. I hope you’re going to want to continue participating”.
“I guess”, Mike mumbles by way of reply.
Later on, Mike is playing the role of a call center employee taking an
inbound call about a charitable donation.
“I’m calling to ask you to PLEASE stop calling me at home, disturb-
ing the time I have with my family to have a quiet meal. It’s incredibly
annoying and rude!” Laura says, playing the part of a call recipient.
“I know the script says I shouldn’t get angry back, Sandra, but is that
realistic? I mean, I’d probably just tell her to calm down . . .” says Mike.
Sandra rolls her eyes and wonders what she’s gotten herself into by hiring
Mike.

1. Identify and comment on up to five times in this case when lik-
ability is not being effectively demonstrated. Is it ever effectively
demonstrated?
2. Which of these ineffective examples is most serious and why?
communication be applied to think through the ineffective likability
in this case, and to offer solutions?
case (morning training session; Mike and Laura’s lunch conversation;
afternoon training session) to show how the people in this case could
demonstrate more effective soft skills. Your scenes should include
both dialogue and description of improved behaviors. Choose one

of the following methods to model your improved behaviors: act out
your revised script in your class, shoot and edit a video using your
phone and play it in class, use a free animation software like Toon-
boon or Animoto to create an animated version of your improved
script and play it in class, or use PowerPoint’s audio function to
record yourself reading your revised script with improved behaviors.
(e.g., Academic Search Complete) to research likability challenges or
successes in the contemporary workplace (i.e., in the last ten years).
Quoting from at least two articles you find, what can you say about
the state of likability in today’s workplace?

The first thing that grabs my attention in this case is that Mike thinks it’s okay
to lie on his first day at work at his new job. He says that he’s late because of a
subway delay, when in reality he’s late because he didn’t leave his house on time.
Lying is unethical for a number of reasons, including that it is not the behavior
you’d want everyone to practice (duty-based logic) and that it shows a lack of
character (virtue-based logic). Whatever the logic, this type of behavior is a poor
beginning for Mike at his new job. A pattern of not taking responsibility for your
actions can be a hard habit to break; and given that he’s been privileged enough
to get this new job through connections, Mike could easily turn into a “repeat
offender”. There are a few obstacles to acting ethically; Mike may be used to
justify his lying to himself (e.g., egoism, futility, relativism) but you know by now
that such a justification doesn’t hold up as it would lead to chaos if everyone felt
they could use it.
In terms of psychology concepts and theories, the social action of com-
pliance is clearly something with which Mike is unfamiliar. He may believe
that he can act like an “outsider” at his new company, and f lout the rules and
conventions, but this decision clearly demonstrates his immaturity, not any
great philosophical triumph. While compliance with policies and established
ways of doing things may not seem ideal, especially to younger workers who
may just be tasting independence for the first time in their personal lives, it is
generally what’s expected by employers and the earlier we reconcile ourselves
to this reality the better for our careers. From interpersonal communication
concepts, we can see that Mike’s sarcasm with Laura, his new friendly col-
league, is an example of poor communication competence that could lead to
defensiveness/face threatening on Laura’s part. Numerous other theories and
concepts from Chapters 2– 4 would be useful in analyzing this case, including
Likability 151
social contract ethics, moral reasoning, social learning concepts (especially in

terms of the interplay between Sandra and Mike in training), communication
climate, communication competence, and communication spirals.
In your analysis, don’t forget to consider other related soft skills behaviors
such as effective communication and effective teamwork. And don’t forget to
consider the role Sandra plays: is Mike the only one not displaying effective soft
skills in this case? As this is the last case study and the last soft skill we’ll look at,
all strategies from the last five chapters are available to you as possible solutions
to the problems happening in this case. At this point, please go back into the
case, and look at the various interactions between characters in the three scenes,
analyze what’s going on using at least three more concepts/theories from Chap-
ters 2–4 as I’ve started to do, and answer the case questions. Your instructor
will take up the responses with you after you’ve had a chance to work on and
present your answers and model improved soft skills.

Likability Skills
As you’ve seen in the case, likability skills can be less than stellar. One reason
for this could be that difficult challenges are happening in your personal, non-
work life, and you find it difficult not to transfer your mood from home to
work. Another reason could be that likability has backfired for you in the past.
Employers may say they want likable employees, but you may have found that
at various times unlikable people (single-minded, egotistical, etc.) are rewarded
or promoted instead of you. Finally, as with productivity/positive work ethic,
you may have a philosophical issue with the idea that besides completing the
tasks in your job description successfully, you also have to do them in a likable
way – perhaps this wasn’t explained or noted in your original job interview.
These rationales, like the obstacles to acting ethically from Chapter 2, some-
times make sense in the moment. However, as with all justifications for not
being likable, friendly, ethical, etc., if accepted, they would lead to a world
full of anger and unethical behavior which not many of us would want (this is
the logic behind Kant’s categorical imperative, you may recall). Here are some
practical strategies for how to effectively communicate your likability.
When You Want to Demonstrate Positivity

Make eye contact + smile + raise eyebrows
“Sounds great!”
“I like the sound of that!”
“Sounds like a plan!”
“We’ll be done in no time!”
“Absolutely!”
When You Want to Demonstrate Extraversion

Make eye contact + smile + raise eyebrows + gently pat someone on the shoul-
der, etc.
“Hi, I’m Wayne – do you work in the risk management group too?”
“Boy the weather’s been pretty awful, hasn’t it . . .?”
“So you’re saying that . . .?”
“If I hear you correctly, you mean that . . .”
“It’s really great to be working with you – I think we’re going to do a great job”.
“You can come to me for help whenever you need it, ok?”
“That reminds me of a funny story I heard about . . .”
When You Want to Demonstrate Selflessness

“Would you mind drafting the recommendations again – you did such a great
job last time”.
“I want the team to succeed – whatever’s needed, just let me know . . .”
“Can we hear Mary’s ideas? What do you think Mary?”
“My teammates deserve all the credit. I was happy to be working with them”.
“Krish, remind me of that approach you were talking about the other day . . .”
When You Want to Demonstrate Reliability

“Bill, I wanted to get back to you right away. We can definitely do that. How
about 2:30 pm tomorrow?”
“I’ll get back to you on that by the end of the day Sukvinder; I’m just in a meet-
ing until 4 pm”.
“Thanks for your phone call Sarah – sorry I was away from the phone. Now I
got your voicemail as well! The timeline you mentioned works well for
me. Let’s confirm tomorrow. I’ll call you again at 9:15 am”.
“Hi team, I’m getting the PowerPoint to you a day early, so we have extra time for
editing and proofreading. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do . . .”
“Elizabeth I’m attaching the spreadsheet you requested. I’ve looked it over a
few times to ensure accuracy, but if you find any errors let me know and
I’ll correct them quickly”.
When You Want to Demonstrate Similarity

“It’s funny, we have a very similar background when it comes to our work his-
tory. I also . . .”
“That’s exactly the way I see things. Glad we have a similar point of view on
this”.
Likability 153
“I completely agree about the importance of CSR in any new venture. It’s what
everybody is looking for, especially the millennial consumer . . .”
“I actually had a very similar experience. One time . . .”
“You won’t get any disagreement from me. We’re on the same page as far as . . .”
TRY THIS
response to the following situations. Then, develop another effective
response on your own, not from these lists. Finally, for each situation,
provide a response that’s not effective because the soft skill of likability is
not being demonstrated. Your answers can include scripts.
• A sales representative at a new condominium sales center is pressuring a

young couple to buy a larger unit than they can afford. He says they’d be
“foolish” not to buy a three-bedroom, three-bathroom unit because they’ll
need the extra space once they start a family, and they’ll also be happy they
did so when it’s time to sell and move somewhere else because the larger
the unit the higher the re-sale value. He says they can get any extra money
they need for the down payment “from your parents”. What should they
say to the sales representative? What could he say differently?
• A table of four young men is seated at a sports bar in a downtown
neighborhood. They are speaking loudly, telling jokes, using swear
words and other non-polite language, and generally not considering
the people around them. A server comes to the table and asks if they
would mind keeping their voices down because other patrons have
begun to complain. One of the men tells her to “relax already” and
another says, “Tell those idiots they should mind their own business!”
What should the server say? What could the men say differently?
• Weekly meetings at Power and Mappins, an accounting firm, are stress-
ful. The lead partner regularly complains to his staff and about his staff.
For example, any time someone brings up a systems change or sugges-
tion, he’ll say: “You guys don’t work nearly as hard as I had to when I
was a young associate. Stop complaining!” Or, when any client-related
problems are mentioned he’ll say: “My job sucks right now.” The people
in the room are embarrassed and not sure what to do. What can the
young associates say or do? What can the partner say or do differently?
• A leading theatre organization has decided to get serious about its on-
paper commitments to diversity. In its three most recent hires it has
made sure that racial and sexual minority candidates have been hired.
Unfortunately, there is now a mismatch between the bulk of the staff
who is older, whiter, and straighter and these new candidates. For
example, overheard in the lunch room one day by one of the new hires
was the following comment made by an older employee: “I guess I’m

not valued anymore because of the color of my skin.” Another time one
of the new hires was being trained by an older employee and when she
didn’t pick up the skill right away, she was told she “probably wasn’t
qualified to do this”. What can the new hires say or do? What can the
older employees say or do differently?
SUMMARY
• Likability can be defined as the positive effect you have on those with
whom you interact because of your choice to demonstrate friendliness,
helpfulness, enthusiasm, and other characteristics. To demonstrate lik-
ability you can show positivity, extraversion, and selflessness in your
language and gestures, and show reliability in your actions. As well,
you can subtly play up the similarity between you and the people with
whom you interact.
• Employers regularly rank likability as one of the top five or six soft skills
required for their employees. Specifically, employers are looking for
workers who can cooperate with other people towards achieving com-
mon goals, act with courtesy and respect for clients and co-workers,
and show enthusiasm for tasks. Traditional likability is evolving as a
result of technologies like human-robot interface. Robots can be pro-
grammed to simulate human likability through tone modulation and
by offering apologies when needed among other traits.
• Practical gestures for demonstrating likability include smiling, nodding
your head to show that you’re listening, raising your eyebrows to show
enthusiasm, and when warranted, touching people on the shoulder,
on the arm, or sharing a handshake/fist bump among other tokens of
friendliness. Practical language tips to demonstrate likability include
using phrases with exclamations at the end to show positivity/enthusi-
asm, phrases that invite others to share as a way of demonstrating you
value their opinions, and phrases that create comparisons between you
and other people to subtly hint at similarities.
References
Abdullah, T., Deraman, S., Zainuddin, S., Azmi, N., Abdullah, S., Anuar, N., Moha-
mad, S., Zulkiffi, W., Hashim, N., Abdullah, A., Rasdi, A., & Hasan, H. (2020)
Impact of Social Media Inf luencer on Instagram User Purchase Intention towards
Likability 155
the Fashion Products: The Perspectives of Students. European Journal of Molecular &
Clinical Medicine, 7.8.
Batenburg, A., & Bartels, J. (2017) Keeping Up Online Appearances: How Self-
Disclosure on Facebook Affects Perceived Respect and Likability in the Professional
Context. Computers in Human Behavior, 74.
Cameron, D., de Saille, S., Collins, E. C., Aitken, J. M., Cheung, H., Chua, A., Loh,
E., & Law, J. (2020) The Effect of Social-Cognitive Recovery Strategies on Lik-
ability, Capability and Trust in Social Robots. Computers in Human Behavior, 114.
Farley, S. D. (2008) Attaining Status at the Expense of Likeability: Pilfering Power
through Conversational Interruption. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 32.
Jensen, P. M., & Hyldig, M. (2020) The Power of Likability. https://projekter.aau.dk/
projekter/files/334375776/Jensen__P._M.___Hyldig__M.__2020__The_Power_
of_Likeability.pdf, Accessed May 4, 2021.
Kamiyama, H., Ando, A., Masumura, R., Kobashikawa, S., & Aono, Y. (2020) Lik-
ability Estimation for Contact Center Agents by Selecting Annotators Based on
Binomial Distribution. Accoustical Science and Technology, 41.6.
Lederman, M. T. (2011) The 11 Laws of Likability: Relationship Networking . . . Because
People Do Business with People They Like. New York: Amacom.
Menendez, A. (2019) The Likability Trap: How to Break Free and Succeed as You Are. New
York: Harper Business.
Mone, G. (2019) What Makes a Robot Likable? Communications of the ACM, 62.8.
Nguyen, B., Ekinci, Y., Simkin, L., & Melewar, T. C. (2015) The Brand Likabiltiy
Scale: An Exploratory Study of Likeability in Firm-Level Brands. International Jour-
nal of Market Research, 57.5.
Nowlin, E. L., Walker, D., & Anaza, N. (2019) The Impact of Manager Likeability on
Sales Performance. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 27.2.
Pinto, J. K., Patankul, P., & Pinto, M. B. (2017) “The Aura of Capability”: Gender Bias
in Selection for a Project Manager. International Journal of Project Management, 35.3.
Reysen, S. (2005) Construction of a New Scale: The Reysen Likability Scale. Social
Behaviour and Personality, 33.2.
Richards, D. (2018, October 5) Why Likeability Gets You Hired and Promoted. The
Globe and Mail. www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/leadership/article-
why-likeability-gets-you-hired-and-promoted/, Accessed May 3, 2021.
Rivera, G. (2020) The Role of Honesty, Likabiity, and Assumed Morality on Judgments of
Others’ Authenticity. Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Require-
ments for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Texas A & M University, Department
of Psychology. https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/191840/
RIVERA-DISSERTATION-2020.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Rivera, L. A. (2012) Hiring as Cultural Matching: The Case of Elite Professional
Service Firms. American Sociological Review, 77.6.
Sanders, T. (2005) The Likeability Factor: How to Boost Your L-Factor and Achieve Your
Life’s Dreams. New York: Crown.
Shellenbarger, S. (2014, March 25) Why Likability Matters More at Work. Wall Street
Journal. www.wsj.com/articles/why-likability-matters-more-at-work-1395788402,
Accessed May 3, 2021.
Tsaur, S.-H., Yang, T.-L., & Tsai, C.-H. (2021) Tour Leader Likeability and Tourist
Citizenship Behaviours: Mediating Effect of Perceived Value. In Current Issues in
Tourism. Published Online.
11
CAN SOFT SKILLS BE TAUGHT?
You’ve now learned two approaches to soft skills. The first is the theoretical and
conceptual background to soft skills from Chapters 2– 4. These are the ideas
and proven concepts (e.g., proven through psychological experimentation) that
help explain why we behave the way we do and how we can behave differently
if we’d like to make a change. These concepts and theories from ethics, psy-
chology, and interpersonal communication are, I’d argue, helpful in everyday
situations. They serve as a reminder that even very new soft skills situations,
such as properly using social media to improve relationships or properly pro-
gramming a human-robot interface to demonstrate effective customer service
orientation, have their origins in an idea that humans have been considering
for thousands of years. That idea, of course, is what is the best way to be with
people? If you’ve learned one thing from this book, it’s that an adversarial atti-
tude characterized by anger, sarcasm, or unhelpfulness is not going to be useful
to you, nor is it desired by employers.
The second approach comes from the six chapters that look at the top soft
skills required by employers. These chapters show that effective soft skills are
about choosing to foreground certain positive, pro-social behaviors, and know-
ing how to communicate your choice effectively. This is why each of these
chapters ends with a section suggesting phrases you can use in conversation
to show soft skills in action. I’ll call this the “practical” approach to distin-
guish it from the theoretical/conceptual approach discussed earlier. If you look
carefully at the six practical chapters and the advice they offer, you’ll see that
one similarity among them is that with soft skills, you’re always aiming to
show that you’re thinking about the other person or people in the interaction
(i.e., empathy), instead of about yourself. Another similarity is that you should
choose to demonstrate genuine warmth: through friendliness, enthusiasm,
DOI: 10.4324/9781003212942-14
Can Soft Skills Be Taught? 157
helpfulness, and active listening. Saying all this is, of course, relatively easy; it’s
the doing that’s more challenging. This leads to a question that’s been asked by
some people: can soft skills be taught?

• How one college researched a soft skills intervention

• About the course this college created to address soft skills deficits
• Student and employer ratings of the course’s effectiveness
A History of George Brown College’s Soft Skills Course

Each of the six practical soft skills chapters included a section in which I dis-
cussed the research (or lack of research) into the teachability of that particular
soft skill. You’ll recall that some soft skills, like communication, are widely
taught in North America in professional communication courses in business,
engineering, nursing, and other programs. On the other hand, the inward-
facing soft skills of likability and productivity/work ethic aren’t formally taught
to anywhere near the same degree, if at all. The place where I teach, George
Brown College in Toronto, is a big urban community college. Founded in
1967, it has grown to be a major postsecondary institution with upwards of
25,000 students and numerous academic divisions teaching everything from
nursing and theatre and jewelry design to business, engineering, and game
design. I teach in the college’s Centre for Business (Cf B), where in the early
2010s we began to hear from our employer partners that although our graduates
possessed top-notch hard skills, they were nowhere near as strong at soft skills.
As a result, after a process of research, consultation, and design, in 2015 Cf B
became the first postsecondary educational institution in North America (as far
as we can tell) to make it mandatory that almost all undergraduate-level stu-
dents take a soft skills course called Successful Social Relations (GHUM 1087).
Here, I’ll discuss in some more detail how this course came to be.
In the course, students learn the intellectual background to soft skills: ethics,
psychology, and interpersonal communication, just as you have in Chapters 2– 4
of this book. The course then asks students to apply this conceptual and theo-
retical knowledge in group-based analyses of problematic soft skills behaviors
shown in realistic workplace cases, much like the six cases in this book. Because
it’s happening in a real or online classroom, not only do students in the course
have to answer the questions at the end of each case, as you’ve done, but they
also have to model their improved versions of the soft skills behaviors (from
Question 4) in front of other students. They do this either through a live skit
or by presenting a filmed version. Afterward, students talk about the changes

they’ve witnessed in soft skills behaviors.
The fact that the course is mandatory came about through extensive research
conducted by Cf B between 2011 and 2014. The research included the follow-
ing phases:
• A literature review of the concept of soft skills as well as of existing post-

secondary soft skills interventions and pedagogies
• A pedagogical literature review to inform a hybrid case analysis and script-
ing/role-playing/modeling pedagogy
• A survey of 350 local large, mid-size, and small employers to learn about the
soft skills they look for in new employees, and the corresponding behaviors
that demonstrate those skills
• A survey of the same local employers to identify their preferred method of
validating soft skills acquisition: a course, modules, an exam, a parallel or
co-curricular transcript, etc.
As a result of this research, Cf B arrived at a list of six soft skills, successful

demonstration of which was seen to be very important by a large majority of
the employers surveyed. Half of the skills could be grouped as outward-facing
(communication, teamwork, customer service orientation) and the other half
as inward-facing (problem-solving orientation, productivity/work ethic, and
likability/positive demeanor). The research also showed that according to the
350 employers surveyed, successful passing of a mandatory course would be
the most effective method of demonstrating soft skills competency. What was
left was to analyze our literature review to decide what specific pedagogy (i.e.,
method of teaching) would most effectively lead to soft skills acquisition by
students.
The Course’s Pedagogy

Our first task became finding a place for a new soft skills course to exist within
Cf B’s numerous undergraduate programs. We were unable to find space for the
new soft skills course by removing a core course in the Accounting, Finance,
Human Resources, Management, or Marketing programs. Instead, we decided
to explore substituting one of the general education courses students take (like
liberal arts and science electives in a university) with a new Cf B-only “manda-
tory general education elective” on soft skills.
This decision required a discussion between the deans of Cf B and the Cen-
tre for Preparatory and Liberal Studies (CPLS). They reached a compromise
whereby CPLS would agree to Cf B’s creating and delivering a general educa-
tion course on soft skills as long as two conditions were met. First, the course
could not use the phrase “soft skills” in its title because CPLS viewed soft skills
as vocational and not a pure arts, humanities, social science, or science subject.
Second, the new course would have to be approved by CPLS’ in-house cur-
riculum committee. This second condition also came with some advice: the
content of our new course should be knowledge-based and non-vocational and
should include a significant assignment (e.g., an essay) that would allow stu-
dents to demonstrate their knowledge of soft skills in a traditional fashion (i.e.,
via argument, logic, evidence).
CPLS’ conditions were significant, given that the original impetus for the
project – employers’ request for workers with more effective soft skills – was
clearly less about knowledge of these skills and more about effective demonstration
of the skills. We would have to strike a delicate balance between knowledge
and demonstration in our new course.
As already mentioned, we decided to explore melding two distinct peda-
gogical approaches: case-based learning and role-playing/behavior modeling.
To ensure our cases would be authentic and simulate real-world experiences,
we looked back to the literature on experiential learning. We began with
Dewey (1938) and the theorists who have refined and expanded his work
( Kolb 1984; Moon 2004; Ash & Clayton 2009; Beard & Wilson 2013; Braun
et al. 2018). Dewey suggests that it is the authenticity of experiences in a class-
room, that is, to what degree they helpfully and realistically connect students to
future experiences and growth, that makes them worth designing and under-
taking. We therefore wanted our new course to include authentic experiences
about the top six soft skills. Students could use their prior knowledge and expe-
rience, together with the ethics, psychology, and interpersonal communication
concepts/theories taught in the course, to solve behavioral problems that they
would probably encounter in their future.
Besides a pedagogical point of view, we needed a way to create this authen-
ticity of experience in the classroom. Here we used an insight found in the rela-
tionship between narrative (both fiction and non-fiction) and effective soft skills.
In analyzing our top six soft skills list we noticed that at least half of the six skills
(teamwork, customer service orientation, communication, likability) are about
an individual’s relations with others, and more specifically an ability to empa-
thize with them and their needs to get the job done. Research conducted by the
psychologists Raymond Mar and Keith Oatley and their colleagues has shown
that reading narratives with realistic plots, characters, and settings increases
empathy levels (Mar et al. 2006; Mar & Oatley 2008; Mar et al. 2009; Fong
et al. 2013; Mar 2018). We concluded that narrative case studies – mini-character
and situation-driven episodes in which the six soft skills were being used poorly
or not at all – could be an effective way of creating Dewey’s authentic experi-
ence. Students would analyze, re-work, re-write, and re-enact the situations to
make them more effective, all while increasing empathy levels.
With Dewey’s authenticity of experience as an underpinning and the Mar
lab’s proof of a connection between experiencing narrative and increases in
empathy, the curriculum development team created course materials (lecture

notes, etc.) and a suite of assessments (cases, tests including essay questions), and
then piloted the course. An innovation that came out of this final period of
curriculum development was the decision to mix the pedagogical approach of
case studies with the pedagogical approach of role-play and behavior modeling.
Background for the use of modeling techniques came from social learning the-
ory. We would emphasize the use of negative and positive model displays, which
have been shown to have a “significant negative effect on reproduction” of
non-social behaviors (Baldwin 1992; Taylor Russ-Eft & Chan 2005; Lauzier &
Haccoun 2014).
The heart of the new course was a series of realistic case studies in which a
negative version of one of the top six soft skills is demonstrated by characters.
In class, we read these case studies out loud together, then students in their
teams solve the case by offering an inductive written analysis of problems and
solutions (using knowledge of ethics, psychology, and interpersonal commu-
nication), as well as conduct some research into the skill. Critically, students
re-write the events of the case study in the form of an improved script and then
shoot and edit that script into a video (or a live skit) that is presented to the class.
Through this re-scripting and shooting/acting out, students become modelers
of an improved version of the soft skill in question, whether customer service
orientation, likability, or teamwork. Corroborated by studies such as Baldwin’s
and buttressed by Dewey’s ideas and recent findings on the narrative/increased
empathy connection, our belief was that students who took the course would
be more likely to demonstrate positive versions of soft skills behaviors and atti-
tudes in future interactions.
In focus groups we carried out with our two pilot cohorts (in Fall 2014 and
Winter 2015 semesters), student participants reported they were overwhelmingly
happy with the intent and content of the course. They reported understanding
the necessity for the course to be mandatory – some even going so far as to state
it should be mandatory across the college, not just in Cf B – and also feeling that
what they’d learned and experienced in the course had already helped them in
both their personal and work lives. Some students also mentioned discussing the
course in job interviews and reported gaining a greater sense of self-esteem and
confidence as a result of taking the course. By 2019, the course had run success-
fully for five years (fifteen semesters) and been taken by over 10,000 students.
We decided it was time to study the effectiveness of the course.
Researching GHUM 1087’s Effectiveness: Five Years Later

In 2019, a subset of the professors who teach GHUM 1087 formed a research
team and designed a study to measure the effectiveness of the course as a
method for teaching, improving, and eliciting effective soft skills among course
graduates.
Background
The study asked two main questions: to what degree has a large-scale manda-
tory postsecondary soft skills course enabled students to become more effec-
tive demonstrators of soft skills behaviors? And by extension, how effective is
the course’s current curriculum/pedagogy, with its hybrid teaching method of
authentic case study analysis of problematic soft skills behavior and resulting
scripting, role-playing, and modeling of improved behavior?
A growing body of literature has explored whether soft skills interventions
actually work (Anthony & Garner 2016; Beard et al. 2011; Chamorro-Premuzic
2011; Joseph et al. 2010; Matteson et al. 2016; Myers & Tucker 2005; Pulko &
Parikh 2003). However, these studies are based on small experiments, in sin-
gle classes, over single semesters. Because GHUM 1087 has been such a large
intervention – touching around 10,000 students over the past five academic
years – gauging its ability to create effective soft skills behaviors is of signifi-
cant importance both to the institution that currently houses the course and to
others that may be looking for effective and efficient ways to teach soft skills.
Two hypotheses grounded the research study:
• Students currently enrolled in GHUM 1087 see it as an effective way of

improving their understanding of soft skills, their ability to deploy soft
skills, and their intention to deploy soft skills in future.
• Co-op employers of students who have taken GHUM 1087 see the course
as a positive intervention, reporting more effective demonstration of soft
skills among co-op students who have taken the course than among co-op
students from other institutions who have not taken the course.
Together, these hypotheses speak to a common problem faced by educators

especially when targeting behavioral competencies: to what degree does what
takes place in the classroom translate into behavioral improvement in the real
world? If the results of this research are positive, evidence will have been pro-
vided that the specific pedagogical approach used in GHUM 1087 is validated.
If the results of the research are negative, a re-evaluation of the current cur-
riculum, pedagogical approach, or other aspects of course delivery or design
would be required.
Methodology
Three different sets of primary data were investigated. The Cf B co-op office
provided us with the first data set: archived Work Term Employer Evaluation
(WTEE) results from Fall 2012 co-op employers (n = 21) and Fall 2017 co-op
employers (n = 23). The WTEE survey, distributed each semester by the co-op
office, asks work term employers to rate student demonstration of soft skills
in the workplace. A comparison of WTEE results from 2012 and 2017 would
provide a snapshot (albeit from a small sample size) of Cf B student soft skill
achievement in the real world before and after GHUM 1087 became mandatory.
The second data set was a survey of current work term employers employing
Cf B students who have recently taken GHUM 1087 (n = 50). It was created
by the research team with the co-op office’s assistance. The current co-op
employers were surveyed in November 2019, near the end of the Fall semester.
They answered questions about the importance of soft skills in their organiza-
tion, about the soft skills achievement of the George Brown student(s) they had
hired, and about that student’s/those students’ soft skills achievements com-
pared to non-George Brown students. It was the research team’s intention to
replicate the survey in the Winter 2020 semester, but the Covid-19 pandemic
made this impossible.
The third data set created by the research team was a survey of current
GHUM 1087 students enrolled in the Fall 2019 semester (pre n = 778; post n =
388). The survey used a pre-post methodology in which the same respondents
answer the same questions at the beginning of the semester (i.e., before con-
tent learning had begun) and near the end of the semester (i.e., once content
learning had ended). Students were asked about the importance of soft skills
plus their knowledge of, demonstration of, and intention to deploy these skills.
Surveys were anonymous. Research team members introduced the survey in
person (or with a video message for online classes) using a common script and
course instructors were absent from the room to avoid bias.
Findings
The majority of our data confirmed our hypotheses. Data are described and
analyzed in three sections, corresponding to the three data sets listed earlier.
First, the research team used Archived Work Term Employer Evaluation Data
to quantify student soft skill achievement (in the real world) before and after
GHUM 1087 became mandatory. We compiled WTEE ratings of students in
teamwork, problem solving, and communication from Fall 2012 and Fall 2017
(the semesters were chosen at random – one pre-GHUM 1087, the other post).
To analyze the data, it was necessary to draw parallels between the rating cri-
teria on each form, as the wording had slightly changed over the five years
between surveys. For each of the three skills, we determined mean scores and
results were statistically analyzed. We were pleased to see that employer ratings
of student achievement in all three soft skills increased slightly between 2012
and 2017, suggesting that the adoption of GHUM 1087 as a mandatory course
had made a slight but noticeable positive difference in employer perception and
rating of Cf B students’ soft skills.
We next surveyed 50 employers in the Toronto area who were currently
(Fall 2019 semester) employing Cf B students who had taken GHUM 1087.
Results from this Current Work Term Employer Survey are discussed later.
Current employers were first asked to rate the importance of effective soft
skills as a hiring criterion in their organization. A very strong majority (82%)
of organizations that have hired Cf B work term students believe that it’s “very
important” to demonstrate effective soft skills. None of the respondents said it
was “not important” to demonstrate these skills.
Employers were then asked to rate the soft skills achievement of the Cf B
student(s) they currently employ. In rating GBC students’ achievement in six
soft skills, employers gave these students the highest, or “very effective”, rating
in all of the soft skills. In addition, in three of the six soft skills – teamwork,
likability, and customer service orientation – none of the students was rated
as “not effective”. Among the six soft skills, there were noticeable differences.
Cf B work term students were most highly rated for their achievement in team-
work and likability. Here, the spread between employers rating the students as
“effective” and those rating them as “very effective” was almost 50%. In other
words, Cf B students appear to excel at these soft skills.
Cf B work term students were also highly rated for their achievement in
productivity/work ethic and customer service orientation, though there was
a less dramatic spread. Here, the difference between the “effective” and “very
effective” ratings was closer to 20%. Finally, while Cf B students were mostly
rated as “very effective” in communication and problem-solving orientation,
the spread between this rating and the middle “effective” rating was negligible
(1–3%).
Employers were then asked to rate the soft skills achievement of the Cf B
student(s) they currently employ against students from other institutions. The data
show that Cf B students are doing a better job of demonstrating soft skills in the
workplace than students from other institutions. For each one of the six soft
skills, between 25% and 33% of employers rated Cf B work term students as
“more effective” at soft skills than students from other institutions. For three of
the soft skills rated – teamwork, likability, and customer service orientation –
no GBC students were rated as “less effective” than their peers from other
institutions. Consistent with earlier results, GBC students were most likely to
be rated “more effective” than students from other institutions in their dem-
onstration of teamwork and likability – and one additional skill: customer
service orientation. Consistent again with earlier results, GBC students were
least likely to be rated “more effective” than students from other institutions on
their demonstration of communication and productivity/work ethic. In fact,
these are the only two soft skills for which employers rated Cf B students as “less
effective” in a meaningful way (i.e., just over 5%).
Finally, employers were asked to rate the value of Cf B’s Successful Social
Relations course. A large majority (82%) of organizations that have hired Cf B
work term students believe that a course like GHUM 1087 is “very valuable”.
Only 2% of the respondents said it was “not valuable” for students to take
such a mandatory course. Overall, both employer data sets strongly support
the mandatory presence of GHUM 1087 in the Cf B undergraduate programs
and provide a potential persuasive argument for the expansion of the course to
other program levels (e.g., post-graduate) and other institutions.
Finally, the Current Student Survey compared the knowledge, demonstra-
tion, and intention to deploy soft skills of students taking GHUM 1087 in Fall
2019 at the beginning and end of the semester. Students were first asked to rate
the importance of some of the soft skills covered in the course, including com-
munication, likability, and customer service orientation. All five soft skills were
rated as “very important” by a substantial majority of students (except for lik-
ability at only 57%). In addition, the percentage of students making this “very
important” rating increased in the post-survey across four of five of the skills –
by between 2% and 11%. Only one soft skill (productivity/work ethic) had an
unchanged rating in the post-survey. It’s positive that a large majority of students
agree that the soft skills covered in the course are “very important”, and that
the number of students making this rating increased by the end of the course.
In particular, students’ rating of the outward-facing soft skills (customer service,
likability) – versus inward-facing skills like productivity – increased an average 10%
by the end of the course. This leads us to believe students are internalizing one of
the main messages of the course – that how we are with other people is perhaps
the most important function of soft skills.
The survey next asked a number of questions about soft skills knowledge.
The pre-post version of the student survey shows that GHUM 1087 helps
achieve significant gains in students’ knowledge of soft skills. The proportion
of students who rated their soft skills knowledge as “reasonable” decreased by
15.68% in the post-survey, whereas students rating their knowledge as “excel-
lent” rose by 26.22%. Similarly, students who rated their soft skills knowledge
as “under-developed” dropped by 10.54%. A large majority of students who
initially rated their soft skills knowledge as underdeveloped had, by the end
of the semester, gained a reasonable or even excellent understanding of soft
skills. We conclude that GHUM 1087 does a very good job creating significant
knowledge gains over the 12 weeks of content exploration.
A separate part of the survey was designed to corroborate students’ own
impressions of their soft skills knowledge. In six workplace situations, students
were asked to decide whether or not soft skills had been demonstrated or used.
In four situations, soft skills are not used while in two situations, soft skills are
used. All six situations were correctly identified by a substantial majority of
students (>75%) in both versions of the survey. A large majority (74–96%) of
students is able, in various situations, to correctly identify when soft skills are
being used and when they are not. At the same time, the number of students
making the correct identification decreased slightly in five of the six situations
(average −2.8%) In one situation (a sales representative answers a personal text
while helping a customer) there was an unchanged rating at the post-survey.
Of the six situations, the two that garnered the lowest rate of correct identifica-
tions (74–77%) involved a person’s decision whether or not to answer a personal
call or text while doing a work-related task, pointing to a generational differ-
ence in how such an interruption is viewed.
The survey then asked students to rate their demonstration of soft skills.
The results show that GHUM 1087 is successful in improving students’ per-
ceived ability to demonstrate soft skills. At the beginning of the course, 10.8%
of students rated their ability to demonstrate soft skills as under-developed;
by the end of semester, this number had dropped to 1.29%. At the same time,
there was a significant increase in the post-survey (to 16.82%) in students who
regarded their ability to demonstrate soft skills as very effective. From this data
we conclude that GHUM 1087 is an effectively designed course, successfully
raising students’ awareness of the value of soft skills and improving their ability
to demonstrate these skills.
The percentage of students that rated their ability to demonstrate soft skills
as “reasonable” decreased between the beginning and end of the course (by 7%),
whereas the percentage of students that rated their ability to demonstrate soft
skills as “very effective” increased between the beginning and end of the course
(by 17%). Clearly, students believe GHUM 1087 to be successful not just at
imparting soft skills knowledge and changing their perceptions of soft skills
importance but also at improving their practical abilities to demonstrate soft
skills over the course of the 12 weeks of content exploration. This is evidence
that the course is successful as currently designed, does not require significant
changes, and could be expanded.
Next, the survey asked a couple of questions about the intention to use
soft skills. An overwhelming majority of students, both in the pre- and post-
surveys, said they plan to use soft skills in their daily lives. The already high
proportion in the “pre” survey (96.79%) rose to 98.20% in the post-survey. In
contrast, the number of students who did not intend to use soft skills dropped
from 3.21% in the pre-survey to 1.80% in the post-survey. The main takeaway
from this question is that students come into GHUM 1087 with an already high
propensity to deploy soft skills, and after being exposed to the course content,
they have a slightly higher propensity to use soft skills.
Finally, we wanted to understand more precisely how students who answered
“yes” to the earlier question intended to use soft skills. We posed an open-
ended follow-up question asking students to describe how they intend to use
soft skills. A content analysis of responses shows that student explanations of
their intention to use soft skills are closely related to/explained by the six soft
skills covered in the course, both in the pre- and post-survey. In both sur-
veys, students most frequently explain their rationale for using soft skills as that
it allows them to demonstrate likability (31.7% pre/21.3% post) and effective
communication (23.2% pre/24.7% post). Interestingly, while likability was the
top reason in the pre-survey, in the post-survey it switched positions with
communication. Students’ intention to use soft skills as a way of showing lik-

ability dropped by 10% in the post-survey; however, we saw a 12.1% increase
in the combined areas of communication, productivity/work ethic, teamwork,
and problem-solving orientation which may point to students’ growing under-
standing that likability is most effective when it is accompanied by pro-social
actions, demonstrated through the soft skills of communication, productivity,
positive teamwork, and problem-solving orientation.
In addition to correlating students’ rationales for using soft skills in relation
to the course’s six soft skills, we looked for a non-course-related explanation
as well. Students said they intend to use soft skills for one of two main reasons.
They said they will use the skills to be a certain way (roughly 30% of respon-
dents) or to do certain things (roughly 70% of respondents). While a healthy
minority of students see soft skills as a personal attribute, more than double that
amount see the skills as a tool for achieving goals/getting things done. Students’
intention to use soft skills to “be” a certain way decreased 6% over the semester.
Within this decrease, there is an interesting nuance. Students’ intentions to
use soft skills to be personally effective (e.g., adaptable, assertive, productive, effi-
cient) actually increased over the course of the semester (doubling from 3% to
7%), while students’ intentions to use soft skills to be effective with others (e.g.,
accommodating, cooperative, enthusiastic, likable) decreased by over 10%. The
increase in students’ intention to use soft skills to be personally effective makes
sense when viewed through the lens of course content. The message consis-
tently delivered to students in the course is that soft skills are refined through-
out a lifetime and that individuals actively choose to use (or not use) these tools
to achieve success in their lives and help their engagement with the world.
Students’ intention to use soft skills to “do” certain things increased 4%
over the semester. Within this increase, there is an interesting nuance. Stu-
dents’ intention to use soft skills to do things to help others increased (e.g., com-
municate effectively, work effectively in teams, manage conf lict) almost 7%
over the course of the semester, while students’ intention to use soft skills to
do things to help themselves (succeed, network, make friends) decreased by 3.5%.
The increase in students’ overall intention to use soft skills to do certain helpful
things is not surprising given that over the course of the semester, GHUM 1087
reiterates the importance of moving beyond a theoretical understanding of soft
skills to the application of these skills in real-world situations. The increase here
may also suggest that at the end of the course, students have become adept at
applying soft skills.
While fewer than 10% of students indicated in the pre-survey that they
intended to use soft skills to help themselves, it’s worth noting that this number
fell by over a third in the post-survey. Again, this decrease may suggest students’
growing awareness by the end of the course that personal success is closely
aligned with helping others. The increase in students’ intention to use soft
skills to do certain things/apply their soft skills (e.g., work effectively in teams,
communicate effectively, problem solve/manage conf lict) over the course of

the semester is an indication that the course is successful in its intention to
help students become more pro-social in their actions. Overall, this question
produced satisfactory results. By the end of the course, a focus on fulfilling
the needs of the individual dropped by over a third, and clear increases were
evident in the number of students focusing on outward-facing soft skills that
require helping/being nice to others (teamwork, relationship building, conf lict
management).
Conclusion and Implications

Our data offer confirmation for our hypotheses. They demonstrate that GHUM
1087 is seen by students currently enrolled in the course as a highly effective
way of improving their knowledge of soft skills and their ability to deploy soft
skills. Students also overwhelmingly reported an intention to deploy soft skills
in the future. The data also demonstrated that GHUM 1087 is seen as a highly
positive intervention by work term employers of students who have taken the
course. Employers reported very strong demonstration of soft skills by their
Cf B work term students who have taken the course, and they also reported
that these students’ soft skills were significantly more effective in at least three
areas than the soft skills demonstrated by students from other institutions who
have not taken the course.
These findings demonstrate that the decision to combine a case-study peda-
gogy and a scripting/role-playing/behavior modeling pedagogy is valid and
effective. The small number of results that do not confirm our hypotheses also
lead to productive conclusions. Students’ lack of depth in soft skills knowledge
and their differential generational attitudes toward one or two of the skills
create the opportunity for small-scale curriculum redevelopment of the course.
These deficits also underscore the potential benefits of re-naming/re-framing
the course to help instill its content even more deeply. Happily, the data also
lead us to suggest that the population of students who take the course should
be expanded so that students at other levels (degree, postgraduate certificate)
are also able to achieve its outcomes, and that the course be publicized to other
institutions so they can choose to adopt it or a version of it.
SUMMARY
• Between 2013 and 2015, George Brown College, a large urban com-
munity college in Toronto, having received negative feedback from
employers about its graduates’ soft skills, decided to research soft skills,
how to teach these skills, which specific soft skills employers believe are
most urgently needed, and how employers prefer acquisition of these

skills by students to be proven.
• Knowing the top six soft skills employers are seeking, and that a man-
datory course was employers’ preferred way of demonstrating student
acquisition of these skills, a group of instructors began to design a
course as a soft skills intervention. They used pedagogical and psy-
chological theories and concepts including experiential learning, the
proven relationship between narrative and increases in empathy, and
the proven success of behavior modeling as a way of increasing inter-
personal skills to design a course with a hybrid case/behavior modeling
pedagogy. The course, Successful Social Relations, was piloted success-
fully in 2014 and 2015, and thereafter became mandatory.
• Five years later, faculty researchers measured the effectiveness of the
course after more than 10,000 students had taken it. They designed a
research study that asked employers’ opinions about the soft skills of
George Brown students who’ve taken the soft skills course, as well as
the opinions of students currently taking the course about their own
knowledge, demonstration, and intention to use soft skills in the future.
Results corroborated the study’s hypotheses, leading the researchers
to conclude the course is doing a good job as currently designed and
that it can be expanded to more students and to other educational
institutions.
References
Anthony, S., & Garner, B. (2016) Teaching Soft Skills to Business Students. Business &
Professional Communication Quarterly, 79.3.
Ash, S. L., & Clayton, P. H. (2009) Generating, Deepening, and Documenting Learn-
ing: The Power of Critical Ref lection in Applied Learning. Journal of Applied Learn-
ing in Higher Education, 1.
Baldwin, T. T. (1992) Effects of Alternative Modeling Strategies on Outcomes of
Interpersonal-Skills Training. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77.2.
Beard, C., & Wilson, J. P. (2013) Experiential Learning: A Handbook for Education, Training
and Coaching, 3rd ed. London: Kogan Page Limited.
Beard, D., Schweiger, D., & Surendran, K. (2008) Integrating Soft Skills Assessment
through University, College, and Programmatic Efforts at an AACSB Accredited
Institution. Journal of Information Systems Education, 19.2.
Braun, R., Kaipainen, E., & Usman, F. (2018) Environmental Scan of Experiential Learning
at the University of Calgary. Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning. Calgary, AB.
https://ucalgary.ca/provost/sites/default/files/EL%20Plan%202020-25.pdf, Accessed
May 12, 2021.
Chamorro-Premuzic, T., Arteche, A., Bremner, A. J., Greven, C., & Furnham, A.
(2010) Soft Skills in Higher Education: Importance and Improvement Ratings as a
Function of Individual Differences and Academic Performance. Educational Psychol-
ogy, 30.2.
Dewey, J. (1938, 2007) Experience and Education. New York: Touchstone/Simon &
Schuster.
Fong, K., Mullin, J. B., & Mar, R. A. (2013) What You Read Matters: The Role of Fic-
tion Genres in Predicting Interpersonal Sensitivity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity,
and the Arts, 7.
Joseph, D., Chiang, R. H. L., & Slaughter, S. (2010) Practical Intelligence in IT: Assess-
ing Soft Skills of IT Professionals. Communications of the ACM, 53.
Kolb, D. (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Lauzier, M., & Haccoun, R. R. (2014) The Interactive Effect of Modeling Strategies
and Goal Orientations on Affective, Motivational, and Behavioral Training Out-
comes. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 27.2.
Mar, R. A. (2018) Stories and the Promotion of Social Cognition. Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 27.
Mar, R. A., & Oatley, K. (2008) The Function of Fiction Is the Abstraction and Simula-
tion of Social Experience. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3.
Mar, R. A., Oatley, K., Hirsh, J., de la Paz, J., & Peterson, J. B. (2006) Bookworms
versus Nerds: Exposure to Fiction versus Non-Fiction, Divergent Associations with
Social Ability, and the Simulation of Fictional Social Worlds. Journal of Research in
Personality, 40.
Mar, R. A., Oatley, K., & Peterson, J. B. (2009) Exploring the Link between Read-
ing Fiction and Empathy: Ruling Out Individual Differences and Examining Out-
comes. Communications, 34.
Matteson, M. L., Anderson, L., & Boyden, C. (2016) “Soft Skills”: A Phrase in Search
of Meaning. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 16.1.
Moon, J. A. (2004) A Handbook of Reflective and Experiential Learning Theory and Practice.
New York: Routledge.
Myers, L. L., & Tucker, M. L. (2005) Increasing Awareness of Emotional Intelligence
in a Business Curriculum. Business Communication Quarterly, 68.1.
Pulko, S. H., & Parikh, S. (2003) Teaching “Soft” Skills to Engineers. International
Journal of Electrical Engineering Education, 40.4.
Taylor, P. J., Russ-Eft, D. F., & Chan, D. W. L. (2005) A Meta-Analytic Review of
Behavior Modeling Training. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90.4.
INDEX
Abdullah, T. 142 Assessing 21st Century Skills (U.S.

absenteeism 42 National Research Council Report)
accounting 7, 153, 158 73, 85, 98, 115, 129–30
active-learning pedagogy 14 athletics 117
active listening 75, 85, 87, 94, 96, 106, attractiveness 143–4
110, 145, 157 Audi, R. 21
Adler, R. 41, 56–9 audit 8
adversarial attitude 156 Austin, J. L. 7
advertisements 119 Australia 9, 85
African culture 45, 131 authenticity 142–3, 159
aggression 38–9, 41, 51, 61, 93 automation 5, 99, 119
alcohol 11–2, 15 autonomy model of healthcare 33
altruism 26, 42, 48–9, 49, 53
Amazon 131 Bacal, R. 108
Anders, S. L. 69, 142 badgering 61
animal ethics 31–2, 34–5 Baldwin, T. T. 160
anonymity 48–9, 162 Balkin, J. M. 4
anti-social behavior 50 Ballingall, A. 2
anxiety disorders 41–2, 53, 117; see also Bandura, A. 38–9, 41, 52–3, 57
mental health banks 103
apps 3, 48 bargaining 88
Araiza-Alba, P. 120 Bartels, J. 142
Archived Work Term Employer Barton, G. 88
Evaluation Data 162 Basu, A. 100
argumentativeness 61 Batenburg, A. 142
Aristotle 26–7, 27, 35 Baxter, L. 67
Aronsson, K. 67 Beard, C. 161
Asch, S. 45–6 Beard, D. 159
Ash, S. L. 159 Beauchamp, M. R. 39
Asian countries/cultures 5, 45, 62 Beck, A. 52
assault: character 61; sexual 27–8 behaviorism 38, 40
assertiveness 42 Bentham, J. 24, 35
Index 171
bereavement 50 client-centered therapy 52

Bible 31 cloning 34
binary oppositions 4 coding software 8
biology 29 cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) 43;
biomedical ethics 31, 33 see also therapy
bisexuality 4 cognitive dissonance 44
Blackburn, S. 28, 31 cognitive-social learning theories 43
Black Lives Matter (BLM) 11 Collin, C. 38–41, 43, 45, 47
Blanchard, A. L. 87 Collins, S. D. 50, 53
blogging 56 communication competence 58–9;
Boatwright 131 behaviours 58–9; empathetic 59;
Bobo doll experiments 38–9, 52 relational 58; repertoire 58–9; self-
brainstorming 94, 122 monitoring 59; skills 58; situational
Braithwaite, C. 120 58; vocabulary 58–9; see also
Braun, R. 168 interpersonal communication
bridal industry 139 communication skills 73–84; analysis
Brown, George see George Brown 80–1; case studies 77–81; critique
College’s Soft Skills Course: 82–3; definition 73–80, 83–4;
Brown, L. S. 2018 10 formatting 74; importance 74–80,
Budd, J. M. 99 84; initial interaction 82; language
Buddhism 40 and behaviors 81–4; oral/spoken
bullying 57, 61, 91 communication 74; persuasion
burnout 42 82–3; problematic communication
Butler, G. 37–8, 41, 43 77–80; relational aspect 75; requests
bystander effect 48 82–3; situational aspect 75; style 74;
suggestions 82–3; vocabulary for
Cabantous, L. 7 demonstrating 81–3; written accuracy 74
Canada 2, 9, 34, 38, 85, 103, 131 commuters 44
cannabis 11, 120–1, 139 companionship 56
capitalism 33 competitors 122, 138
Carraher, S. M. 103 complaints 61, 135
Carson, C. L. 67 compliance 42, 45–6, 48, 93, 150
Carvalho, M. M. 11 compliments 143, 145
Centre for Preparatory and Liberal Comte-Sponville, A. 22–3
Studies (CPLS) 158–9 confidence 4, 118–9, 160
Chamorro-Premuzic, T. 161 Confucius 27
Chan, D. W. L. 160 Congressional Research Service (CRS)
charities 29, 149, 33 5, 16
chatbots 99, 110 Conn, C. 119
chemistry, body 38 conscientiousness 42, 101, 129–30, 140
Chhinzer, N. 88 consequentialism 25, 27, 35, 93;
childhood behavior 39, 42, 51 consequentialist ethics 22, 24, 27; see also
Christianity 31 ethics
Christopher, A. N. 129–30 contractarianism 25–6
Chromik, R. R. 88, 96 cooperation/collaboration 85, 87, 92,
Chuang, A. 98 94; defensive action see negative
Chung, S. 87 communication spirals
Cimatti, B. 10 coping strategies 50–1, 53; APA
citizenship behaviours 144 Dictionary of Psychology 51;
civility 13, 79 compromise 51; confrontation
civilization 93 50–1; defensive coping 51; direct
Clarke, J. B. 117 coping 50–1; withdrawal 51; see also
Clayton, P. H. 159 psychology; stress
172 Index
corporate social responsibility (CSR) 94, ‘door-in-the-face-effect’ 46

153 drugs 34, 39; see also cannabis
correspondence 74 Dugas, M. J. 116
Corrigan, P. 12 Dunn, S. S. 88
Costigan, J. L. 59 dutifulness 42, 130–1, 138
Cotton, B. 3 dysfunctional personality 42
Coulter, C. 23–6, 28
counseling 5, 37 e-commerce 94–5
courteousness see politeness theory economies, knowledge 5
Covid-19 pandemic 88, 102, 121, 162; economists 129
see also lockdowns; shutdowns, retail; effectiveness 8, 13, 15, 76, 84, 91, 157,
vaccinations 160, 168
credit unions 90 egoism 28, 36, 106, 123, 150
Cupach, W. R. 67 elderly persons 78–9
customer service orientation 98–110; email 56–8, 60, 64, 74, 84, 90–1, 100,
behaviors 107–9; case study 103–7; 109, 135, 145
courtesy 107, 109; client’s/customer’s Emihovich, B. 120
needs, satisfaction of 100–1, 108; emojis 75
definition of skills 99–103, 109; emotions 6, 15, 24, 51, 75, 78, 100, 116
frustration 108; helpfulness 101, 102, empathy 40, 59, 63, 69, 100, 156, 159–60,
107, 109; importance of 99–103, 168
110; language 107–10; pleasantness employability 88, 102
102; politeness 101, 107, 109; engineering 7, 74, 88, 126, 138, 157
positive 102; positive relationships/ Enlightenment period 22, 25, 30
positivity 100, 108; practical gestures enthusiasm 9, 93, 138, 143, 146, 154, 156
110; problematic 103–7; rapport environmental ethics 32, 34, 36; see also
building 100, 108; vocabulary for ethics
demonstrating 107–8 Erikson, E. 42
ethics 21–36; animal 34–5; applied 31–5;
D’Auria-Stanton, A. 120 applied ethical decision-making 35;
D’Zurilla, T. J. 116 biomedical 33–4; business 32–3, 36;
databases 102, 120, 146 consequentialist 24–5; definition
Dawar, A. 2 21–2, 36; duty-based 23–4; egoism
deconstruction 4 and 28, 36; environmental 34–5;
defensiveness 62–4, 69, 93, 106, 124, 150 futility 29, 36; health 33–4, 36;
deference 76, 86 identify ethical issues 35; method
deindividuation 48, 53, 81 of control 30; normative theories
De los Reyes, G. 22 22–8; obstacles to ethical behaviour
demeanor 145, 158 28–31, 36; options for acting 35;
demographic change 2, 102 organizational 32–3, 36; ref lection
deontological ethics 23 on outcome 35; relativism 28–9,
depression 43 36; secularism 30–1; social contract
determinism 29 25–6; stakes, identification of 35; test
DeTienne, K. B. 40 decisions 35; unreasonableness 29–30;
Dewey, J. 159–60 virtue 26–8
digital technologies 1, 3, 11, 86, 95, 139 ethnicity 2, 57
disagreement 66, 88, 95–6, 126, 138, 153 euthanasia 34
discrimination 50 extraversion 42, 53, 143–5, 152, 154
distance 67 eyebrows 75, 125, 145, 151–2, 154
diversity 2–3, 142, 153; diversity-based
request 3 Facebook 32; see also social media
donations, charitable 126, 149; see also face-saving acts 62
charities face-threatening acts (FTAs) 65–9, 81,
Donellan, M. B. 6 93, 106, 124; see also politeness theory
Index 173
face-to-face interaction 52, 56–8, 60 Gnewuch, U. 99

Farley, S. D. 144 Goldsmith, D. J. 67–8
farms 25, 34 Google: Docs 90; Scholar 10, 80, 86, 92,
far-right politics 28 105, 123, 136, 150
Farson, R. E. 87 Gosselin, P. 117
fascism 46 Greece, ancient 26, 31, 42
fast-fashion industry 58 greenbelt legislation 34
fax machines 109 greetings 84
Feeney, M. K. 131 Groupthink 124
feminism 11, 30, 40; see also gender;
women Haccoun, R. R. 160
Ferdows, K. 5 Hämäläinen, R. 119
financial services 3 Hamilton-Attwell, A. 129
five-factor model 42, 54 handshakes 154
f laming 57 happiness 21, 24–5, 35, 56, 131
f lexibility/adaptability 9 harassment 81
followership 50, 86, 94, 96, 117 Hardy, J. 117
forgiveness 66 Harkins, S. G. 48
‘for-profit’ organizations 134 headphones 55, 148
framing 9 healthcare 11, 33–4, 36, 95, 103, 126
franchises 120 helpfulness 101, 107, 109, 143, 154, 157
Freud, S. 41 Henkel, S. 76
friendliness 100, 143, 145, 154, 156 Hippocrates 42
friendships 56 Hobbes, T. 25
Hobson, C. J. 88
games 134; gaming 49, 88; video Hogan, R. 103
gameplay 120 honor killings 28
gap/deficit view 2, 4, 9, 11–3, 15 Hoppe, M. H. 87
Garner, B. 10, 161 Horney, K. 41–2
gender 2–3, 57, 144; see also sex; women hospitality 8, 11, 76, 84, 99, 103
genes 29 hospitals 33
genetics 34, 38, 41–2 Hughes, M. 12
geography 8 human-chatbot interaction 99
George Brown College’s Soft Skills humanity, concept 21, 24
Course: background 161; Archived humanoids see robots
Work Term Employer Evaluation humor 42, 143, 145; see also jokes
Data 162; Current Student Survey Hurrell, S. A. 6–7, 10–1
164; Current Work Term Employer
Survey 163; effectiveness 160–7; Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) 120
findings 162–7; helping oneself 166; immigration 2
helping others 166; history 157–68; inclusivity 89–90
implications 167; methodology India 65
161–2; outward-facing soft skills Industrial Revolution 5, 38, 141
167; pedagogy 158–60; personal input-responsiveness 29
effectiveness 166 insurance 109, 148
Germany 48 interpersonal communication 55–69;
Gestalt therapy 52 assertive message format 64;
gestures 7–8, 14, 62, 74–6, 75, 84–5, 96, communication climates 59–64, 69;
99, 110, 116, 127, 130, 140, 143, 154 communication spiral 62; definition
GHUM 1087 160–7 55–8, 68; dynamics 62; face-saving/
Gibb, J. 58–9, 62, 69 defensiveness 62; identity needs 56;
Gilligan, C. 40 negative communication, prevention
globalization 5 of 62–4; negative spirals 63; physical
global manufacturing 5 health 56; practical/instrumental
174 Index
goals 56; rationale for 56–8; leverage 31

shared 60; social needs 56; see also Levi, D. 49
communication competence; mediated Levinson, P. 64–5, 70
communication; messages; politeness Liao, H. 98
theory liberal arts 158
intrapersonal abilities 6, 10, 15, 73, 115–6 liberal-mindedness 4
inward-facing soft skills 73, 113, 115, Lichter, M. I. 12
129, 142, 157–8, 164 lie-telling 24, 137
Islamic countries 28 likability 6–7, 10, 14, 88, 107, 115, 124,
137, 54, 157–60, 163–6; behaviors
Jackling, B. 88 151–4; case study 147–51; definition
Jackson, A. 3 143–7, 144, 154; extraversion 144, 145,
Jacobs, J. V. 131 152; importance 143–7, 154; language
Japanese students 117 151–4; poor 147–51; positivity 145,
jargon 7–8 151; practical gestures 154; reliability
Jensen, P. M. 143–4 144, 145–6, 152; self lessness 144, 145,
jewelry design 157 152; similarity, quality of 146, 152–3;
jokes 66, 100, 123, 145, 153; see also vocabulary for demonstrating 151–3
humor lingo 7
journalists 2, 8, 11 LinkedIn 9
journals, peer reviewed 1, 99 Lisa, E. 102
Jung, C. 41 listening 60
justice 30, 40 loafers 124
loafing, social 129
Kamiyama, H. 142 lockdowns 121; see also Covid-19
Kant, I. 23–4, 31, 35, 151 pandemic
Karau, S. J. 129 logic trees 119
Kellerman, B. 86 logistics 46, 120, 139
Kharouf, H. 76 lowball effect 46
Klein, C. 85, 87, 98 loyalty, client/customer 76, 84, 110
knowledge: economy 5; of soft skills 13, lying 24, 57, 137, 150
97, 157, 159–60, 162, 164–5, 167–8
Koermer, C. D. 76, 84 Maisto, A. A. 37–8, 41, 43, 50
Kohlberg, L. 39–41, 59 malls 126, 137
Kolb, D. 159 Mar, R. 159
Krumm, S. 89 marijuana see cannabis
marital issues 50
land, agricultural 34 marketing 5, 8, 84, 86, 95, 99, 103, 120,
language-based strategies 69 139–40, 144, 147, 158
languages 64 Marques, J. 131
laptops 66, 132 Martin, M. M. 58
Latin American countries 5 mathematics 120; models 129
laughing 145; see also humour; jokes Matteson, M. L. 10, 17, 161
Lauzier, M. 160 maximalism 25
leadership 48–50, 86, 94, 96, 117, 144 maxims 23
learning and development theories Mayo Clinic 118
38–40; moral development theory MBA courses 89–90, 93
39–40, 53; social learning theory McAdams, D. P. 42
38–9, 53; see also psychology McCallum, J. S. 86
Lederman, M. T. 147 McCroskey, L. L. 76
Lee, N. E. 10 McLean, R. 119
Lerner, S. 88 McLeay, F. 99
letters 74, 105 McManus, F. 37–8, 41, 43
Index 175
mediated communication 56–8; benefits nationalism 5

of 57; challenges of 57–8; see also nationalities of workers 131
interpersonal communication negative communication spirals:
medical ethics 34 definition 63
medicine 11, 31, 33–4, 36, 76, 88, 99 negativity 62
memos 74 Nepal 40
Menendez, A.147 networking 61; see also social networks
mental health 50, 117; see also anxiety neuroscience, social 44
disorders; depression neutrality 63
mental processes 13, 37, 52 Newman, M. 23–6, 28, 32
Meriac, J. P. 129 newspapers 2, 9
messages: acknowledgement New Zealand 9
60; ambiguous responses 61; Nezu, A. M. 127
argumentativeness 61; complaining Nguyen, B. 144
61; defensive 60–1; disagreeing nodding, head 64, 77, 84, 87, 96, 110,
communication 61; endorsing 60; 123, 127, 145, 154
impersonal responses 61; impervious nonprofit organizations 30, 32, 89, 126
responses 61; incongruous responses non-pro-social behavior 48, 65, 80, 160
61; interrupting responses 61; nonverbal communication 61–2, 64, 68,
irrelevant responses 61; ‘leaner’ 75, 155
57; recognition 60; supportive 60; normative theories see ethics
tangential responses 61; types of 60–1; Nowlin, E. L. 144
see also interpersonal communication nursing 5, 7–8, 11, 74, 88, 96, 157
metaphor 25–6 Nwabueze, U. 76
Mikkelson, A. C. 76
Mileski, J. 76 O’Rourke, J. 50
Milgram, S. 46 Oatley, K. 159
military psychology 38 off-record indirectness 66–7, 69
millennial generation 131, 153 office-hoteling 3
mindfulness 131 Oliver, E. J. 117
mobile devices 32 oral/spoken communication 74, 76
Mohanty, A. 76 outward-facing soft skills 71, 73, 85, 98,
Mohanty, S. 76 102, 115, 158, 164, 167
Moon, J. A. 159
moral development theory 39–40, 53 Paguio, R. 88
moral panic 11–12 Panza, C. 34
moral reasoning 39–40; conventional Parikh, S. 161
stage 39–40, 53; post-conventional Partington, R. 3
stage 40, 53; pre-conventional stage paternalistic model of healthcare 33–4
39, 53; see also psychology patriarchy 30
moral regulation see moral panic Penczynski, S. P. 87
morality 21–2, 39–41, 53 performativity 7–8, 58
Morris, C. G. 37–8, 41, 50 personality theories 41–3, 53;
mortgage brokers 109 cognitive-social learning theories 43;
Moshiri, S. 131 psychodynamic theories 41–2; trait
multiculturalism 28 theory 42–3, 53
murder 28, 31 persuasiveness 142, 144
music 43, 48, 66, 148 petitions 46
Myers, L. L. 161 psychodynamic theories 41–2
Myers, S. 59 psychology: definition 37–8, 52;
see also coping strategies; learning
name-calling 61 and development theories; moral
narcissism 59 reasoning; personality theories;
176 Index
problematic behaviors; social Rabechini, Jr., R. 11

psychology; stress racial diversity 2, 153
Pilgrim, T. 99, 111 rape 27–8; culture/Me Too Movement 11
politeness theory 56, 58, 64–9, 93, 101, Ravindranath, S. 11
106–7, 109, 143; bald on-record 65; Rawls, John 25, 35
everyday situations, description of reasonableness 29
67; features 65–7; negative politeness recreationists 134
66, 69; off-record indirectness 66, ref lexivity 94, 96
69; positive politeness 65–6, 69; relationality 76
predict behaviour 67; strengths/ relativism 28, 36, 150
limits of 67–8; uses 67; withhold religion 4, 22–3, 29–31
comment 66; see also interpersonal Ren 27
communication repression 51
politics 30 reputation 77, 84, 132, 146
populism 5 retirement 38, 134
Porter, E. 3 Reysen, S. 143–4, 146
positive social action 49; see also altruism Riar, M. 49
positivity 100–1, 108–9, 127, 143–5, 151, Richards, D. 142
154 Riebe, L. 85, 88
Poston, Jr., D. L. 2, 17 Rios, J. A.119
post-surveys 164–6 Rivera, G. 142
Potthast, A. 34 Rizvi, I. A. 98
pregnancy 23 Robertson, I. 129, 141
prison work 7 Robichaud, M. 116
privacy 68 robots 99, 119, 146–7, 154; human-robot
problem-solving orientation 115–27; interface 154, 156
behaviors 124–7; case study 120–4; Rocca, K. A. 59
confidence 118; definition 115–20, Rogers, C. R. 87
127; effective strategies 118; Rojewski, J. 129
importance 115–20, 127; language Rosenthal, R. 88
124–7; negative 120–3; practical Rousseau, J.-J. 25
gestures 127; rational steps 118; Rubin, R. B. 58
thoughtful process 118, 125; verbalise Rundstrom, B. 67
positive outcomes 117, 125; verbalise Runion, M. 95
problems as challenges/opportunities Russ-Eft, D. F. 160
117, 125; verbalise success 117, 125; Russo, A. M. 88
vocabulary for demonstrating 124–6;
willingness 118 Saenz, R. 2
problematic behaviors 51–2; behavior safety, worker 36, 131, 135, 137
therapies 52, 53; cognitive therapies Sanders, T. 143, 147
52, 53; group therapies 52; insight sarcasm 61, 88, 115, 145, 150, 156
therapies 52, 53; see also psychology; Schmeidler, M. A. 59
stress Schulze, J. 89
procrastination 116 Searle, J. 7
productivity see work ethic secularism 30–1
Proctor, K. 56–9 self-analysis 10
professionalism 4, 58 self-disclosure 57
psychiatrists 47, 50 self-esteem 59, 160
psychoanalysis 52 self-help 2, 8, 13, 118, 147
psychodynamic theories 41–3 self-image 62, 65
psychologists 38–43, 45–6, 52 self-management 129, 132
psychotherapy 50–2 self-monitoring 44, 59, 69, 88
Pulko, S. H. 161 self-motivation 129
Index 177
self-promotion 86 researcher perspectives 10–11; self-

self-regulation 115 help view 2; teaching strategies 10–11;
self-talk 117–8 technological disruption 2–3; training
self lessness 28, 152, 154 11; under-developed nature of 13, 40,
service-orientation strategies 98, 110 164–5; workplace norms 4
sex 67; sexism 40; sexual assault 27–8; software 5, 8, 80, 87, 89, 92, 105, 123,
sexual orientation 4, 29, 41, 153; see also 130, 136, 139, 150
feminism; gender; rape; women Soucy 99
Shellenbarger, S. 142 speech acts 142
shutdowns, retail 121; see also Covid-19 sports 43, 51, 153
pandemic spreadsheet use 3, 152
Simpson, W. 131 Stanton, W. W. 120, 128
Skinner, B. F. 38 stress 13, 50–3, 56, 124; adaptation
Slabbert, A. 131 and 50; adjustment and 50;
Slack 3, 48 everyday hassles 50; inoculation 52;
slang 130 management 51; self-imposed stress
smiling 7, 62, 64, 84, 96, 110, 127, 145, 50; sources of 50; change and 50;
154 see also coping strategies; problematic
Smrt, D. L. 129 behaviors
snowball effect 48 Sumi, K. 117
social cognition 39 Sundaram, D. 76
social learning theory 38–9, 53 Sutherland, K. 102
social media 44, 48. 56, 68, 74, 76–7,
84, 94, 102, 105, 131, 140, 142, 156; talent 4, 101, 115
see also Facebook; trolling; Twitter/ Taylor, P. J. 52
tweeting; Whatsapp teachability 157
social networks 49, 57; see also teaching soft skills 156–68; see also
networking George Brown College’s Soft Skills
social psychology 43–50, 53; APA Course
Dictionary of Psychology 49; attitudes teamwork 6, 13–14, 48, 50, 73, 84–97,
44–5; compliance 45–6; conformity 103, 107, 118–9, 124, 127, 130, 146,
45, 53; deindividuation 48–9, 53; 151, 158–60, 162–3, 166–7; academic
group dynamics 49–50; obedience settings 89–93; active listening 86–7,
46–8, 53; social actions 48–9; social 94, 96; behaviors and 93–6; case study
inf luences 45–8; see also psychology 89–93; compromise 94–6; conf lict
soft skills communication skills 3; resolution 88, 95–6; cooperation/
competency view 2; complaint collaboration 87, 94; definition of
view 2, 9; conduct and 13; courses, skills 86–9, 95–6; dominance and
mandatory 14–15; cultural analysis 4; deference 86; effective strategies 87;
definitions 1–10, 13, 15; demographic followership 94; importance of skills
change 2–3; digital workplaces 11; 86–9, 96; inf luencing/persuading
diversity-based requests 3–4; employer 87; language and 93–6; leadership
perspectives 9; gap/deficit view 2, 4, 9, 94; ref lexivity 86, 94; vocabulary for
11, 15; habits and 7; hard skills/ binary demonstrating 93–5
view 4–5; industry 11; mastered technology 3, 31, 33, 57, 86, 110, 131,
performance, as 6, 15; moral reform 139
movement view 11–13, 15; necessity Tekin, T. 119
2, 10; peer-reviewed sources 1 n.1; television 44, 61
performativity and 7–8, 10; personal/ temperaments 42
interpersonal effectiveness 8–9, 14–15; temperance 12
personality and 6–7, 15; press articles text-only communication 57
9; problem/solution-based approach 2; texts 57, 74, 136, 145
psychology and 13–14; reports 9 n.8; theatre 153, 157
178 Index
theft 32 voicemail 60, 74, 135–6, 145, 152

therapy 43, 51–3, 128 volunteering 30, 46, 130, 132–3, 138
think-tank report 2 voting rights 28
Thompson, S. 11
Torpie, K. 99, 101 Wadsworth, M. B. 87
Toulomakos, A.K. 10 Walters, R. H. 39
tourism 144 Warburton, N. 23–6, 28
toys 39 washroom breaks 135
traffic 50, 79, 119 Watanabe, K. 119, 128
trait theory 42–3, 53 websites 94, 103, 117, 125, 134
transcultural norms 28–9 Webster, C. 76
transferable skills 103, 120 Weir, L. 12
travel industry see tourism welfare 21; animal 31
trolling 57 well-being 25, 28, 129; wellness,
trustworthiness 93 employee 129
truth 23–4, 29, 61, 101–2 Whatsapp 57, 90; see also social media
Tsaur, S.-H. 144 Widmer, P. S. 86
Tucker, J. S. 58 Wilcox, B. 4
Tucker, M. L. 161 Williams, K. D. 48
Twitter/tweeting 56–7; see also social media Wills, M. 11
Wilson, J. P. 159
Ukpere, W. I. 131 Womble, M. N. 133
undergraduate learners 11, 14, 97, 157–8, women 3, 13, 26, 30, 90, 145; see also
164 feminism; gender; pregnancy; rape; sex
unethical practices 28–9, 32–3, 150–1; work ethic 129–40; achievement striving
see also ethics 132, 138; behaviors 137–40; case
union representation 126 study 134–7; definition 130–4, 140;
United Kingdom (UK) 9 dutifulness 131, 138; importance
universalism 25, 28 130–4, 138; internal motivation
unreasonableness 29, 46, 101, 109 132, 138; language 137–40; practical
urban community colleges 2, 157, 167 gestures 140; prioritization of tasks
utilitarianism 24 133; productivity and 133, 134–7;
vocabulary for demonstrating 137–8
vaccinations: Covid-19 126 Workopolis 9
Valverde, M. 12 workplace communication see
Van der Groot, M. J. 99 communication skills
Van der Linden, S. 49 workshops 10
Velasquez, M. 35 Work Term Employer Evaluation
verbalization 117–9, 125, 127 (WTEE) 161–2
vicious communication 57 World War II 46
Vidovic, M. 89
violence 11, 38–9, 48 Yee, Y. 76
viral/online altruism 49 Yeginsu, C. 131
virtual reality 120
virtual teamwork 88, 91, 95, 99 Zabel, K. L. 129, 131
virtues 26, 35, 40, 93; virtue-based ethics Zelenyuk, V. 129
26, 27, 150; see also ethics Zimbardo, P. 48
vocational courses 159 Zoom 3, 48

A Practical Guide To Soft Skills - Communication, Psychology, and Ethics For Your Professional Life

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

A Practical Guide To Soft Skills - Communication, Psychology, and Ethics For Your Professional Life

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

A PRACTICAL GUIDE

Richard Almonte teaches Communication in the Centre for Business at

First published 2022

ISBN: 978-1-032-08101-4 (hbk)

1 Soft Skills in a Digital Age 1

7 Customer Service Orientation 98

8 Problem-Solving Orientation 115

9 Productivity and Work Ethic 129

11 Can Soft Skills Be Taught? 156

I would like to thank my colleagues in George Brown College’s Centre for

WHAT’S COVERED IN THIS CHAPTER?

• A multifaceted definition of soft skills

cultural reasons) with necessary workplace norms (i.e., speaking in front of

What Are Soft Skills?

What this means in practice is that in any given sub-discipline of business,

What Do Employers Say About Soft Skills?

What Do Researchers Say About Soft Skills?

acquisition, particularly among . . . undergraduate learners”. The Conclusion to

Is Soft Skills a Moral Reform Movement?

What This Book Does

Together, ethics, psychology, and interpersonal communication offer

Wilcox, B. (2015) Deconstructive Literary Criticism. Medium. https://medium.com/@

The Background to Soft Skills

WHAT’S COVERED IN THIS CHAPTER?

• A definition of ethics and how to explain the main normative theories of

the sum total of those things that an individual imposes on himself or

You may already be forming a counterargument to this more lively defini-

Normative Theories of Ethics

consequences, it’s sometimes difficult if not impossible to predict the precise

they need, thus leaving others without. In addition, contractarianism argues

Obstacles to Acting Ethically

REAL WORLD EXAMPLE

Secularism : A final obstacle to challenge us when we’re deciding whether or

ethics, and environmental/animal ethics. It will also offer a practical five-step

A Practical Guide to Making Applied Ethical Decisions

• In its normative (or theoretical) state, ethics is defined as the study of

WHAT’S COVERED IN THIS CHAPTER?

• A definition of psychology and how it explains our learning of behaviors

Defining Psychology and Learning

apa.org/about/division) or the Canadian Psychology Association (https://cpa.

Learning and Development Theories

children interpret behavior in terms of its concrete consequences, in

In the conventional stage of moral reasoning, adolescents define “right behavior

In other words, they move beyond “morality as consequences” to “morality as

Attitudes are defined as your organization of beliefs, feelings, and tenden-

effective, studies have found the most effective persuasion is self-persuasion,

REAL WORLD EXAMPLE

Obedience takes place when you change your behavior in response to a

Stress and Coping and Changing Problematic Behaviors

compromise, or withdrawal. Confrontation means attacking the situation

Insight therapies such as psychoanalysis, client-centered therapy, and Gestalt

• Psychology is the study of behavior and mental processes. As a scien-

Kohlberg, L. (1976) Moral Stages and Moralization: The Cognitive-Developmental

WHAT’S COVERED IN THIS CHAPTER?

• A definition of interpersonal communication and why it’s important

Why Communicate With Others?

whatsapping, face timing, or any of the other technology-driven communica-

A final issue with mediated communication is its relative permanence –

Being a Competent Interpersonal Communicator

REAL WORLD EXAMPLE

Exploring Communication Climates

disconfirming messages. As I go through them, see if you can recall a time