When HR departments look for training and development programs for their organizations’ leaders and high potentials, they often focus on industry-specific and job-related tasks. This is because—much more than “soft skills” like communication, teamwork, or critical analysis—these more concrete skills are easier to standardize across departments and titles and simpler to evaluate and teach.
However, the truly important skills, especially for employees who lead teams (or would like to lead teams someday), are those more elusive soft skills, which include the ability to communicate, think critically, and make decisions, among other things. And HR leaders know this—in fact, the vast majority of recruiters rate communication as the most important skill they’re looking for in a new hire.
So why is it that so few organizations have managed to make soft skills training a priority?
The unfortunate truth is that there are very few resources available to help companies give employees the skills they need. Let’s take communication, for example. It’s the activity that drives 80% of our work on any given day, but because it’s always been subjective—an art, even—it’s also one of the hardest to evaluate in any sort of objective, efficient, or scalable way.
Part of the problem is that, while necessary soft skills may be similar from employee to employee, the specific requirements vary from role to role. We can agree that every leader—and every employee—will be more effective if he or she is a strong communicator. But when we start to look at what that means for each individual, it starts to get more complicated:
- Salespeople need to be charismatic, persuasive, and personable in order to earn trust from potential buyers.
- Managers need to be clear and thorough, diving into the “hows” and “whys” that will inspire their teams to get behind each new project.
- CMOs need to be master storytellers in order to amass a loyal following for a brand.
- CFOs need to be candid, confident, and future oriented when they’re talking to investors about the company’s earnings.
- CEOs need to be the visionaries that can keep every internal and external stakeholder engaged, motivated, and inspired.
You can see how, with communication needs varying from leader to leader—and even more from audience to audience—it’s been nearly impossible for HR and talent development leaders to identify affordable training programs.
With the prohibitive cost of personal executive coaching and the fleeting results of formulaic workshops or seminars, organizations across the globe are searching for effective, scalable, and customizable learning strategies that can give each individual the skills he or she needs to succeed.
At Quantified Communications, we’re leveraging the latest in machine learning technology and communication science to offer organizations exactly that. Our data-driven communication evaluations offer leaders and potential leaders the same quality training they’d get from individual executive coaches—with the added benefit of tracking capabilities that enable learners to measure progress and update action plans for maximum impact. And all without busting the L&D budget.
Limited resources have long made it difficult for organizations to build communication training into their learning and development strategies. But if leadership’s so-called “soft skills” are the key to success, shouldn’t they be a number-one training priority?
For the first time, they can.
 Are you prepared to take on the top training and development challenges? The Training & Development Summit, taking place November 12-13 in Austin, is here to help. And, great news—your registration is complimentary!Don’t miss your opportunity to join the nation’s top professionals for 2 days of networking, learning, and sourcing solutions for your company. Your VIP invite includes executive hotel accommodations, meals and refreshments, and event workshops. Save your seat! |
Rico Fantozzi leads the business development efforts at Quantified Communications. Rico is an innovative thinker and accomplished senior executive leader who believes communication is the key to better performance, connection, and success. Rico previously held sales leadership roles at Status Labs, Workplace Answers (acquired by EVERFI), and Constant Contact.
Quantified Communications is a virtual talent development lab for tomorrow’s workforce. We help leading organizations cultivate great communicators at every level.
Our human-trained AI technology uses sight, sound, and language understanding to hone your employees’ skills, indexing strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement. Based on each person’s unique CQ™, we provide individualized training plans alongside real-world examples of great communication in action.
Quantified’s baseline models and methodology were built by our initial team of ten PhDs working with more than a dozen Fortune 50 leaders. Since then, we’ve helped hundreds of thousands of communicators, averaging a 17.4% lift in the quality and clarity of their communication. Our clients include TED, Spotify, Facebook, Target, Harvard, Wharton, Dell, the Cleveland Indians, Southwest Airlines, and many others.
Quantified. The science of great communications.
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