Many businesspeople don't like the term "soft skills." It seems too touchy-feely and fuzzy to have a hard and measurable business impact, and they worry that this phrase diminishes a critical set of business skills.
But they needn't be so concerned. By any other name, soft skills are just as crucial to organizational performance as any other skills brought to the table, according to new research by i4cp.
In our Identifying and Developing Soft Skills Survey, we found that three-quarters of participants in this study have identified a set of such skills - such as listening skills, persuasion, teamwork - that lead to successful performance, and the proportion climbs to 85% among high-performing companies.