Developing personal skills: An introduction

This is a five part series on developing a range of personal skills aspects. This can be especially useful to Sydneysiders and new migrants. Have fun and let me know your feedback.

It is widely believed today that personal skills and development are more important than academic and technical skills. For success in business, career and even in studies, these skills or attributes, often called soft skills, are often vital.

In this article, we would examine what these soft skills are. More importantly, we will explore resources available locally in Australia and on the Web, to develop these skills. As these skills are often best taught face-to-face, we will focus on exploring teaching classes and institutions in Sydney that provide soft skills development. We would also check out and clubs and associations that can help you practice and maintain these skills. As this column cannot be complete without Internet related resources, we would finally check out Web sites and free resources on the Internet.

A study undertaken for Business Council of Australia (Field, 2002) list eight types of soft skills

1. Communication skills
2. Thinking skills
3. Learning skills
4. Skills in managing projects and priorities
5. Skills in working with and understanding systems
6. Skills in applying and using information technology
7. Leadership skills
8. Personal and interpersonal skills

While most skills are equally valuable everywhere, new migrants often need to update or at least re-orient their hard skills (technical, profession related skills) as well as soft skills to adjust in the new work environment. This is also required because of the different levels of emphasis that are placed on different skills by different cultures. For example, Australian employers in general place much more importance on verbal communication skills, as compared to Indian employers.

In this series of articles on personal development, we would include guides to developing a range of skills - Communication, leadership, management, time management, office productivity and more. Stay tuned.