This is only a small selection of our titles on this subject. Check Catalyst for more, or come in and ask our staff for help!
What are "soft skills"?
The Balance defines "soft skills" as "non-technical skills that relate to how you work". Some examples of soft skills are:
Why do I need soft skills?
Soft skills can be just as important as "hard skills" - skills that are very technical or job-specific - because they can help you to be more successful in the workplace. For example, someone might be a very skilled architectural technician, but if they cannot manage their time well or get along with co-workers or clients, they might not be very successful in the workplace. Soft skills are also transferable; they are useful and important regardless of the type of job, and can be learned on the job in many situations.
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Ling, Melissa. (2018). Hard skills vs. soft skills. [Illustration]. The Balance Careers. https://www.thebalancecareers.com/hard-skills-vs-soft-skills-2063780
Communication Skills for the Health Care Professional by
Communication Skills for the Health Care Professional, Third Edition is a comprehensive guide to improving patient outcomes through relationship building and the use of information technology to foster communication between patients, families, and health providers.The author examines the context for communication in an evolving health care system and provides the foundations for understanding human and therapeutic communication. Readers will learn critical competencies to ensure quality, patient-centered care as well as skills to manage communication across relevant constituencies. The book also touches on solutions for transforming health care by changing patient behavior and systems of care.Designed for undergraduate students across the health professions, this text provides caregivers with basic communication knowledge and skills and is an invaluable resource for those in administrative functions as well.New & Key Features of the 3rd Edition:Covers principles, concepts, skills, and evidence critical to a broad-base, health professional curriculaTeaches communication skills one at a time allowing for contiguous mastery across a set of therapeutic interventionsOffers two new chapters that explore advances in health information technology and provide problems on access to and availability of healthcareIncludes an extensive glossary of terms and list of references including websites and resources available to enhance student learning
Everyday encounters : an introduction to interpersonal communication by
The Fifth Canadian edition of Everyday Encounters by Wood/Schweitzer is a theory-based interpersonal communication textbook, unique in its emphasis on theories, research, and skills with attention paid to trends in Canadian social life. The conversational writing style engages students, helping them to connect what they are learning to their personal experience. Social diversity including awareness of race, economic class, gender, age, and sexual orientation is woven into discussions of communication theory and skills. This resource also addresses communication challenges, confusions, and issues within friendships, romantic relationships (including abuse and violence between intimates); long-distance relationships, and the use of communication to negotiate safer sex in an era shadowed by HIV and AIDS. MindTap is now available for Everyday Encounters. A fully online learning solution, MindTap combines all student learning tools, readings, multimedia, activities, and assessments into a single Learning Path that guides the student through the curriculum. Instructors can personalize the experience by customizing the presentation of these learning tools to their students, even seamlessly introducing their own content into the Learning Path. --Publisher's website.
Interpersonal communication : relating to others by 
Messages : building interpersonal communication skills by 
A practical guide to soft skills : communication, psychology, and ethics for your professional life by
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.
Smart Skills: Communications by
Communication is one of the most basic functions in any organization. It transmits ideas, thoughts, information, opinions, and plans between various parts of an organization as well as to external customers or businesses - Its vital importance can never be over emphasized. Yet it can be difficult and communication breakdown is not uncommon. There are several essential elements to making business communications work; these include structure, clarity, consistency, medium, and relevancy and our guide covers those areas within the below chapters: Essential foundations of success Preparation Face-to-face communication Putting it in writing Electronic Communication On your feet Being persuasive Negotiating Our Smart Skill guide will enable you to target and convey your information through software, telephone or in-person methods. Regardless of what medium you use, effective communication means your message is received clearly and is understood entirely.
The Art of Ideas : Creative Thinking for Work and Life by
"
Great ideas don't just happen. Innovation springs from creative thinking-a method of the human mind that we can study and learn. InThe Art of Ideas, William Duggan and Amy Murphy bring together business concepts with stories of creativity in art, politics, and history to provide a visual and accessible guide to the art and science of new and useful ideas. In chapters accompanied by charming and inviting illustrations, Duggan and Murphy detail how to spark your own ideas and what to do while waiting for inspiration to strike. They show that regardless of the field, innovations happen in the same way: examples from history, presence of mind, creative combination, and resolution to action.The Art of Ideas features case studies and exercises that explain how to break down problems, search for precedents, and creatively combine past models to form new ideas. It showcases how Picasso developed his painting style, how Gandhi became the man we know today, and how Netflix came to disrupt the movie-rental business. Lavishly illustrated in an appealing artistic style, The Art of Ideas helps readers unlock the secret to creativity in business and in life."
The Craft of Creativity by
Creativity has long been thought of as a personal trait, a gift bestowed on some and unachievable by others. While we laud the products of creativity, the stories behind them are often abridged to the elusive "aha!" moment, the result of a momentary stroke of genius. In The Craft of Creativity Matthew A. Cronin and Jeffrey Loewenstein present a new way to understand how we innovate. They emphasize the importance of the journey and reveal the limitations of focusing on outcomes. Drawing on a wide range of scholarship, their own research, and interviews with professionals and learners who employ creativity in the arts, engineering, business, and more, Cronin and Loewenstein argue that creativity is a cognitive process that hinges on changing one's perspective. It's a skill that anyone can hone, and one that benefits from thinking with others and over time. Breaking new ground in the discussion about how we innovate, this book provides strategies that everyone can use to be more creative.
The Creativity Crisis by
Every day we hear about some fascinating new discovery. Yet anemic progress toward addressing the greatest risks to humankind - clean energy, emerging infections, and cancer - warns us that science may not be meeting its potential. Indeed, there is evidence that advances are slowing. Scienceis costly and can hurt people; thus it must be pursued with caution. Yet, excessive caution stifles the very thing that powers inventiveness: creation. In her boldest book yet, Roberta Ness argues that the system of funding agencies, universities, and industries designed to promote innovation hascome to impede it.The Creativity Crisis strips away the scientific enterprise's veil of mystique to reveal the gritty underbelly of university research. America's economic belt-tightening discourages long-term, risky investments in revolutionary advances and elevates short-term projects with assured outcomes. Thepursuit of basic research insights, with the greatest power to transform but little ability to enrich, is being abandoned. The social nature of academia today also contributes to the descent of revolutionary discovery. In academia, which tends to be insular, hierarchical, and tradition-bound,research ideas are "owned" and the owners gain enormous clout to decide what is accepted. Communalism is antithetical to idea ownership. Thus science has not embraced the Web-based democratic sharing of ideas called crowdsourcing, one of the greatest tools for creativity and social change in ourage. A final battleground between creation and caution is within the sphere of ethics. Scientists are typically altruistic but sometimes have all-too-human inclinations toward avarice and conceit. The most original thinkers are most likely to flout convention. This tendency can pull them across thelines of acceptable behavior. Caution is a necessary check on the destructive potential of amoral creation. Yet, when every individual and institution is considered a priori to be a threat, adventuresome invention is squelched.Creation and caution in science should be in balance, but they are not. For possibilities to unlock, the ecosystem in which science is done must be fundamentally rebalanced.
Originals by
The #1 New York Times bestseller that examines how people can champion new ideas in their careers and everyday life--and how leaders can fight groupthink, from the author of Think Again and co-author of Option B "Filled with fresh insights on a broad array of topics that are important to our personal and professional lives."--The New York Times DealBook "Originals is one of the most important and captivating books I have ever read, full of surprising and powerful ideas. It will not only change the way you see the world; it might just change the way you live your life. And it could very well inspire you to change your world." --Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and author of Lean In With Give and Take, Adam Grant not only introduced a landmark new paradigm for success but also established himself as one of his generation's most compelling and provocative thought leaders. In Originals he again addresses the challenge of improving the world, but now from the perspective of becoming original: choosing to champion novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battle conformity, and buck outdated traditions. How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all? Using surprising studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, Grant explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt; how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children; and how leaders can build cultures that welcome dissent. Learn from an entrepreneur who pitches his start-ups by highlighting the reasons not to invest, a woman at Apple who challenged Steve Jobs from three levels below, an analyst who overturned the rule of secrecy at the CIA, a billionaire financial wizard who fires employees for failing to criticize him, and a TV executive who didn't even work in comedy but saved Seinfeld from the cutting-room floor. The payoff is a set of groundbreaking insights about rejecting conformity and improving the status quo.
3-D Team Leadership by
Many organizations believe that high-functioning teams hold the key to breakthrough thinking, superior customer service, and high-quality products. But, all too often, leaders and managers fail to support teams so that they can deliver on their promises. For instance, many leaders ask for teamwork, but only reward and evaluate individual performance; focus on the group at the expense of individual members; or leave team members to sort out their differences, leading to the formation of unhealthy cliques. In 3D Team Leadership, Bradley L. Kirkman and T. Brad Harris present a dynamic new model for maximizing team performance. Previous books have treated teams as groups of people working interdependently, an approach that overlooks two crucial components: the individuals who make up the team and the subgroups that form within and between teams. To create a fuller portrait of team behavior, Kirkman and Harris propose an innovative "3D" framework that takes into account all three factors. Drawing on their own research, best-in-class studies, and extensive consulting, they show leaders how to properly diagnose the state of their teams, hone in on the element that needs attention, and seamlessly shift focus among the three components of teamwork as time goes on. Delivering practical guidance rooted in scholarship, 3D Team Leadership is a thoughtful and straightforward guide for the complex challenge of teaming today.
Building Better Ideas by
Why do teams settle for bad ideas or kill good ones? Popular consultant, Kim Barnes' unique process of Constructive Debate shows how teams can create better ideas and outcomes by eliminating obstacles to honest discussion, creativity, and collaboration. In too many organizations, great ideas and unusual solutions can be suppressed, ignored, or attacked. Departments defend their turf, and people choose what is safe over what is better. Honest opinions often show up in the "meeting after the meeting" because people fear conflict or repercussions. Bad ideas move forward, and good ideas die, which can lead to disastrous results--financial or otherwise. Luckily, there is a workable path out of this dysfunction. Kim Barnes's process of "Constructive Debate" shows how to establish conditions that encourage the free exchange, discussion, and development of ideas and eliminate conditions that prevent potentially useful ideas from getting a hearing. By using this tested model, any company or team can improve outcomes and bring out everyone's best ideas.
The No-Nonsense Guide to Leadership, Management and Teamwork by 
Opening Doors to Teamwork and Collaboration by
Your people might be your organization's greatest assets, but their interactions with one another are what determine the quality and the quantity of their contributions. Few organizations know how to generate the sense of excitement, energy, and shared mission that occurs when people truly join together. This book shows how, describing four simple behavioral keys that fundamentally change how people work together - building greater trust, understanding and collaboration.
Don't Count the Yes's, Count the No's and Time Management Skills That Work by
Selling is rejection, plain and simple. The top salespeople can deal with it, the rest can't. Ask any sales VP or sales manager, and they'll all tell you the same thing. The biggest reason their salespeople do not bring in enough business is that they don't see enough people.They don't see enough people because they fear rejection.They fear rejection because they don't know how much rejection they need. In this book, you will learn the five important areas of prospecting and learn how to control the conversation while anticipating and turning around objections better than ever. Time management is the single most important skill you can master when it comes to your life, career or business! Now, Warren Greshes teaches you how to effectively manage your time, while taking you through a time test to determine what progress you have made so far.Learn how to prepare for and plan tasks according to priority and save extra time each day. Whether you're a salesperson with a large territory or you simply want to do things more efficiently, Time Management Skills That Work will show you how.
Manage Your Time or Time Will Manage You by 
Quality Time by
"Managers who focus on time usually concentrate on the wrong things. Quality Time presents a new approach to achieving productivity through time management. Time itself is not what matters but rather how that time is used to achieve individual and organizational goals. Managers who get upset over employees coming to work late or socializing on the job often care more about them "putting in time" than putting their time to good use. Quality Time is for managers and others who care about everyone putting their time to good use to contribute to the value of the organization. Based on unique concepts, Quality Time offers both general and specific information and advice from an individual and a team or group point of view. It is designed so that the manager is involved first and then group or team members are engaged. Through reciprocal communication, all parties can arrive at better uses of time. While focused on managers, anyone can achieve productivity from the use of the unique framework and assessments. Quality Time is readable. It uses straightforward language to involve the reader. It makes learning easier and enjoyable by making the material realistic and interesting. The material is up to date and accurate. But most importantly, Quality Time is different from other time-management books. Most are focused solely on the individual. Quality Time is intended to serve individuals but also the workgroups or teams"--
Group Problem Solving by
Experimental research by social and cognitive psychologists has established that cooperative groups solve a wide range of problems better than individuals. Cooperative problem solving groups of scientific researchers, auditors, financial analysts, air crash investigators, and forensic art experts are increasingly important in our complex and interdependent society. This comprehensive textbook--the first of its kind in decades--presents important theories and experimental research about group problem solving. The book focuses on tasks that have demonstrably correct solutions within mathematical, logical, scientific, or verbal systems, including algebra problems, analogies, vocabulary, and logical reasoning problems. The book explores basic concepts in group problem solving, social combination models, group memory, group ability and world knowledge tasks, rule induction problems, letters-to-numbers problems, evidence for positive group-to-individual transfer, and social choice theory. The conclusion proposes ten generalizations that are supported by the theory and research on group problem solving. Group Problem Solving is an essential resource for decision-making research in social and cognitive psychology, but also extremely relevant to multidisciplinary and multicultural problem-solving teams in organizational behavior, business administration, management, and behavioral economics.
Problem-Solving: Insights, Challenges, and Approaches by
The authors of Problem-Solving: Insights, Challenges, and Approaches have done a brilliant job of highlighting how the definition and theorizing of problem-solving is changing and how this seems to inspire the development of research in resolving problems in current and upcoming years. By balancing our theoretical and research assumptions about problem-solving with a better awareness of the significance of plenty of other factors contributing to successfully resolving problems, individuals, teams, and communities of practice might possibly use more refined ways through which they can endorse influential transformations during problem-solving conditions and eventually generate greater shared value. In this excellent new cross-cultural Nova edition that grapples with the challenge of writing about the problem-solving paradigm, the authors have worked hard to blend diverse theoretical and research advances of problem-solving approaches in a balanced and visible way. It does not only integrate inspiring theory and research, but also develops avenues for the future of problem-solving as open science and an open innovation field. It gives insightful and practical associations addressing many of the most challenging topics that our agency and capacity as problem-solvers might entail, now and in the time ahead.
Simple Rules by
HOW SIMPLICITY TRUMPS COMPLEXITY IN NATURE, BUSINESS, AND LIFE Complexity surrounds us. We have too much email, juggle multiple remotes, and hack through thickets of regulations from phone contracts to health plans. But complexity isn't destiny. Sull and Eisenhardt argue there's a better way. By developing a few simple yet effective rules, people can best even the most complex problems. In Simple Rules, Sull and Eisenhardt masterfully challenge how we think about complexity and offer a new lens on how to cope. They take us on a surprising tour of what simple rules are, where they come from, and why they work. The authors illustrate the six kinds o f rules that really matter - for helping artists find creativity and the Federal Reserve set interest rates, for keeping birds on track and Zipcar members organized, and for how insomniacs can sleep and mountain climbers stay safe. Drawing on rigorous research and riveting stories, the authors ingeniously find insights in unexpected places, from the way Tina Fey codified her experience at Saturday Night Live into rules for producing 30 Rock (rule five: never tell a crazy person he's crazy) to burglars' rules for robbery ("avoid houses with a car parked outside") to Japanese engineers mimicking the rules of slime molds to optimize Tokyo's rail system. The authors offer fresh information and practical tips on fixing old rules and learning new ones. Whether you're struggling with information overload, pursuing opportunities with limited resources, or just trying to change your bad habits, Simple Rules provides powerful insight into how and why simplicity tames complexity.
Work the Problem by
Cultivate the Mindset to Overcome Anything A software engineer sees her tech skills slipping even as she rises to manage her own team. A marketing director is squeezed between a demanding, artistic boss and her staff. A tech-savvy manager of operations wants to modernize his warehouse but is surprised when he is stymied. Everyone has experienced a situation at work where challenges pile so high that the only solution seems to be to cut and run. But what if we faced our problems head on instead of quitting? Each fictionalized case study in Work the Problem is coupled with in-depth analysis and commentary by two learning and development experts who offer fresh ways of looking at seemingly insurmountable difficulties. The result is an engrossing collection of unique yet familiar stories that build on one another, creating a conversation about universal workplace problems and how we can think about solving them for ourselves. Work the Problem is about more than the specific demands of any one workplace--it's about cultivating the mindset and skills to take on the inevitable challenges that will arise in any career. Whether you're thinking of quitting your job, you feel stalled out at your workplace, or you're advising someone who has hit a wall, Work the Problem is the book to reach for.
An A to Z of Critical Thinking by
Critical thinking is becoming increasingly prominent as an academic discipline taught and examined in schools and universities, as well as a crucial skill for everyday life. To be a successful critical thinker it is vital to understand how the different concepts and terms are defined and used. The terminology often presents a stumbling block for the beginner, since much of it is used imprecisely in everyday language. This definitive A to Z guide provides precise definitions for over 130 terms and concepts used in critical thinking. Each entry presents a short definition followed by a more detailed explanation and authoritative clarification. Armed with the tools and knowledge provided in these pages, the reader will be able to distinguish an assertion from an argument, a flaw from a fallacy, a correlation from a cause and a fact from an opinion. The book is an invaluable resource for teachers and students of critical thinking, providing all the tools necessary to effectively analyse, evaluate, question and reason for yourself.
Critical Condition by
Should we stop teaching critical thinking? Meant as a prompt to further discussion, Critical Condition questions the assumption that every student should be turned into a "critical thinker." The book starts with the pre-Socratics and the impact that Socrates' death had on his student Plato and traces the increasingly violent use of critical "attack" on a perceived opponent. From the Roman militarization of debate to the medieval Church's use of defence as a means of forcing confession and submission, the early phases of critical thinking were bound up in a type of attack that Finn suggests does not best serve intellectual inquiry. Recent developments have seen critical thinking become an ideology rather than a critical practice, with levels of debate devolving to the point where most debate becomes ad hominem. Far from arguing that we abandon critical inquiry, the author suggests that we emphasize a more open, loving system of engagement that is not only less inherently violent but also more robust when dealing with vastly more complex networks of information. This book challenges long-held beliefs about the benefits of critical thinking, which is shown to be far too linear to deal with the twenty-first century world. Critical Condition is a call to action unlike any other.
A field guide to lies : critical thinking in the information age by
"From the bestselling author of The Organized Mind, the must-have book about how to analyze who and what to trust in the age of information overload. It's becoming harder to separate the wheat from the digital chaff. How do we distinguish misinformation, pseudo-facts, distortions and outright lies from reliable information? In A Field Guide to Lies, Daniel J. Levitin outlines the many pitfalls of the information age and provides the means to spot and avoid them. There are many ways we can be led astray by fast-talking, loose-writing purveyors of information. Levitin groups his field guide into two categories--statistical information and faulty arguments--ultimately showing how science is the bedrock of critical thinking. It is easy to lie with stats and graphs as few people "take the time to look under the hood and see how they work". And, just because there's a number on something, doesn't mean that the number was arrived at properly. But, we can learn how to better read these numbers. Logic can help to evaluate whether or not a chain of reasoning is valid, and there are tricks to practising this, too. And "infoliteracy" teaches us that not all sources of information are equal, and that biases can distort what it is we are being asked to consider. Perhaps it is unfair that we have to evaluate everything ourselves--surely information sources should be fact-checking everything for us? Yes, they should, but they don't always. Faced with a world too eager to flood us with information, the best response is to be prepared. The goal of A Field Guide to Lies is to help us avoid learning a lot of things that aren't true."-- Provided by publisher.
The power of critical thinking by 
Thinking Critically: What Does It Mean? by
Analyses of the dynamics of change present in Europe are not complete without taking into account the role and function of the critical approach as a founding element of European culture. An appreciation of critical thinking must go hand-in-hand with reflection on its essence, forms, and centuries-long tradition. The European philosophical tradition has thematized the problem of criticism since its appearance. This book contains articles on the history of philosophical criticism and ways that it has been understood in European thought. Individual chapters contain both historical-philosophical and problem-oriented analyses, indicating the relationships between philosophical criticism and rationalism, logic, scepticism, atheism, dialectic procedure, and philosophical counseling, among others. Philosophical reflection on critical thinking allows for an acknowledgment of its significance in the fields of epistemology, philosophy of politics, aesthetics, methodology, philosophy of language, and cultural theory. The book should interest not only humanities scholars, but also scholars in other fields, as the development of an anti-dogmatic critical approach is a lasting and indispensible challenge for all disciplines.
Conflict Resolution for the Helping Professions by
Conflict Resolution for the Helping Professions covers the theory, strategies, and skills needed to respond effectively to conflict with clients, coworkers, supervisors, or others. This hands-on text provides practical information, case illustrations, and experiential exercises to demonstratehow conflict resolution may be applied in a variety of settings, and illustrates how helping professionals can incorporate evidence-based models of conflict resolution to work more effectively and enjoyably with others.
The Mindful Guide to Conflict Resolution by
Successfully handle difficult conversations, remain civil, and end an argument peacefully with this straightforward and mindful guide to conflict resolution. It's important to share your thoughts and opinions with others--and even more important to be able to do so without starting an argument or offending someone. Now you can prevent and resolve conflicts with help from this guide covering everything from understanding your own emotions better and learning how to address people in different situations, to getting through a difficult conversation, coming to a positive conclusion, and disengaging yourself when necessary. The Mindful Guide to Conflict Resolution provides the essential tools to mindfully communicate during any challenging situation. With this practical and informative guide in hand, you have the power to transform any difficult exchange or disagreement into a positive, constructive conversation.
What's Stopping You? - Being More Confident by
A prescriptive, commonsense approach to self-confidence andsuccess With his bestselling book, What's Stopping You, RobertKelsey helped thousands of people conquer their fear of failure andunlock their full potential in life. Now Robert is applyinghis unique approach to the subject of confidence. According toRobert, it?s not something that can simply be injected intous through motivational exercises and positive thinking. What'sStopping You?Being More Confident? highlights the keyreasons why you might be lacking confidence in the firstplace, what causes self-doubt or makes you feel less able thanothers. Then we are shown how to turn this around, byexamining the traits that make someone confident. Follow-up to the ground-breaking bestseller, What'sStopping You?, with the same intelligent approach toself-help A road map to help us break down the barriers that make us shyaway from achieving our full potential How to recognize what you?re good at, but also whatyou're not good at Includes tactics for maintaining self-assurance and learninghow to apply these in real-life practical situations Based on extensive research and personal experience "Everyone has moments of doubt - this practical and persoanlbook can help remove those demons and boost morale. Irecommend it strongly" Luke Johnson, RSA Chairman, Financial Times columnist andauthor of Start It Up! "This combination of searing honesty and genuine curiosity abouthow our lives are shaped makes for compelling reading" Fi Glover, multi-award winning braodcast journalist and BBCradio presenter "An invaluable resource for anyone lacking confidence" John Caunt, author of Boost Your Self-Esteem
More titles coming soon!
