Corporate culture is the most powerful control in any organization[2].
Surprisingly, 45% of executives feel that having weak soft skills is the most pressing issue when it comes to gaps in workforce proficiency. In today’s technology and data-driven world, emotional intelligence has definitely been sidestepped, and soft skills are notoriously hard to teach.
Evaluating the risk exposure for your firm requires uncomfortable conversations about how you lead, communicate, and set the standard for the rest of the organization. It is easy to focus on structure rather than on culture. Yet doing the inner work to align your vision and mission with how we ourselves hold our management teams accountable will go a long way in addressing both hard and soft risks.
We are all on a journey, sometimes we lose our way, but it doesn’t mean that we are lost.
[1] Jim Roth, Soft and Strong: A Best-practice Paradox, March 2011
[2] Jim Roth, Soft and Strong: A Best-practice Paradox, March 2011
