The Crux of Candour; Assessing and Developing Soft Skill

1 The Crux of Candour; Assessing and Developing Soft Skill ABSTRACT Soft skill is associated with both improving organizational effectiveness, includ...
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The Crux of Candour; Assessing and Developing Soft Skill ABSTRACT Soft skill is associated with both improving organizational effectiveness, including economic competitiveness, and enabling social inclusion. This makes assessing and developing soft skill a practical concern in both education and the workplace. There are methods and measures for assessing and developing soft skill available in several constituent domains of personal and educational or professional development. Yet what happens in practice, and what works, is not well evidenced. To research the assessment and development of soft skill in its broadest contexts would be very complex and complicated. Here the focus is on a common and distinctive issue in soft skill assessment and development; that is providing feedback which impacts on behavior. The agenda and methods for research on the provision of feedback, what feedback is and how it is delivered, in the context of soft skill assessment and development as a whole, is outlined here. Keywords Soft Skill, Measurement, Feedback INTRODUCTION; ASSESSING AND DEVELOPING SOFT SKILL A greater integration between coaching, organisational development and performance management to drive organisational change is the most commonly anticipated major change affecting learning and development over the next two years, reported by nearly half of organisations (CIPD 2012). At the heart of this integration will be the development of skills, and especially soft skill. This demand, which entails supporting learning through providing feedback on performance in soft skill, comes in a context where (Colvin, 2008, p 132); “Most organizations are terrible at providing honest feedback. The annual evaluation exercise is often short, artificial, and mealy-mouthed. Employees have no idea how they performed and thus no prospect of getting better…many companies can do more do establish a culture of candour.”

Establishing a culture of candour, solving the challenge of the provision of feedback, is amplified by the emphasis on soft skill. This is because the usual escape clause for many giving less than effective feedback is that they are to avoid dealing with personal traits and focus only on technical skills and concrete behaviours, is not available; feedback on soft skill has to entail a broader and deeper consideration of the person, not just their technical performance. Hurell et al (2011) define soft skills as “non-technical and not reliant on abstract reasoning, involving interpersonal and intrapersonal abilities to facilitate mastered performance in particular contexts”. To be capable, sophisticated and flexible more than technical and academic qualifications are required; soft skills are required (CIPD 2010 ). Hayward and Fernandez (2004) identified this as a trend affecting every employee within all sectors, and analysis of the „soft‟ factor is found across a range of contexts (Curtis and McKenzie 2001; Grugulis and Vincent 2009). While some data ( Table 1) suggests that specialist or

2 technical skills continue to be the primary concern for many stakeholders this does not invalidate the interest in soft skill assessment and development. Why soft skills still matters, in context, and is worth exploring is a multi-faceted issue (Platt 2008) . For not only is soft skill part of the gateway through key life stages (Andrews & Higson, 2008), in any field of employment, there is usually a blend of both the hard and the soft involved in learning any role and profession (Boyatzis, 2008; Carbli,s 2008; Korcyzysnki, 2005), to become and be employable and effective individuals and organisations (Miller, McCartney, Baron, McGurk, Robinson, 2011). All 2011

Lack of necessary 72 specialist or technical skills Lack interpersonal skills

Manufacture and Production

Private sector services

Public services

Voluntary. Community and not for profit sector

All 2010

82

69

80

59

67

9

19

10

20

12

of 16

Table 1: Reasons for recruitment difficulties (%) ; Source, CIPD 2011 resourcing and talent planning survey

Part of the problem is that 'soft skill' elements are not well defined, and hard to 'package up'. They are more embedded, so that an understanding of them, and their assessment or development, are usually part of a broader and deeper need; for example, increasing individual confidence and positivity, effective teamwork and self-management. To some analysts this means that the field of soft skill is forever destined to be a confused one; a morass of traits, attitudes and qualities, emanating from the idealised and normative wish lists of employers or the theoretical models of academics. The fact is that constructs of soft skill have still come to prominence, and with that a need to demarcate an area of assessment and development. The scoping of this is also difficult, due to the presence and use of different language in different contexts. Employers and other stakeholders focus on competence and capability rather than „skill‟, either hard or soft. Attempts in the psychological tradition to „tidy‟ this up include defining constructs, for example emotional intelligence (CIPD 2010). On the policy side, a differentiation of „hard‟ and „soft‟ skill persists. The distinction between hard and soft is less an issue than the analysis of what the „soft‟ entails, and the nature of the feedback challenges which learning and change that entails. The streams of literature relevant to soft skill and feedback need to be explored in detail, though initially the general concept of „skill‟ needs to be operationalised. In the analysis that follows there is an interplay between three stakeholders that have had contributions to make here and have interests in this; the pragmatic professionals, the theorists of psychology and the socioeconomic policy makers. These have interest in assessing and developing soft skill and feedback for that. First, the professionals, and Bee and Bee (1996 ) identified two conditions for effective assessment and development of soft 2

3 skill: the opportunity to practice and constructive feedback on progress. The professionals concern with soft skill feedback is central. In organizations, whether educational or the workplace, there is a process of identifying needs and delivering and evaluating learning for training and/or performance management purposes. And for the professional „What gets measured gets done‟. There is a need to demonstrate results to win support. These concerns led to soft skill being reframed and measured as competencies; in recent times many of the so-called soft skills have been translated into the language of competencies. Competencies are meant to be definable, measurable, qualities and skills that are identified as desirable or even necessary to fulfill a job or professional function. Second, Soft skill assessment and development is a domain in which people have to engage with establishing and evolving their self awareness. For non-specialists understanding and managing the self, personal internal needs and complexity is formed from the bits and pieces that are picked up from family, peers, society and the media. This is the basis of enlightenment, or otherwise, on the „soft‟ side. While most are not averse to learning more about themselves, their inner world and how it affects others, most learners in employment and professional contexts are not that interested or motivated. Soft skill, and its assessment and development, provides the inescapable engagement with this , whether that curiosity exists or not. For the specialist soft skill assessment and development is an opportunity to communicate about and apply behavioral sciences. For the learner it is an opportunity to understand more about themselves. For this connection to work the language used by specialists and the curiosity of the learner both need to be given some attention. Third, some are concerned with policies, to identify skill needs and deficits, and target systems on dealing with these. The state, employers and civic society all have parts to play in this, as there are enabling and/or constraining influences on engaging in work and employment, including cultural factors. In the past the focus was on the hard skills required for employment in traditional heavy industries, or knowledge in professional disciplines, and the focus was apparent in the management and control of these. The present and future is more focused on the soft skill required in service industries, and the focus is on optimal ways of developing these. In the past era control disputes over work and skill centered on a „crafts‟ or professions integrity , who was and was not qualified to practice. In the new era control disputes over work and skills centre on demonstrations of individual competence; who has or does not have soft skill to perform ? DEFINING SKILL Defining skill is an issue because concerns and distinctions vary according to perspective and discipline ( Felstead, Gallie, Green, Zhou, 2007; Green 2011; Grugalis & Stoyanova 2011; Payne 2000). „Skill‟ represents both a site of inter-disciplinary difference and of different practical concerns. An initial definition can be that skill is “Goal-directed, wellorganized behavior that is acquire through practice and performed with an economy of effort”, (Proctor & Dutta 1995, p18). The disciplines of economics and sociology on the one hand, and psychology on the other perceive and study skill in different ways with different outcomes. Practical concerns range from influencing government policy and training programmes to supporting self-development. The distinction between „hard‟, or technical, and „soft‟, or personal, skill is then one aspect of this. There are three broad areas of concern from which an engagement with soft skill emerges, either in terms of general economic development or self-development. These reflect broader and deeper themes about the competencies which current job applicants, school

4 leavers and university graduates and current employees have in comparison with organizational requirements (Holt, Sawicki, Sloan 2010; Werner and DeSimone 2009). These areas are;   

Social inclusion concerns centered on „life skills‟, as these are associated with opportunities for young people, especially those not in education or training. The aim is to establish employability. Employability of those with higher level/university-level qualifications . Soft skill complements the knowledge gained in education with the requirements of employment in skilled and professional roles. Leadership and management skill in organisations, which include soft skill alongside the hard skill required of operational, line, unit/function and organisational management.

Assessing and Developing Skill and Feedback Issues; Mapping The Process Lists of Soft Skill A common, though flawed, starting point is to define soft skills by listing the different and various soft skills. Gallivan, Truex and Kvasny (2004) identified six commonly sought soft skills based on an analysis of recruitment advertisements; these are communication, interpersonal, leadership, organisation, self-motivation and creativity. There are several constructs of soft skill, with up to 37 separate soft skill constructs identified (see Table 2). In the literature, soft skills are also known as „emotional intelligence‟ (Goleman 1995), „individual skills‟ (Grugulis 2003, p.3), „emotional competencies‟ (Correll and Gilbert 2008), „soft aptitudes‟ (Pink 2005) or simply the „soft side of work‟ (Whitten 2003). Scoping and operationalising soft skill aside, the assessment and development of these are widely accepted to be an aspect of organisational and personal effectiveness. Consequently various activities and programmes are made available in education, workplace learning and professional training in order to assess and develop these (Carblis 2008).

These inventories provide an indication of the themes and concerns that exist for assessing and developing soft skill. These are skills that are increasingly seen to be constituent parts of success in learning, jobs, management and leadership roles, many professional roles. They are also associated with effectiveness in activities like negotiation and decision-making, as well as in roles like coaching, mentoring. An alternative approach is that development in skill as a process can be stipulated, and the issues in „soft‟ skill can be characterized in relation to that process. Laker & Powell (2011) adopt this approach and consider in sequence the process aspects and challenge of ;      

Identification of Training Needs and Objectives Taking Account of Prior Learning and Experience Resistance to learning Anxiety and Uncertainty in the Learner The immediacy and salience of feedback in learning environments The Degree of Similarity Between Training and Work Environments 4

5    

The Level of proficiency of the performer Perceived Self-Efficacy of the learner Organisational Resistance to Transfer of learning Managerial Support and Resistance for the transfer of learning

The effectiveness of this process for soft skill training is apparently significantly less when compared with hard skill training (Foxon, 1993; Foxon 1994; Kupritz, 2002). There are several aspects of assessing and developing soft skill which present challenges that are greater challenges in this process. The net effect, considering all these aspects, is proposed that for soft skill it is often the case that needs are less precise, there can be inhibitors or resistance to learning among learners, and that in practices soft skill are taught in a too simplified way; and even if learning in the training environment has occurred this can be diminished or eroded by organisational and managerial resistance to the transfer of learning of soft skill. These are all challenges which do not feature sop greatly in the learning of hard skill. Soft skill development can occur in discrete processes, or situations, associated with training in teamwork, negotiation, coaching/being coached, management development and so on. Repeated engagement with activities and situations requiring soft skills, and accumulating feedback on performance in those, will be sufficient to raise awareness of and enhance soft skills. The risk, and reality, is of course that in fact learners may not receive helpful feedback on their soft skills as a whole, or even in the context of a specific learning process or environment. They only ever receive partial, limited and, potentially, even conflicting feedback on their soft skills generally. A system whereby a person has and can show others a record of their soft skills development, progress and feedback does not exist, as far as I know. Learners have their transcripts of marks, but nothing on soft skills. There are limitations in either the top down or bottom up approaches, which a review of issues in operationalising skill , exploring the connotations of „soft‟ and „hard‟ raise, and identifying wellsprings of soft skill development raise. Each of these options for exploring soft skill suggest that there are fundamental aspects of definition, modeling and method to explore to set a clear research agenda in seeking to explore and improve the assessment and development of soft skill. Prior to doing that it is worth considering aspects of the context that affects any analysis of skill issues , its value and relevance. Each of these approaches has merits, and should be incorporated in the research process of assessing and developing soft skill. Why that should be so depends on the context and environments relevant to researching soft skill assessment and development. To explore aspects of that the differentiation of Hard and Soft has to be done in more depth and detail. There are three contextual issues; 1. Soft is a real category of skill now more prominent, and upskilling in this in sought. Employers are seeking qualities in labour that they did not seek, or do so more extensively or intensively (Thompson and Smith, 2009). Definition and understanding of skill must reflect that, for these skills should then be assessed and developed. Detailed appraisal of skill demand and the skill content of jobs including soft skill have implications for assessing the success of supply-side skill formation policies and indeed for future policy directions

6 2. A critique of re-labelling as skills what in the past may have been considered personal attributes, dispositions or behaviours. Traditional concepts of skill have a clear link to technical competence and knowledge, and government policy directed at working with employers to design better quality, more highly skilled jobs that contain significant worker discretion. This is the alternative to soft skill upskilling. In particular the need to engage people in learning science and technology based disciplines and areas of employment. 3. Soft skill is a disguised way of discussing compliance and exercising control; employers are interested in securing workforce compliance, and this is becoming socially constructed as the task of developing „soft skill‟. This applies even in what remain low skill settings. Employers y are then delegating to and expecting vocational education and training to provide employees who are compliant. Contexts of Feedback Feys et al (2011) found a positive relationship between favorable feedback reactions and involvement in skill development activities months after receiving feedback. This corroborates the central assumption that initial reactions to feedback are predictive of future development activities, even over longer periods of time. It suggests educators need to pay more attention to learner‟s immediate reactions and to invest effort in feedback interventions that are supportive of favorable reactions to feedback . This is essential for effective soft skill development. Dweck identifies two mindsets that can accompany success, and compares and contrasts them in ways which highlights how they come to shape perceptions of feedback especially (Dweck 2006). The first is the view that intelligence is static, success is based on what a person naturally is , the „fixed‟ mindset. The alternative is the idea that intelligence can be developed, which leads to a beleief that success can come with learning, the „growth‟ mindset. The former can lead people to be motivated to appear smart, and so avoid challenges, be defensive and give up easily, see effort as fruitless, ignore useful feedback as criticism, and feel threatened by the success of others. The „growth‟, mindset in contrast, leads people to embrace challenge, persist in the face of setbacks, see effort as the path to mastery, learn from criticism, and find inspiration in the success of others. The former may succeed to an extent though they may plateau early and achieve less than their potential. The latter reach ever higher levels of achievement. To prime people for feedback it is desirable to elicit or otherwise engage the presence of the growth mindset. Colvin (2008) locates feedback as critical because it is the heart of learning from the deliberate practice which, rather than talent, is the foundation of performance and success. Talent, in the sense of natural, innate, gifted, ability, is not the basis of excellence and successful performance; deliberate practice is. Deliberate practice, studies in depth in fields like music and sports, entails a set of elements. These are;     

Designed practice with a teacher Repeated over many times, sessions and years With useful feedback given Demanding, outside the comfort zone Not fun, though can entail flow

6

7 These aspects of deliberate practice can be replicated in other learning contexts, to develop people in those. Deliberate practice should enable people to see and hear more, and so have quicker reactions and anticipation of what lies ahead in any situation. It should establish deep knowledge and a rich mental model of the domain, that is well remembered so as to enable finer discriminations in the course of work experience. And at the heart of this is feedback; feedback provided by the self as part of the intrinsic motivation, and feedback provided by results and others as extrinsic motivation. The blend of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is the ideal. And people do need help; from the teacher who designs practice and can stand apart and observe.   

The music model; given the score, required to perform (play this); feedback from audience Sports model; conditioning and situational uses of a skill (parts and parcels) feedback from immediate result Chess model; given a problem, required to find a solution (what do you do ?) feedback from eventual result

Kluger & DeNisis (1996) conclude that though it is commonly assumed that feedback interventions are a good thing, providing knowledge of results, which will improve performance, in fact feedback interventions can have unintended negative effects. Rather than improving performance they may result in people lowering standards, or interfering with performance. Feedback can make things worse. Kluger & DeNisis locate this as an effect of feedback on the person attention. that is where the feedback influences the attention of the person to focus; if that is on what they define as „self‟ rather than task, about the person rather than specific behaviours, it is likely to have negative effects. People themselves work within a hierarchy, consciously or unconsciously; they set higher level goals for themselves, and review progress towards thee by performance in mid level, total tasks, in turn reviewing progress on those by checking task detail performance. So even feedback on the small details of a task can be connected to the higher and ultimate goals for the self for the recipient. It may be challenges or threats to those which are perceived with any negative feedback. To provide more effective feedback it is necessary to change the locus of attention to the lower levels, as this has a better effect on performance.

Finally, four contexts for past experience and current agency in feedback on soft skill can be identified, with different kinds of motivations, measures and methods associated with them . These are given in Figure 2; · · · ·

Attachment & Care; Family, Partners, Companionship & Collaboration; Friendship, Community, Networks; Formal Learning; Education, Training, HRD; Summative assessment, Formative assessment; Work and Career ;Managers, Coaches, Mentors;

8

Development and Career

Companionship & Collaboration

CPD Coaches Mentors

Culture Counselling Networks

Developmental Psychology

Social and Intersubjective Psychology

Feedback Performance

Attachment & Care

Education Colleagues Tutors

Partners Family Friendship

S-R and learning theory Cognitive Psychology

Clinical/relational psychology

Figure 2; Contexts of Feedback

In attachment and care the literature is about family roles, parenting and also professional counselling, clinical/relational psychology, and associated perspectives on close relationships, such as Transactional Analysis (Hay 2009). In formal learning contexts there are theories of S-R and learning theory, with models from personality, cognitive psychology and learning styles in use (Gibb 2011). In the work and careers literature there are developmental psychology constructs , with one dominant theme has been Emotional Intelligence (Carblis 2008). In the companionship literature there are social psychology constructs around mapping dyads and dyadic data analysis (Kenny, Kashy, Cook 2006). There are systemic challenges in providing feedback for soft skill learning and change. People may approach the provision of feedback as a channel through which they will hear things they fear ; a questioning of their competence and value, and perhaps so their identify. With this at stake the expectation of even anticipating assessment and development of soft skill can be primning negative emotions, well before any feedback is conceived of or given. MEASURES AND METHODS In learning soft skill the prescriptions are not in doubt; “ The most important of the soft skills are best learned with a small amount of highly focused and relevant formal input, a large amount of real-world experience, practice inside and outside of one‟s comfort zone, and timely, relevant and constructive feedback from other people in a community of practice, and where the 8

9 consequences of what we do can be easily observed and understood” (CIPD 2010a, p30) In short an emphasis on personal experience, exposure, practice, feedback and reflection. This requires reflection; in action, on action throughout a „do-reflect-conclude-apply‟ process. While many technical skills can be developed following behaviourist principles, of external control to conform with rules, soft skill represents the opportunity for the cognitive theory to show its value, and be applied. This can be about;   

The detail of the „intelligences‟ (emotional, and so on) being operationalised as shapers of behavior The scoping of the relations between antecedent behavior, personality and outcomes The issue of the cognitivist assumption of intrinsic and personal capability, which may be realized to a greater or lesser extent (in work and employment)

If soft skill is an area where there can be both „right‟ answers in terms of norms for roles in employment and organizations, but no „right‟ or „wrong‟ answers as no single absolute and definitive behaviour may be possible solutions - what matters is authenticity in the solution adopted. In either context the quality of feedback makes a significant difference (Lumadue & Fish; 2010; Poulos, & Mahoney 2007), as it brings in things from outside awareness, providing insights about self in relation to others from an external perspective. Feedback in the soft context is information on behaviour and the effects that behavior has on others. In everyday interactions people obtain feedback from others as they interact; ranging from non-verbal responses to verbal responses. In formal development processes feedback is formally to be given, usually verbally or written. Conventionally feedback is classified as either positive or negative in relation to a goal. Positive feedback is identifying what helped successfully achieve the goal. Negative feedback is identifying what has interfered with achieving the goal, what might be done differently. In addition feedback may be reflective; asking the person to think further on an aspect of their behavior or its effects. Confirmatory- more of this Corrective – not this Reflective – review this

Positive Negative Think about

Feys et al (op cit) consider information specificity and procedural information as important educational strategies for shaping immediate feedback reactions. Information specificity is the lpevel of detail being provided; from broad comments to very detailed feedback. Procedural information is information about how the feedback was arrived at, whether positive or negative. . With positive feedback, learners reacted more favorably to positive feedback and the effect was strengthened if the amount of procedural information they received was high. Recipients react more favorably when they are aware of the process and procedures used to reach the decision. And participants attached greater value to their positive feedback when they knew it came from trained observers. With negative feedback learners reacted unfavorably to negative feedback, but this effect was less pronounced when the specificity of feedback information they received was low.

10 It might be expected that unfavorable feedback reactions to diminish when recipients receive high specific information. Yet it may be that under conditions of low specificity, learners are able to protect their self-image by attributing poor performance to uncontrollable or external causes as the cause of their low performance. Where people receive negative feedback substantiated by specific, personal comments explaining exactly why the feedback message was negative, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to attribute this to external uncontrollable causes.

The problem with getting and using feedback in soft skill contexts is that we tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior (Caroll & Gilbert 2008). Difficulties with the receiving part of feedback back to the divergence between how people see themselves and their intentions, and how the environment perceives them. Individuals mostly do not see themselves holistically because of „blind spots‟, and are mainly acting out of good and positive intentions: to do well, to help or succeed . Those „blind spots‟ can occur when people either do not want to know or because they have never been told about their behaviour.

Attribution theory (Eberly, Holley, Johnson, Mitchell 2011) suggests that people normally identify either an internal or an external locus of cause for events; the internal attribution is to self, the external attribution is to others or the situation. Positive outcomes tend to be internally attributed, and negative outcomes are externalised; success is self-centred and failure is environment/other centred. In feedback terms the prediction would be that success is attributed to self but any negative feedback, if accepted, would be attributed to external sources- usually the nature of an environment or the tutor. However, what is equally important is to understand that „relational attribution‟ also exists, and can either amplify, modify or displace such attribution. That is a person may identify and refer to aspects of the relationship they are in to channel attributions; success or failure is a matter of what the relationship entails. There is more going on then than in any dyad for the development of soft skill and the provision of feedback than either self-praise or other-critique. In particular, when learning, is a problematic performance to be attributed to the self, and imply self change, or to others, implying no need for change, or to the relationship ? With soft skills assessment and development the maximal goals are;   

that learners attribute some aspects of problematic performance to self, and are motivated to change their behaviours, for they control this that that learners restrict how they attribute aspects of problematic performance to situations/others, though aware that situational/other factors do matter, and they do not control these that learners attribute some aspects of the problematic performance to the relationship (with the person giving the feedback), in a way that raises awareness of how they behave in relationships, and that these relationship issues can be fixed or improved

The ideal is that feedback is;

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11     

given in such a way that the person understands it, accepts it, and can do something about it the giver prepares for the feedback beforehand and thinks about about the organisational and personal impacts of the feedback the reason for the feedback needs to be established and clear prior to the conversations and the recipient ideally should receive some sort of invitation Following it being given there has to be a two-way assessment of possible plans and actions with a subsequent support Both are able to reflect on a feedback afterwards, so both sides can gain development out of the feedback.

As well as this core challenge in soft skills an observer‟s capacity to provide complex feedback is a constraining factor in improving soft skills. Providers of feedback may; · · · ·

be responsible for many learners; overlook significant issues; have limited time give complex feedback; give complex feedback that is unclear or rejected.

The range of the factors potentially involved, and uncertainties about what amounts to an effective interaction, are often dealt with by simplifying feedback. Simplified feedback is often given by facilitators to participants in formal skill training exercises. Judgement about the effectiveness of an interaction in which soft skills were exercised (a negotiation exercise , a sale, a communication event) is based on the subjective view of the facilitator. The effectiveness of simplified feedback has to be questioned. Accuracy, completeness and usefulness are limited, and indeed may be lacking altogether. As the impact of ineffective or incorrect feedback can be considerable it is worse than doing nothing. It can undermine confidence and focus attention on the wrong issues, leaving people to perform the same, or even worse. Effective complex feedback is needed to help people do things differently in the future. Knowledge about assessing and developing soft skill through feedback is distributed over several areas of professional practice, lacking a systemic framework for assuring effective recording and reflection on soft skills, experienced in a fragmented rather than integrated fashion by learners. CONCLUSIONS The goal in soft skill assessment and development contexts is to establish and sustain mutually valued relations with others, centered around giving and getting feedback. Those relations may be on a spectrum from „one-off‟ encounters to permanent relationships. The „others‟ involved may be on a spectrum from individuals to large groups. Their significance can range from low, medium, to high There is uncertainty about the construct of soft skill, and so the focus for what feedback is being provided on and about. This can be clarified. Second, guidance on the actual practice of providing feedback is fragmented, representing much prescription, especially around soft skill; but the difference between what works and what does not work is neither integrated and grounded in evidence. This needs to be better integrated and evidence based. Thirdly the inter-subjective contexts in which feedback is given are poorly understood, the nature of what happens when aspiring to provide „reflection in action‟ .

12 That is the systemic aspects to providing feedback in the dyads in which soft skills are addressed (trainer-trainee, coach-coachee, manager-employee etc), and the effects of reciprocal influence in this, are significant. These can be better outlined and understood, and inform „learning to learn‟ in the area of soft skills. Soft skill is assessed and developed in various contexts over life. Feedback is provided, informally and sometimes formally, for that soft skill to be developed. This feedback is provided in several contexts and from various sources. The questions that emerge are; • • • • •

How is soft skill assessed and developed ? What needs are there ? What systems are in use to develop soft skill ? What process is there ? What kinds of feedback are in use? What systems and methods are there ? What differentiates the effective form the ineffective in feedback ? Do aspects of relationships influence feedback effectiveness ? What dyadic issues are there? ( for trainers/learners/managers/mentors)

We know that taxonomies which describe and prescribe soft skill exist, top down and bottom up. These articulate what soft skill is and what is to be developed or improved. A range of these will be expected to be in use in practice. The intention is not top compare and contrast these, but to accept diversity and focus on feedback aspects and effectiveness; where these in themselves will help people to understand and change their own performance. We also expect that learners will be encouraged to adopt a positive attitude to receiving feedback from various sources about their soft skill behavior..Feedback in the context of soft skill improvement will include; · · ·

Getting Positive Feedback; strengths and confidence building Getting Corrective Feedback; the clarity of message Getting Reflective Feedback; reflect and consider

It is the extent and nature of these aspects of feedback we need evidence for. Where soft skill feedback is provided there is a further and final concern. This is that while learners may be in contexts where soft skill is an issue they come to resist and contest the feedback they are being given because it is a challenge to their sense of self and identity. It can be predicted that there will be systemic factors affecting the effectiveness of soft skill feedback. This too cane be examined.

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13 Research Issues in Assessing and Developing Soft Skills and Good Practice Definitional/Needs Factors Include a variety of systems for defining soft skill; Constructs, embedded Explore identification of needs and objectives How systems see and connect organizational and individual needs Is this for all (generic) or targeted (group) need Learning Process Factors Are there standards/procedures ? What Methods for engaging people given prior learning ? Degrees of Similarity Between Training, Work and Environments ? Organisational Transfer taken into account ? Managerial Reinforcement/Support given ? Resistance to learning and change dealt with ?

Work

Different environments; Training/Teaching, Coaching, Mentoring, Peer Relations Feedback Experiences Positive feedback Corrective feedback Reflective feedback

Dyadic- Relationship Factors The immediacy and salience of feedback and consequences taking account of the individual learners and feedback givers characteristics and personality

The research will explore the general scientific, technical and economic aspects of assessing and developing soft skill meanings and measures, and especially feedback methods. An application driven research approach is needed , with real actors and partners, so the acceptance and cooperation throughout an implementation and improvement cycle is sought.    

A literature review of soft skill and feedback meanings, measures and methods. A survey of current measures and methods in soft skill assessment and development Case studies in education and workplace training of soft skill and especially feedback Design of an integrative framework for the assessment and development of soft skill

14 The contexts in which assessing and developing soft skills could be demonstrated and developed include;   

Youth and Education; primary, secondary, especially on transition to work Graduate; further, higher education, and employability Corporate; Management Development; team leaders, managers, leaders,

The primary scientific and technical issue is that of information presentation and integration of knowledge about soft skill, including feedback. User acceptance of feedback measures and methods will be an issue. Learners and facilitators while both espousing an interest in better feedback may find the mediation of new systems in use to have implications they may question. The development entails not just a HRD process change but also potentially a technological and organisational change if there is to be adoption of new solutions. There may be reluctance of learners to accept change. There may be reluctance of trainers to accept change. The costs and benefits are uncertain. Scientific, technical and economic milestones will be;   

Scientifically the interest is in the provision of a conceptual model of the information needed, used and valued in soft skill assessment and development, and the extent to which this can be provided in more effective and acceptable ways. Technically the outcome will be systems, possibly on-line, for optimizing the development of soft skill. Economically the costs-benefits, and commercial knowledge exchange possibilities of measures and methods will need to be taken into account from the outset and addressed in any project evaluation.

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2008. Competencies in the 21st century. Journal of Management

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