People themselves can do little. Organizing them into a cohesive setup and training them in the different skills needed to achieve the organizational objectives make great results possible. Leadership, communication, management and motor skills are all required for the successful functioning of business organizations in addition to technical skills.
What is Skill?
Skill is more than knowledge. You acquire knowledge from books, educational institutions and other sources. Such knowledge is theoretical, as for example when one learns about the processes involved in making a sale. Skill, on the other hand, is oriented towards achievement of specific results, such as actual sales, in a repeatable manner.
Skill is developed by applying theoretical knowledge to actual situations in life and in work environments. Situations tend to be unique and require adjustments and adaptations of the theory to produce desired results. It is familiarity with these small (or big) details and the know-how to cope with them that adds a new dimension to knowledge to convert it into skill.
Skills are different types:
- Cognitive Skills are mental skills needed for acquiring knowledge. It is not the knowledge itself but the ability to acquire knowledge. It includes attention, memory and symbolic thinking, and involves analyzing what one sees and hears, and creating associations between different pieces of information.
- Perceptual Skills are skills involved in perceiving what is presented and interpreting them correctly. Visual observation, interpretation and appropriate motor response, for example, are involved in sports activities. In non-sports contexts, the response might not be motor, or immediate; but it will still be based on visual observation and interpretation
- Motor Skills involve controlled movements to achieve desired results, as in most sports activities, artistic performances and handicraft works, many of which require fine motor skills for making precise movements.
- Composite Skills combining more than one skill might be required to achieve desired results in many areas.
Acquisition of Skills
There are a number of theories on what is involved in acquiring a skill. According to Fitts and Posner [Paul M Fitts & Michael I Posner, Human Performance, Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1967], for example, motor learning involves:
- A cognitive phase of forming an overall concept.
- An associative phase of an increasingly intuitive understanding of the relationships of different movements and gaining an increasing mastery for performing efficiently and without errors.
- An autonomous phase of increasingly effortless, automatic and stable movements.
The process of mastering a skill involves:
- Theoretical understanding of what is involved.
- Application of the theory through repetitive practice.
- Fine-tuning performance through feedback that helps eliminate errors and increase efficiency
- Motivation to go through the long hours of practice and adjust performance on a continuing basis using the feedback.
What makes one person top among a group of highly skilled persons?
The answer would appear to involve an inherent belief in oneself, the belief that "I am the greatest," as one Mohamed Ali claimed. It goes beyond practice and beyond motivation to something few persons have managed to achieve.
Professional Development
Businesses need leaders to inspire whole organizations to peak achievements. Leadership is the ability to inspire and not the habit of bossing people around. Such bossing can actually prove counter-productive making people produce less than what they could.
Leaders know what is the right thing to do in a specific situation and are able to get their team behind that goal. Leadership training involves creating the habits that makes this possible. Different programs might emphasize different dimensions such as mental toughness to keep going despite continuing obstacles or the habit of focusing on the goal.
The book, "Leadership" by James MacGregor Burns, is considered a classic on leadership.
Both leaders and day-to-day managers need excellent communication skills. Communication is not just saying what you have to say. It involves additional dimensions such as ensuring that the person addressed gets the message as you intend it and also that the communication helps, rather than hinders, a desired response.
Communicating effectively in the sense mentioned above requires special skills. You have to be aware of the different elements of communication, the response it is likely to evoke in the addressed person or group and the techniques of adapting the communication to the person or group.
A classic book on communication skills is "Messages: The Communication Skills Book" by Matthew McKay, Martha Davis and Patrick Fanning.
Other essential skills relevant for general management include management skills and skills for organizational development. Management skills include such dimensions as strategy development, translating the strategy into action programs and managing projects to implement the action programs. Organizational development involves creating and nurturing an organization that can perform effectively in a competitive scenario.
Training and development is a key activity in the better organizations. One essential characteristic of training programs is that they uncover the innate capabilities of the trainee so that the person is able apply what is learnt in new situations. Development can be seen as enhancing the capabilities of the trainee so that the person is able to perform increasingly better at achieving desired results. In a business context, this will typically involve developing soft skills such as social and communication skills in addition to technical skills.
General skills such as leadership and communication skills, and specific skills such as selling and accounting, are what make business organizations tick. Skill development in all relevant areas is one of the key requirements for business success. Skills training requires specific training skills.
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