Personal Consulting: Soft Skills

Assignment

Soft Skills Coaching

Background

Challenges abound in the teaching profession. A teaching professional needs to interact with, and manage a diverse group of people every minute. Moreover she needs to make multiple decisions even in a single session of teaching.

This requires a unique set of soft skills to do the job effectively while ensuring personal growth and minimising stress. I was approached by the client who is a lecturer by profession to help her upskill with soft skills.

Ask

The requirement of the client was to help her feel more confident in interacting with her personal and professional contacts (students, peers and the management), achieve presentation prowess for classroom teaching, and display emotional intelligence on the job.

Needs Analysis

A needs analysis was conducted by speaking to the client at length with inquiries directed to get her to speak about her self-image and specific on-the-job conflicts.

Learning Intervention

Upon completing the needs analysis, a program was designed to include the following topics:

1. Confidence (Mindset, Vocabulary and Actions)

2. Communication Skills (Engaging in Small Talk, Reacting vs Responding, Having Difficult Conversations, Being Assertive, and Creating Meaningful Connections Through Conversations)

3. Body Language (Reading and Leveraging Eye, Lip, Hand and Head Movements, Open and Closed Body Language, Developing Vocalics, and Power Poses)

4. Emotional Intelligence (Fundamentals - Self-Awareness, Empathy and Social Skills, Defusing Challenging Interactions, Managing Negative Emotions, Providing Objective Feedback, Staying Grounded in Stressful Situations, Practicing Self-Compassion, and Helping Others Develop Emotional Intelligence)

5. Presentation Skills (Setting Objectives, Structuring the Message, Leverating the Power of Storytelling, Rehearsing and Projecting the Image of Competence)

Learning Outcomes

1. Apply new actions and behaviours in order to boost self-confidence.

2. Apply new actions and behaviours in order to practice emotional intelligence.

3. Display communication prowess when striking conversations with new and existing connections.

4. Deliver objective-driven and memorable presentations.

Instructional Design Models

1. Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction

2. Keller's ARCS Model

Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction guided the structure of every coaching conversation through a systematic process. Each step completed aided the learner's motivation and retention of the knowledge and skills that were the focus of the coaching.

Keller's ARCS model guided the selection of activities supporting the learning objectives. Feedback being a crucial component of this model, it guided the coaching conversations to discover solutions instead of merely telling the learner what to do.

The two models combined were aimed to draw the learner's attention to existing gaps in knowledge, skills and attitude through targeted inquiry and learning activities. They also helped to keep the learner focused by stating clear learning goals in each area of development.

The objectives guided the flow of the coaching sessions and impressed upon the learner the relevance of every topic, test or task to the desired goal. The two models were able to build the learner's confidence through guidance, practice and feedback.

Pedagogy

1. Lecture

2. Self-Assessment Tests

3. Activities

4. Demonstrations

5. Practice

6. Evaluation