Nearly seven in 10 HR professionals in the UK have identified a “huge need” to ensure managers have the skills to manage the aftermath of the recession.

Top executives around the world agree egoism tops the list of reasons why team's don't work, according to the Study on Teams released by Egon Zehnder International, a global executive search firm. In fact, the study findings indicate that 71 percent of U.S. executives (59% overall) believe that egoism and hidden agendas on the part of individual team members are among the biggest obstacle to effective teamwork.

Videoconferencing is rapidly emerging as an important way for executives to communicate with their employees, upper management and customers. Those executives who want to signifcantly improve their effectiveness must understand this new medium - and master its dynamics. As an executive, you’ve carefully cultivated and refined an elusive quality called “executive presence.” Perhaps it’s about the cut of your suit, or your swagger. Or how you talk, how you listen, how benevolent—or intimidating—you seem. Whatever the particular traits, they have become a critical part of the way you communicate. Most important, perhaps, a sense of presence is frequently correlated with leadership.

Employers look for their job candidates to exhibit strong communication skills, according to a recent survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Employers taking part in NACE’s Job Outlook 2010 survey, ranked communication skills at the top of the skills they seek in potential employees. Rounding out the top five were analytical skills, the ability to work in a team, technical skills, and a strong work ethic. “These are the skills that employers believe are important to on-the-job success,” says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director.

Here’s unusual advice for CLOs: In order to get ahead in 2010, you might need to be more irritating. It may sound counterintuitive, but by being an irritant, learning leaders can help the organization grow and increase their influence.

A majority of United States respondents believe the experience they gain in a globally oriented workplace will be important to their careers, according to recent findings from an international workplace survey. However, many report they are not being adequately prepared.

Responding to globalization of the workplace, employees worldwide are developing a new suite of cross-cultural and language skills that will equip them to prosper in a more multinational environment, according to recent findings from a global workplace survey. The survey, by global workforce solutions leader Kelly Services, finds that individuals across all generations believe the experience they gain in a globally oriented environment will be critical to their careers.

Professional networking can be an important element in your career, particularly if you are thinking of making a move to a new job. We give you ten tips for getting the most out of networking opportunities. Before you embark on a determined networking campaign you must define your goals. You must determine: why you are doing it; what the objective is; how much money you can invest; and how you will know you have reached your goal.

Having a winning personality has always helped in making friends or getting a date, but a recent survey confirms it also opens doors in the job search. When presented with accounting or finance candidates who possess similar qualifications, 31 percent of chief financial officers (CFOs) interviewed said applicants’ people skills would tip the balance over such attributes as software proficiency and advanced certifications. This is up significantly from five years ago when interpersonal skills were cited by only 1 percent of respondents.

New research from the Melbourne Business School in Australia suggests that when it comes to negotiation, niceness is not always the best policy - it could mean one party is actually being deceiving. The study links the art of negotiation with different human emotions, including anger, anxiety and pleasantries.

In a business environment that remains tumultuous, companies with highly effective internal communication programs are better placed to keep employees engaged and retain key talent, according to a new survey by Watson Wyatt, a leading global consulting firm. "As the economy continues to shift, keeping employees up-to-date on how the company is responding, and how they are affected, will help insure against their becoming demoralized and disconnected," said Kathryn Yates, global leader of communication consulting at Watson Wyatt. "Effective communication helps engage employees, and that has positive implications for productivity and the bottom line."

Some people are terrified to speak in public or in front of a group. These simple steps can help you do better at it, even if you don't like it.

Many people who perform well in business development don’t really understand what makes them effective, and tend to attribute their success to personal characteristics. You often hear high performers say, “It’s just my natural approach. I don’t like to analyse it in case I spoil it.” There is always the suspicion that another reason why high performers don’t want to make the secret of their skill too public is that they might lose their scarcity value!

So-called "soft skills" have taken a much higher profile in recent decades, especially since emotional intelligence has been shown to be a key indicator for identifying top performers. Yet some personality types still have a tough time grasping the value of soft skills, let alone the skills themselves.

The more “self-connected” employees are – more resistant to stress, dare to use their intuition in decision-making, accept the unpredictability of modern business life, are emotionally stable and sincere, with good old-fashioned integrity - the better their performance, shows a Krauthammer study. Employees want their organisations to be more focused on people and social implications, less on shareholders, money and tangible success, the study reveals. “This research is shouting a message we fail to take seriously enough; we urgently need to reach consensus on a currency that does not measure the wealth but the health of businesses; a currency that is strong enough to compete with money”, says Ronald Meijers, Co-chairman of the Board of Krauthammer.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) have unearthed the key marketable skills for job seekers, by conducting an online poll of over 100 HR professionals as well as drawing from the results of the quarterly Employee Outlook survey of over 3,000 employees. Both groups identified transferable/flexible skills as the key attribute applicants should be demonstrating in the current climate: in the HR poll, almost half agreed (45%), while in the employee group, 47% identified such skills as the most marketable.

When the Ontario government banned thousands of its employees from using the social networking site Facebook during work a couple of years ago, opponents of the move argued the workers were deprived of a powerful tool. Recent research from Nicole Haggerty, an assistant professor of information systems at the Richard Ivey School of Business, now shows that online activities result in skills that are valuable in the workplace.

If you think technical skill is all you need for a career in IT, think again. Expectations for IT employees are changing. IT recruitment firm Robert Half Technology has seen interest in soft skills grow considerably over the last couple years, according to division director Igor Abramovitch. Strong technical skills are no longer enough, he said. Businesses are trying to avoid seeing IT as just a cost centre, he explained. "They want IT to be intertwined with the business and contribute to the bottom line. They're looking for workers who have the business acumen and communications skills to deal with the other departments and communicate effectively to make sure the business goals are met," he said.

Das Unternehmen befragte Manager in Deutschland zu ihren Erfahrungen und Einschätzungen bezüglich der Meetingkultur in Deutschland. Rund 40% sehen Meetings als Zeitverschwendung an. 38% der Befragten monierten eine fehlende Fixierung der Meetingergebnisse und eine klare Aufgabenverteilung für alle Teilnehmer. Mehr als 30% sind auf eigene Mitschriften angewiesen, da nicht professionell protokolliert wird.

New research suggests that diverse teams can be less effective than homogenous teams because team members are more focused on finding commonality with each other than arriving at the best solution. Diversity training can sometimes be a hindrance, while biased managers can also be a factor.

Ask a child to choose between ice cream and chocolate cake. The answer is usually "both". Adults are much the same. We don't want the disadvantages of our choices. We want cheaper and better, cars without pollution, not cars or pollution, more lending and less debt, less risk and greater returns, more time and more money.

Almost half the leaders of the UK’s largest projects and programmes say their teams don’t have the sufficient skills required to do their jobs successfully, a new survey has revealed.

It is practically a mantra of modern management that the first task in dealing with a situation is to define the problem accurately. Only after managers have done that can they hope to get all team members "on the same page." It's widely felt that without agreement on the problem we will be unable to succeed.But there are problems with the way managers and groups approach problems. The first is that we rush to identify the problem so that we can get on with the real work of solving it, which can lead down a costly or disruptive path. There is seldom a single correct formulation for the interesting issues that face managers. Yet the particular path chosen affects the solution produced.

Employability is a concept that has joined the mainstream of individual, human resources and national policy vocabulary. It has been summoned as the means by which individuals can cope with changing employment conditions, organisations can maintain their ability to adapt and succeed and the nation can enhance its competitiveness.

This is an old topic, covered by thousands of authors and experts, yet the problem persists: hectic work schedules point to the need for balance and time management. In his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey developed a “Time Management Matrix” to help time-crunched professionals make effective choices.

You’ve probably heard and read a fair bit about Emotional Intelligence. There’s a lot of information out there. But what is it and where has the idea come from? Emotional Intelligence is not a fad or a passing trend but the end result of years of research into what makes people tick. In the words of EI expert Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence is: "The capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships."

While scholars can describe how people make decisions, and can envision how much better decision-making could be, they still have little understanding of how to help people overcome blind spots and behave optimally. Chugh (New York University), Milkman, and Bazerman (both Harvard University) organize the scattered knowledge that judgment and decision-making scholars have amassed over several decades about how to reduce biased decision-making. Their analysis of the existing literature on improvement strategies is designed to highlight the most promising avenues for future research.

Listening is defined as: "knowing what others have said and meant to say, and leaving people comfortable that they have had their say." This does not necessarily mean you agree with what was said, but rather that you used the following basic listening skills.

The problem with lateness is that it's more contagious than punctuality. Punctual people know too well the unfair advantage of dawdlers, diddlers and piddlers: One late person can dictate the schedule of many colleagues. This drives reasonable people to a spitting madness and the belief "better never than late."

Whether we're aware of it or not, our deeper voices of wisdom and intuition are continually sending us messages. The question is whether or not we are listening. And that depends on our level of conscious awareness.

A new study reports that employees who have confidence in five key personal effectiveness skills areas are happiest at work. The study promises to be of interest to both employees and employers. These five areas are: teamworking skills, communication skills, leadership skills, team-management skills and stress-management skills.

We're all familiar with the concept of emotional intelligence, but what about spiritual intelligence?

You've decided to embark on a job search, with a clear focus and a considered game plan. So far it's been a breeze; you know what you’re looking for, where you’re likely to find it, and how you’re going to get it. But then you come to the job application and you hit a wall. You understand how to accentuate your employment history, like where you’ve worked and what your job titles were, but you’re not sure how to demonstrate why you’re suitable for the job itself.

Creativity, a quality more traditionally associated with artistic endeavors, has been slow to find its acknowledged place in the business world. Yet any entrepreneur can attest to the creative power required to build an organization where none existed before. "Look, I made a hat…/Where there never was a hat," sings Georges Seurat in the musical Sunday in the Park with George, a fictionalized account of the French pointillist painter, and it's easy to imagine Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey humming the same tune. But if creativity is integral to business, and to entrepreneurship in particular, how exactly does it occur? Where does this unicorn-like creature come from, and what exotic conditions will help it thrive in captivity?

An overwhelming majority of surveyed school superintendents who educate future workers and employers who hire them agree that creativity is increasingly important in U.S. workplaces, according to key findings issued from a forthcoming report by The Conference Board and Americans for the Arts, in partnership with the American Association of School Administrators.

The modern executive must learn an entirely new set of skills to direct and motivate people worldwide in the age of e-mail, voice mail, instant messaging, telecommuting, and computer conferencing, according to survey results.

What two years ago may have been a “nice-to-have” skill, effective communication is an undisputed necessity for any pro looking to move up the corporate ladder. But what exactly does it encompass these days? Are the elements that make up a sound set of “soft skills” teachable, or are some lucky ones simply born with them and others left to struggle through as best they can?

During a normal business day, we have countless verbal interactions that we take for granted. But the simplest communication should not be overlooked. The language you incorporate in your business relationships can have a tremendous impact on your success. Well-handled verbal responses strengthen your visibility in the workplace and showcase your upper-management potential.

Professionals continually lose in negotiations with clients. As a result, they are chronically understaffed, lack the right resources and often need to meet unrealistic deadlines. Rather than taking charge of this dismal situation, many seem to conclude that that's just how life is.

Not knowing when to fire someone, poor communication skills and expecting too much from staff all add up to make a bad business leader. Here are the top 10 mistakes bosses can make.

Roger Sperry, a Nobel Prize winner in physiology, found that the cerebral cortex of the brain has two hemispheres, with the right side appearing dominant in rhythm, spatial awareness, gestalt (wholeness), imagination, dreaming, colour, and dimension; and the left side appearing dominant in words, logic, numbers, sequence, linearity, analysis, and lists. By stimulating both right and left hemispheres, a mind map has greater power to evoke human memories than ordinary notes do.

Reden lernt man bekanntlich am besten durch reden. Deshalb: Gute Tricks und Tipps von guten Rednern kann man nie genug hören. In der Kommunikationswissenschaft ist bekannt: Die besten Redner sind meist auch gute Zuhörer. Ein wichtiger Profi-Tipp für alle Redner lautet: Stets Ungewöhnliches mit gewöhnlichen Worten sagen und niemals Gewöhnliches mit ungewöhnlichen Worten. Dieser Tipp stammt übrigens von keinem Geringeren als dem berühmten Philosophen Arthur Schopenhauer.

Hard work is a virtue. If you work hard, you'll achieve your goals. If you work even harder, you'll achieve even more. But there are, in fact, several downsides to working too hard. Being the office workaholic can cost you coveted promotions, hurt your home life, and even turn friends into enemies. Evaluate yourself with the following five questions.

Eine Expedition bricht ins Eismeer auf. Im Sommer 1914 verschwindet sie beinahe aus der Welt, um fast hundert Jahre später in der Managementliteratur wieder aufzutauchen. Das Charisma des Expeditionsleiters, dem legendären Antarktis-Forscher Sir Ernest Shackleton, ist schon zu Lebzeiten berühmt. Bei seinem Namen schwingt oft ein wenig Mystik mit. Shackletons fulminante "Endurance"-Expedition, ein Schiffbruch ohnegleichen und seine Rettung, ist das kühnste Abenteuer des 20. Jahrhunderts. Die phänomenalste Geschichte der Antarktisforschung, an Dramatik kaum zu überbieten, machte den Fehler zum Ereignis. Shackletons Bedeutung beruht heute vielleicht mehr auf den Fähigkeiten seiner Führungskunst als auf seinen Erfolgen als Polarforscher.

The days of being employed by one company for your entire career are over. In today's fast-moving economy, the average job tenure is between three to five years; in other words, three to five years after landing a job, you might be looking for another opportunity. Therefore, you need to continue to build your network and sharpen your skills for your next career move.

Langfristige Planung und strategische Weiterentwicklung sind entscheidend für die Umsatzentwicklung eines Unternehmens. Wer sie vernachlässigt, muss mit Verlusten rechnen. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt eine Umfrage der Steria Mummert Consulting unter 170 deutschen Fach- und Führungskräften.Demnach räumten 57 Prozent der deutschen Firmen der strategischen Planung zur Steuerung der Geschäftsaktivitäten eine hohe Priorität ein. Nur 15 Prozent waren der Analyse zufolge der Ansicht, man könne die Konzeption einer Unternehmensstrategie vernachlässigen. Bei diesen sei der Umsatz in den letzten drei Jahren allerdings auch zurückgegangen.

With the changing times, the face of the corporate world is also changing, wherein the need-of-the-hour is to have state-of-the-art professionals who are agile enough to meet the growing demands of the industry. These professionals, if trained properly, can gain amazing dexterity in dealing with various on- the-job situations. Each individual carries within himself/herself a mine of potentials, which if tapped properly can create astonishing results. A trained personnel is better equipped than an untrained one as s/he is professionally trained to handle pressures, whereas an untrained individual valiantly learns by trial and error.

A lack of good negotiation skills can hold back career advancement - and worse. The most popular topics for students are how to get a raise, and how to deal with a bad boss. Here are five bullet points about negotiations that you should know:

The top headhunting companies only deal with candidates who are very senior, yet their clients still find it necessary to request "strong communication skills" as a key requirement when they undertake a search. Although this may seem a redundant request - after all, surely good communication skills go hand-in-hand with a certain level of professionalism and experience - it is not. Good communication is as much about listening and presentation as it is about imparting knowledge.