Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

So, soft skill number one is being able to imagine the experience from the other party’s point of view.

So you’re the leader listening to this podcast, and therefore you have new people joining your organization and you’re delegating to various people. Your’re appraising people from time to time, you have to manage somebody out, which is a nice way of saying they’re getting fired. You are doing everything that you’re doing as the leader. You know what you need to achieve. You know the performance that you want to enjoy from the people who work for you or report up to you. Can you actually imagine what it’s like to be in their shoes?

And so an easy example is imagine the person who comes to work on the first day and you can say, “Well, that’s HR’s job to handle all of the recruitment, the interviewing, the contracting. And, you know, I’ll deal with that person when they come on the first day.” Okay. So when they come on the first day, what kind of experience do you want to create for them? What kind of experience do you want them to have such that when they go home at the end of the first day and the people at home, which could be their spouse, their family, goes “So how’s the new job?” What do you want them to say? At the end of the first week, what would be a real win for you as the leader and for your organization, for that new employee to say, I know if I was you in that leadership position, I’d want them to go, “I can’t believe how fortunate I am. I just joined the most amazing organization.”

Okay, now think about what do they actually experience on that first day or on that first week. You don’t get a second chance to make that kind of a positive first impression. And I’m going to give you just one example of one person, one leader around the world and one organization who created this practice. “Oh, my gosh, this is genius.” At the end of the first day, the leader calls together everybody in that department. And it’s a ritual, so they know what’s coming. And they see the new employee right in the middle of the group, and everybody piles into the picture, and somebody who’s not in the department takes the photograph. So it’s a department photo with the new person in the center, and then they print out two color copies of that right away just before everybody goes home. And they pass it around, and every single person in the department signs it with their name. So it’ll say something like, “Welcome to the team- Sara.” “Glad you joined us- Frank.” You know, “Welcome aboard- Bobby.” Whatever. Next to each of their names. Two of them.

Now, one of them goes into that person’s work area. So the next day when they come to work, they’re looking at a picture of the team with everyone’s name. They’re all smiling. And me, I’m the new guy. I’m sitting in the middle. Well, that’s where one of them go, “Where did the other one go?” That other picture with everybody’s smiling, with me in the middle, and everybody’s name goes home with the employee that night. And so they say, “How was work?” And you’re going, “Oh, man, you got to look at these people. Look at…” Now you’ve got the entire family on board. Now how much did that cost? Nothing. How long did it take? A few extra minutes. Yeah. What did it do for the spirit of the new employee? “Oh, my gosh.” And what did it do even for the spirit of the other people who now welcome the employee on board? It’s a ritual. It’s something special. That’s where we work. Those kinds of attention to the other person’s experience, their point of view is a number one soft skill for leaders.