The Secret to a Perfect Training Programme is Hidden in Everyday Life

By Riccarda Zezza, CEO, Life Based Value

The digital age is changing the workforce. While the use of machines is on the rise, human ‘soft skills’ offer a valuable competitive advantage.

However, there are still obstacles in developing these skills. Global work organization expert Lynda Gratton recently outlined the below concerns in her recent MIT Sloane Management Review article:

1) The school system doesn’t teach these skills. It’s stuck in a framework that prepared us for the challenges of the first industrial revolution (i.e. sit still, memorize and obey the rules)

2) Technology doesn’t exercise them, it eliminates them. Alexa never gets offended.

3) Workplaces create stressful conditions. To the point that it inhibits people developing them and using them well.

Fortunately, there are training programs that register corporate investment of over 175 billion dollars every year in the United States alone. Are they useful? Not for Gratton, who suggests “Unlike many cognitive skills, social skills cannot be learned in a rule-based way — there is no specifiable path to social effectiveness. Building job-related social skills for a work environment requires an immersive learning experience, rehearsed in situations as close as possible to the real job, with lots of opportunities for practice. Practice creates the muscle of habit”.

So, we need an immersive experience that simulates real-life situations, with opportunities to continually practise skills and “create the muscle of habit”. Classroom training programs would be very expensive, without enough time to repeatedly simulate semi-real situations. Professor Gratton explores emerging virtual reality practices as a new way to learn soft skills.

An Italian father recently shared an innovative proposal. Mirko Cafaro is a communications manager, and found the perfect coach to be his baby daughter. They trained 10 essential skills through daily, continuous and immersive soft skills practice with immediate feedback. He articulated them so beautifully that I wanted to share them with you too.

1) Operating under pressure. No boss will pressure you like a screaming, hungry baby can (while you’re frantically trying to warm her milk).

2) Organisation. Going out is a complex puzzle. There’s no check-list to make sure you’ve got all the essentials (water, milk, diapers, etc.). Corporate events? A simple protocol.

3) Intuition. If you find anticipating your boss’ needs challenging, try understanding your child’s immediate needs. When they can’t speak, you need to use trial and error.

4) Managing the unexpected. Try counting the variables of a work commitment. Done? Now multiply the calculation for a family context.

5) Prioritisation. It’s your child who dictates the agenda, in their own way. These priorities will be far greater than anything in the office.

6) Negotiation. It’s easier to ask for a raise than get a response from a child who is engrossed in their favorite cartoon.

7) Improvisation. With experience and expertise, improvisation is useful in any profession. With a child, it’s like tightrope walking without a safety net.

8) Precision. Nothing compares to delicately placing your child in bed, after cradling them for a long time, avoiding any noise or movement that might wake them.

9) Waiting for feedback. After the first interactions with your child, you’ll soon realise that giving no feedback at all will have the same scale and impact in a professional context too.

10) Conflict management. This is honed with the more children you have. Try to explain to a child that they can’t claim everything as their own or assert their wants with considerable physical strength.

In short, Mirko’s company has freely and unknowingly acquired the best soft skills trainer there is: Mirko’s daughter. What do you think? Is it time to start using our “true” reality better?