ATD Soft Skills

Elevate Your Impact Through Influence Skills At work, we often find ourselves in situations where we can and do influence others. We are negotiators, persuaders, conciliators, and maybe intermediaries and mediators. While there used to be little to no emphasis placed on developing these skills, organizations now recognize the ability to influence as critical for effective employee relations and productivity. Part of the ATD Soft Skills Series, Influence in Talent Development examines the growing importance of personal influence at work and its impact on your relationships, career, and organizational success. Talent development professionals have a tremendous opportunity to influence at a deeper level-with learners, SMEs, and stakeholders-to achieve business and learning results. This book considers what it means to influence in general and in the TD context, how to use your ability to influence tactically and strategically, how to overcome barriers to success, and how you can be more impactful and empathetic. Vivian Blade shares a framework of five powerful principles at work to guide and expand influence: social capital, courage, authenticity, passion, and engagement. Engage the principles in this book to build your influence among your colleagues and employees, and you will be more effective at getting things done with others. Other books in the series: • Adaptability in Talent Development • Emotional Intelligence in Talent Development • Creativity in Talent Development • Teamwork in Talent Development

Boost Your Adaptability Adaptability is a critical skill for leadership capability, career potential, and working relationships. Therefore, it is vital for talent development (TD) professionals who face countless situations that test their ability to adapt-from reacting to unplanned modifications in the training they design, to implementing new learning technologies, to adjusting to their organization's shifting needs. Part of the ATD Soft Skills Series, Adaptability in Talent Development will empower you to build career resiliency by matching your technical expertise with newfound soft skill abilities. TD expert Esther Jackson takes you through a process of raising your self-awareness and developing an adaptive mindset. This means embracing feedback, recognizing your mistakes, and turning them into learning and development moments. You will discover ways to get out of your comfort zone, welcome chances to innovate or disrupt and embrace new projects. By the end, you will be equipped to level up your TD efforts and adapt your career for whatever comes next. Included are guiding questions and tools to build your adaptability value proposition for whatever TD role you may hold. Other books in the series: • Emotional Intelligence in Talent Development • Creativity in Talent Development • Teamwork in Talent Development • Influence in Talent Development

Develop Your Teamwork Skills Teamwork allows us to engage in important work, and teams hold immense power. Those on teams share perspectives, brainstorm ideas, and produce results beyond what's possible alone. With organizations relying increasingly on teams to deliver impact, teamwork skills are needed more than ever. Part of the ATD Soft Skills Series, Teamwork in Talent Development is for talent development professionals who serve as team leaders or team members and wish to improve their collaboration abilities, build successful teams, and maximize their team performance for solving business problems, meeting learning needs, promoting culture change, and more. In this book, you will learn what teamwork means, why teams and teamwork skills matter, and how to overcome common challenges related to teaming. Organization development expert Thane Bellomo introduces a model for how you can form teams and develop your teamwork skills. It starts with framing the work around clear and important goals. This positions you and the team to encourage curiosity and build trust while you embrace conflict and engage in (healthy) conflict. Included are detailed takeaways and advice for applying the concepts. Other books in the series: • Emotional Intelligence in Talent Development • Adaptability in Talent Development • Creativity in Talent Development • Influence in Talent Development

Grow Your Creativity Skills Creativity is a natural and renewable resource that exists in every person and helps us inspire, communicate, persevere, problem solve, rise to the occasion, and spark innovation. Creativity skills can be developed, nurtured, and cultivated. In the talent development context, TD professionals apply creativity to build personal capability and competitiveness, create talent opportunities, solve talent problems, and address business and learning needs for organizations. Part of the ATD Soft Skills Series, Creativity in Talent Development offers a purposeful and practical way to become more creative. This book defines creativity and outlines how you can smash organizational, team, and personal barriers, and it will have you unleashing your inner creative and inspiring creativity in others. Creativity and innovation experts Donna Porter and Nancy Tennant guide you through a creativity journey and development process to help you rediscover your curiosity and grow your abilities. Learn how to support creative habits, design environments for creativity, and master dynamic delivery for virtual events. You will be ready to use your creativity skills to ideate and initiate a new learning product or service or reimagine how the TD function operates. Included are creativity journal exercises for you to practice and develop your creativity skills. Other books in the series: • Emotional Intelligence in Talent Development • Adaptability in Talent Development • Teamwork in Talent Development • Influence in Talent Development

Enhance Your Emotional Intelligence Emotional intelligence is about people. And so is talent development (TD). For TD professionals to succeed, they must be comfortable with all aspects of working with people. The best tool for their success is emotional intelligence. Part of the ATD Soft Skills Series, Emotional Intelligence in Talent Development is your resource for developing your emotional intelligence skills. Expert Patrick Malone explains emotional intelligence and explores its five dimensions: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. He examines why emotional intelligence matters to the self, to organizations, and to your business, along with the barriers you face when building these competencies. While improving your emotional intelligence can seem daunting, Malone demonstrates that developing strong emotional intelligence is attainable by examining real-world challenges that TD professionals face. Learn how to manage the stress of constantly doing more with less, focus on one task at a time and do it well, effectively communicate your message, and identify and address conflict. Included are reflection questions and exercises to practice and test your development. Other books in the series: • Adaptability in Talent Development • Creativity in Talent Development • Teamwork in Talent Development • Influence in Talent Development