ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on non-technical skills to enhance communication and team work and also to generate a positive and supportive environment. The first thing to say about soft skills or non-technical skills is that, as ever, it’s not entirely about the skills themselves. A key element of the power of non-technical skills is that, at heart, it’s about encouraging habits that lead to empathy and understanding. Almost every organisation the authors have ever surveyed has come back with ‘management non-technical skills are weak’. Wherever an organisation is at present, though, the ‘grift’ principle applies. Double the number of times the following non-technical tools and techniques are applied and that organisation’s culture will be transformed. By far the biggest issue with negative feedback is either that it’s the only sort used or, in many organisations, the utter lack of it – known as ‘blind eye’ syndrome.
