Over 70 years ago, Napoleon Hill realized that success for businesses comes from the people within those organizations. However, many organizations still fail to grasp this realization because soft or people skills still are viewed as secondary to job specific skills.

One of the executive coaching activities that I employ when working organizations through a change management process is to ask these three questions and listen to the responses:

1. When a person is promoted here at XYZ Company, it is usually because of her or his job specific skills or people skills? Usually 99% will agree that promotions are because of the job specific mastery.

2. As a person is promoted up the management ladder, what skills will that individual need? Job specific ones from the initial promotion or interpersonal (people) ones? Again, 99% will agree that interpersonal skills are primary to the success of that individual while job specific skills are secondary.

3. Within your organization as you promote your people, where is the focus on the training and development? People skills (what some call soft skills) or job specific skills? And once again, 99% will respond to job specific skills.

Then all of a sudden, the light bulb appears almost magically over the heads of many within the room. Management suddenly understands part of the reason for the difficulties or gaps in creating winning business teams and realizing success.

People development from individuals to team building is a necessary strategy to close the gap between planning and execution within the change management process. Those interpersonal or soft skills are much more critical to the success of any organization and can quickly turn a positive cash balance into a negative one. Remember, the old adage, people dont leave companies, they leave managers. To improve your management team and increase your business wins begins by assessing your business goals and including the necessary people development processes to catapult you ahead of your competition.

P.S. Read the first article in this series.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Good Day. Thanks for visiting. I hope that you have enjoyed my articles. In 1999, I founded ADVANCED SYSTEMS because I saw that performance could and should be doubled in warp time. Individuals, small and large businesses could not afford expensive solutions that may or may not deliver improved results in 12 months.

From my corporate, small business and education experiences, I recognized the individuals must have opportunities for connecting their passion to their purpose to secure the desired performance results, but many lacked the necessary skills, strategies and tools.

With over 20 years in sales management and 10 years in education, I understand how to unite productivity with profitability by developing a proactive working culture. My previous experiences resulted in cost savings through one of the first implementations of a computer software in a wholesaler distributor to the creation of a vendor performance assessment.

Since facilitating over 500 sessions, developing and editing over 25 training programs and writing numerous articles focusing on performance improvement, I bring a results focused approach to my clients. Also, I am proud to be one of the first five nationally certified facilitators of America?s Rising Stars (a Student Leadership developmental curriculum).

My passion is to help others connect their passion to their purpose to double performance. As The small business coach in Chicago, my clients have easily doubled their performance. Since our greatest resource is our young people, I am now working with large urban schools to generate the same results.

Education Background

• Graduated with honors from Purdue University with a B.A. in Education
• Earned M.S. from Purdue University in Instructional Design and Curriculum
• Published in the national trade journal, The Supply House Times, and numerous national newsletters
• Developed seminars and training on diversity, communication, leadership, sales, effective trade show behavior, networking, knowledge management, goal setting and improved educational outcomes
• Co-authored M.A.G.I.C.A.L. Potential: 7 Capicities for Living an Amazing Life Beyond Purpose to Achievement, to be available in 2006
• Working a another book focusing on performance in public education
• Speaker in a national bureau - Resource Associates Corporation