Soft Skills "Survey"

In a survey conducted by our team members titled “Soft skills & E-learning” with Professor L. David Brown (Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government) when he visited the AIT last month he answered:

What do soft skills mean to you?

Soft skills are personal skills, emotional skills, and managerial skills. It is different from hard science capacities.

Are soft skills as important as “Hard skills”?

Sure, they are a lot more important in our social life (at home). Technical people might require more hard skills than soft skills to carry out their jobs, but soft skills are of so importance if they want to pursue managerial positions.

Do you believe that soft skills can be taught through internet means (E-learning)?

Its hard, soft skills cannot be broadcasted; it should be transferred through interactive learning (i.e. face to face)

When you interview a possible employee or a student, how do you measure his/her soft skills generally?

CVs would tell something but not so much. Direct questions, body language and oral interaction will tell a lot more.

Do you recommend AIT to include core subject about “Soft skills” in its curriculum?

Yes very much recommended. In the MPA and MBA of Harvard business school, we have core courses about leadership, negotiation and other soft skills.

Tomorrow we will publish Professor G. Yovanof 's Answers (Visit us again)!

Enjoy & Learn,

Amjad Alqaisi

"Twelve Angry Men" The Art of negotiation

"Twelve Angry Men" movie used by Harvard University in their course (The Art and Science of Negotiation) by Professor Brian Mandell, we learned a lot during the 3 full days course. Most of days were a real scenarios training plus watching and analyzing the movie.
The movie is basically about 12 random jurors from different backgrounds are summoned to give a verdict on a case concerning murder in the first degree. The vote has to be unanimous. The penalty for the guilty verdict is the death sentence. An 18-year-old boy accused of stabbing his father. All the jurors but one decide the young boy is guilty within the first few minutes of the film. Yet a few questions from one daring person, (Jack Lemmon) changes every thing slowly but steadily, the jurors' opinion sways, due to the very same factors that clinched the verdict of 'guilty' in the initial scenes. Finally all twelve jurors acquit the boy of the crime.

Lessons learned from the course
-You need to know when is a NO is not a real NO.
-People will not change their mind until they feel save to change.
-When negotiate people usually are (an ally, adversary or recruitable), so try to figure them out. It will make your job easy.
-When negotiating try to build a coalitions.
-During the negotiations others will try to pursuit your allies. So you have to be careful.
-Never leave the important things that need to be discussed until the end (endgame).

Enjoy negotiating,
Fadi and the team.