What Skills Do You Want To Improve For Yourself?

There are many tools out there where you can access individual courses and resources While there’s some benefit in taking the initiative to learn about these concepts in an individualistic way, people often struggle to apply these learnings to their work environment. They don’t change their behavior, and as a result, those skills aren’t actually being developed. It’s one thing to know something in theory – the ability to translate what you learn and turn it into practice and behavior is where isolated learning fails.

We at SkillCycle always say it takes a village to upskill. The reason for this is because people learn best when they have the support and accountability of others to keep them on track – specifically from their direct manager. Across the board, negotiation is one of the most underdeveloped skills – even for those at the management and leadership level. Negotiation is often uncomfortable, which means it’s easy to avoid doing it if you don’t have someone supporting you and pushing you to do it. The best way to meaningfully develop these skills is to practice and turn those behaviors into habits. Until you do it over and over again, both successfully and unsuccessfully, you won’t fully develop these skills, which are critical for driving real change and advocating for yourself and others in the workplace. When you master negotiation, you can do things like implement the strategies you believe in, earn a higher salary, and advocate for the people who need it.

If you want to be a better negotiator, you need to become more comfortable asking for things. In one of my past roles as a Talent Acquisition Manager, I had an ongoing weekly challenge for my team: Ask for something you don’t think you’re entitled to. I encouraged people to do things like ask for a free donut with their coffee order, ask for $10 off their internet bill, ask for a free ride on the bus, etc. The key was to get them comfortable with the ask, with the rejection, and empowered by the reward when it works. It was very low stakes meaning they weren’t putting themselves in a compromising position if it didn’t work out, and it had nothing to do with their position in the organization. But let me tell you, kicking off those weekly team meetings with everyone telling their negotiation stories for the week was always a great way to bond, celebrate wins, drive healthy competition, and encourage each other to keep going through rejection. Not so coincidentally, my team had candidate close rates well above industry standard, and they were able to close executive level candidates on their own without needing me to take over and do it for them.

SkillCycle is an upskilling solution that drives meaningful behavior change and skill development in your employees. We’re driving the future of work by ensuring no employee gets behind and companies aren’t losing money due to underdeveloped talent.