Building loyal and trusted relationships with business partners, providers, and clients is critical to the success of any organization. Those relationships facilitate being able to break down complex issues to identify accurate and timely solutions. Having someone who has technical expertise in a particular area is critical for that process, but soft skills and qualities are also  indispensable for building and maintaining those relationships. As such, when hiring new team members, it is vital to ensure candidates have both the technical and soft skills needed to enable the success of the organization, its partners, and its clients. 

In this 3-part series, we will explore eight skills and qualities the Lynx team have learned are indispensable when it comes to expanding our team. These are lessons learned from lived professional experience and from participating in programs like the  UBC PMP Program.  In Part 1, we will talk about intrapersonal skills, or personal attributes, that ensure our team is working together effectively. In Part 2, we will discuss interpersonal soft skills that we look for and foster in our team. In Part 3, we’ll explore qualities that straddle the divide between intrapersonal and interpersonal. 

1. Attitude of Learning

At Lynx, we believe that anyone in our organization can be a source of learning. Although a  lot of learning is done through mentorship, which  is focused on senior staff supporting junior staff,  we’ve found that learning is a two way street. By keeping an open mind, we’re able to learn from each other, and benefit from each other’s experience. This helps us to provide higher quality support to our clients and partners, as staff are always learning and expanding their areas of expertise.

An attitude of learning means being open to constructive feedback and  to new ideas. This helps ensure any new opportunities, concerns, and/or complaints are considered and addressed. This mindset can help prevent conflict before it happens, and can facilitate problem solving and collaboration, which will be discussed later in this series. 

2. Time management

Managing time well requires the ability to assess priorities, stay focused, and to plan well. Planning also encompasses qualities like self awareness, and pragmatism. Self awareness is required to have a sense of how long a task will take. Pragmatism is necessary to make sure time estimates have some leeway for when things don’t go exactly as planned. 

One of the tools some Lynx staff have found useful for time management is the Getting Things Done approach. This approach consists of 5 main components:

  1. Collect – collecting information and putting it in a central place saves the time and hassle of having to go out and track down important information later. 
  2. Process – once information is collected in as few collection buckets as is reasonable, it is necessary to process the information and make sure it’s dealt with properly.
  3. Organize – Once all elements are processed, they should be organized based on categories including but not limited to reference materials, calendar events, waiting for someone else to act, and next steps. 
  4. Review – It is critical to review items in your in-basket to identify and address any loose ends.  
  5. Do – This system helps organize information so that it’s easier to identify next steps, and priorities. As such, the last step in this system is to act on those priorities and next steps.