Podcast 6: Nexus Soft Skills Backing One-On-One Interactions

Hosts Dr. Tobin Porterfield and Bob Graham discuss the soft skills
necessary to foster good one-on-one communications.
Bob Graham ‘0:00': Coming we're going to talk about the specific
soft skills that can make or break your discussion with another
person. That and more in just a few seconds.
The Opening
Graham ‘0:17': Welcome to Episode 6 of Serious Soft Skills. I am
Bob Graham and with me is Dr. Tobin Porterfield. We each teach
college, we collaborate on researching soft skills and we have both
used and seen others use soft skills in a variety of jobs over our
careers. We think that experience and expertise give us a unique
lens to look at soft skills through. And that's what we are about
to do.
Podcast Housekeeping
Graham ‘0:48': But first, Toby, I need to do some housekeeping. I
was doing some driving earlier today and I happened to listen to
our Episode 5 in the car. I know. It sounds very self-absorbed or
something. I just wanted to see how it sounded in a car because I
hadn't done that. It's now available as a podcast on iTunes so I
was able to download it, which was cool. I was fascinated when I
realized that I could play my voice at 1.5 or 2 times the speed or
at half speed. I won't tell you that I almost crashed my car while
I was doing it. But I almost crashed my car doing it. I wanted to
share that with our listeners. You can actually accelerate our
voices and get through our 18-20 minute podcasts in as few as 10-12
minutes. 
Where You Can Find Us
Graham ‘1:50': One last thing, Toby: You can also see our episodes,
literally see them. We have videos of each of these podcasts on our
website, SeriousSoftSkills.com. You can also see our show notes for
each show there. We have elaborate show notes for each show. I am
literally writing out a lot of what we do in each show. It's taking
a bit of time, but they are really great show notes. I find when I
am putting them together, I get some new insights from what we say.
Those show notes are for each episode and they are on the
Blog/Podcast tab on SeriousSoftSkills.com. We also write some blog
posts there, as well, on other topics related to soft skills.
Framing Our Discussion
Graham ‘2:34': Let's get on with the show. Toby, why don't you
start things off and frame where we are here in the whole world of
soft skills because we are working through them over a series of
episodes, starting with Episode 5.
Dr. Tobin Porterfield ‘2:45': We last time laid out the Individual
soft skills, those skills that are really critical for a person to
engage successfully in their work environment. Things like taking
responsibility, being responsive, being a learner. There was a long
list, almost 20, and we have that list available on our website.
But those type of skills that are really about the individual.
Today, we wanted to stretch that out further and look at how people
engage one-on-one with others in the work situation. So we have
that next layer and we have used the term Nexus to describe this. I
am going to throw it back to you to explain the term Nexus, which
they might not have heard before.
What Are Nexus Soft Skills?
Graham ‘3:27': Nexus, if you know anything about the word Nexus, is
a word I had not used a lot. But I had seen it. It's actually a
connection between people or things. In our use of it, it fits
perfectly with this one-on-one communication because we are really
talking about that connection between one person and another
person. Just as you said before, but I want to underscore it, we
are not saying that all soft skills are related to one-on-one
communications. We are breaking the soft skills into four different
catego...

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