Earlier articles like Roles needed in an intranet team highlight the hard skills required to deliver successful intranets. And without doubt these will often differentiate success from failure. But nurturing the ‘softer’ interpersonal skills in the team can also make a dramatic difference to intranet outcomes. For example technical skills will not get consensus from stakeholders on how the homepage should look.

Those who feel that softer skills are difficult and sometimes alien are likely to struggle with:

• building and maintaining stakeholder relationships and networks
• coaching and inspiring others
• building trust during periods of change
• using people-centred research techniques such as interviewing, focus groups, facilitated workshops or anecdote circles

Perhaps the single most valuable skill to bring into all of these situations is listening. Indeed, listening is one of the most powerful tools to deliver effective people-centred outcomes, personal as well as organisational.

[April article by Stephen Byrne, read the full article]