Working paper

Soft skills to innovate and transform organizations

Uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity are at the heart of modern societies. Transformations are accelerating and represent an inescapable challenge for all organizations, public and private. The solution is often sought through tools, processes and organization charts, whereas it is first and foremost a collective effort by men and women.

Published on : 03/05/2022

Temps de lecture

2 minutes

Thus, a better understanding of innovation and transformation in organizations requires, on the one hand, an understanding of the individual, collective and environmental characteristics of the actors who contribute to it and, on the other hand, an understanding of the specific skills of innovators. Many of these skills are not technical or professional, but socio-behavioral in nature. The objective of the1 study is to understand which of these transversal competencies, or soft skills, are mobilized by these men and women in order to innovate and lead the transformation of their organizations. Training men and women, our talents, to recognize and develop their soft skills, and engaging and preparing teams to drive transformation and innovation are major challenges, as they are vectors of growth, competitiveness and employment. It is a question of moving France further ahead in the knowledge economy.

To this end, after six years of research and the analysis of 364 manager profiles, the work presented combines the points of view of personality psychology, management sciences and sociology. This work identifies and evaluates the skills and work contexts that promote or hinder innovation and transformation, both at the individual and collective levels. It is based on original empirical material collected in France between 2015 and 2020 from companies and innovators.

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[1] This working paper synthesizes the research work done by Brieuc du Roscoät, Romaric Servajean-Hilst, Sébastien Bauvet and Rémi Lallement (2022), Soft skills related to innovation and organizational transformation. How to act in uncertainty?,Institut pour la transformation et l’innovation, March. The purpose of their distribution is to stimulate debate and provide food for thought. The opinions and recommendations they contain are the sole responsibility of their authors.