In Bringing out the Best in People, author Alan McGinnis says:
Promotions are 90% dependent on technical know-how for a rank and file worker. For promotion to supervisor, technical know-how is 50% and human relation skills are 50%. For promotion to an Executive, technical expertise is 20%, human relations is 80%.
The Harvard Bureau of Vocational Guidance studied 1,000 people who had been fired. They found that for every one failure because of work skills there were two failures in human relation skills.
Stanford Research Institute, Harvard University, and the Carnegie Foundation (which spent $1 million and 5 years of research) proved that 85% of the reason you get a job, will keep a job, and move ahead in that job, has to do with your people skills and people knowledge.
So do we need to improve our human relations skills? What do you think?