In the brand new collection of books dedicated to well-being at work launched by Vuibert with MyHappyJob directed by Fabienne Broucaret, one title inevitably caught our attention, because its author is not unknown to us!

Indeed, Christophe Deval who signs Soft skills – 10 self-coaching sessions to cultivate your talents is a loyal speaker of the EVE program. Co-founder of a.life with Sylvie Bernard-Curie , with whom he also wrote Vous avez tout pour réussir and Simplifiez vos relations avec les autres (Interéditions), he masters the subject of the development of soft skills that are the future of management and leadership at his fingertips. Here are 5 good reasons to jump into your book :

1/ 10 key soft-skills to develop

The literature on personal development provides a multitude of definitions of soft-skills and offers endless lists of skills that fall under them. With Christophe Deval, we refocus on 10 key soft-skills and right away, we see much more clearly. In order : attention, mental flexibility, emotional intelligence, meaning, contextualization, creativity, empathy and caring, energy management, the ability to thrive in complexity.

2/ A resolutely practical approach... And fun !

Soft skills – 10 self-coaching sessions to cultivate your talents is like a personal development manual, with all the ingredients that make a recipe : self-diagnosis exercises, the logbook that asks the right questions, practical cases that allow you to project yourself into a situation, theoretical contributions that synthesize the state of research in psychology, sociology and/or neuroscience, well-thought-out little tips to concretize what you learn on a daily basis, " memo " boxes to anchor knowledge, advice to go further in working on yourself, etc.

But it's much more playful and fun than what is done in many other collections : thanks to the author's lively tone, served by a brightened layout, we read Soft skills – 10 self-coaching sessions to cultivate your talents like you would read an excellent comic book !

3/ The contributions of neuroscience, with a fair critical eye

Christophe Deval's book regularly refers to the major recent discoveries in neuroscience (mirror neurons, cognitive flexibility, etc.) by adopting the necessary distance from the " passion for the brain " that drives many speakers on the theme of soft-skills.

In his book, the contribution of neuroscience is a tool to better understand certain mechanisms of cognition, but it is not the neurons that do all the work to make you a better manager ! It is up to each person to " strengthen " their posture by training themselves daily to reflect on themselves and their interactions with others, while taking into consideration the situations.

4/ Make way for values !

No " off-the-shelf tips" at Christophe Deval or advice that " works every time, I promise to spit out" : what guides the work on oneself of a unique individual is what matters to him. Namely values , to which an entire chapter is devoted. A true " compass " for the self-coach, values are neither " objectives " nor "principles " and even less " rules " : they are the cardinal points of meaning as well as the guide to action.

5/ Long live interactive self-development!

One of the pitfalls of personal development is to over-concentrate on the individual, at the risk of denying the materiality of the social relations in which he or she is part and of over-empowering him or her in the face of the imperatives of change. Christophe Deval adopts a radically different approach: it is also, and perhaps above all, by interacting with others and positioning himself as an actor in the transformation of the context in which we evolve that we are best equipped to develop our soft-skills...

And that one becomes at the same time an excellent ambassador and transmitter of interpersonal skills, to the benefit of an increase in collective intelligence, relational ecology and cooperation. In short, global talent that is much more than the sum of all talents.