Book excerpt: Most employees are educated and trained with the technical or hard skills necessary to perform their professions, but important componentssoft skillsare often lacking. These skills represent a cluster of personal qualities, habits, attitudes, and social graces that make a person a good employee and a compatible coworker. Developed for organizations that deal with customers face-to-face, Championship Habits outlines twenty core soft skills that author and successful entrepreneur Adolph Brown believes are the cornerstones of a successful business. Based on years of personal experience and research, he identified these core soft skills, or championship habits, which employees should possess. Some of them include: Strong work ethic Sociability Self-esteem Confidence Positive attitude Self-management Listening skills Social skills By translating cutting-edge theory into concise, hip language with lasting and emotional impact and including a host of illustrative examples, Championship Habits describes the importance of these twenty core personal qualities and interpersonal traits in a business environment. He shows how incorporating these championship habits at every turn will ensure that the workplace and the work itself are rewarding, profitable, and gratifying.