Hello. It’s me, Soft Skills.
I’M AS MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE
Why?
I’m tired of being called Soft. Pillows are soft. Baby blankets are soft. Cotton balls are soft. I’m tough. Wanna know how I know? You have a hard time with me.
I’m Tough
You think it takes hard skills to design buildings and computers, practice medicine, engineer a bridge. So, you go to school for 16+ years to learn those skills. Meanwhile, you learn very little about me. Then, you get a job and discover programming the computer is easy compared to leading a team. Why then, do you call me Soft Skills?
When you talk about work the topic isn’t difficult algorithms. You seek advice about your interactions with people, not things. You want to know how to have that fierce conversation. How to help a direct report who’s struggling. How to give your boss feedback. Whether to give your boss feedback.
Sometimes, maybe often, you avoid doing the stuff you call Soft Skills. You even have expressions for these avoidances. Sweeping things under the rug; elephants in the room. These soft things are hard for you. Remember when you were promoted to your first management role and had to shift from being a friend to being the boss? Soft? Nope. Tough stuff.
I’m Business Skills
A high school sophomore wrote about Soft Skills from a different angle. He learned how to build a computer on his own. Then, as a freshman he took an engineering course and learned how to build solutions. But it didn’t teach him how to examine, understand and think about people and the problems they have that require solutions. THIS, my dear friends is what you call soft skills and why so many of your products fail. They aren’t solving real problems for real people because you don’t have the Soft Skills you need to uncover those problems. Worse, you may not even think it’s necessary to ask people what their real problems are. That shows a lack of emotional and cognitive empathy – another Soft Skill you need to master.
Soft Skills are Essential Skills
The other day, Marcel Schwantes shared this, along with a short video, on LinkedIn.
Time to abolish the term “soft skills” from the business lexicon.
It got about 1000 views, 29 comments and lots of applause. One responder, John Saporsky, suggested my new name should be Essential Skills. ES for short. I like it!
Sincerely,
ES