The Thing About Soft Skills
Photo by Nastuh Abootalebi on Unsplash
I’ve written before about how the most important subject at business school is also the least respected i.e. anything to do with Human Resources.
The conventional view is that those subjects are “soft and fluffy”, subjects that don’t merit real attention - not like Strategy or Finance, for example. But how we work with each other, how we lead and manage those who we’re responsible for is, in fact, the single most important driver of success in any business, bar none.
The key reason for this disconnect is, of course, mainly economic. The jobs that pay the most out of college are ones that value the hard sciences over the ‘soft’ ones. Investment banking and management consulting always pay a whole heck of a lot more and their hiring criteria prioritizes finance majors and engineers over organizational behavior specialists.
Another reason, of course, has been the way these courses have traditionally been taught, with heavy emphasis on theory rather than practical implications and considerations. (Which isn’t to suggest that the theory holds no value, but that the transference of that theory into practical performance isn’t clear or tangible.)
We tend to carry this view into our professional and personal lives, as evidenced by the advice we give to our kids, their friends as well as junior colleagues. We spend lots of time speaking to the tangible skills that they should have but nowhere near as much on the interpersonal aspects. (At least, not until there’s a problem to be resolved.)
How should you treat others? How should you communicate so that you are heard? How can you bring along and not simply coerce? How do you lead and inspire versus manage and delegate? How do you build trust first?
The fact is, these are the types of skills and capabilities that drive change, not your ability to write the perfect code or craft the perfect business plan. I’m not suggesting you don't need those skills. They’re valuable and necessary. But - and I know I’ll get in trouble for saying this - you can hire for those. You can’t hire someone else to inspire and lead and drive meaningful change for you. So the more time we spend thinking about these issues, the better.
Of course, I don’t expect this balance to change - economics is too strong a driver for most. (That’s not a judgement, just a statement.) So, the fact is, that this pattern will continue and the value of these softer skills will, as is almost always the case, only recognized as we ourselves realize through our own experiences how important they are.
But if we can at least recognize and accept that this imbalance exists, that our conventional mindsets are indeed skewed in this way, then at least we might be able to begin to take the steps necessary to encourage a stronger lens on those areas, both in ourselves as well as those we work with.
