A hard look at the value of soft The importance of soft skills

by Erin Saunders, ON Services

Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash

Have you ever need to manage change, help resolve conflict, had that person and work well with all types of personalities and on your team who team members. was just a great person to work with? They always Attitude is one of the most important soft skills. Those with a positive attitude demonstrate 4 had a great attitude, two characteristics that make them valuable you knew you could team members: confidence and adaptability. count on them to > The confidence is less about technical pitch in no matter confidence, but more about a “can-do” what the task, and attitude. People with confidence are open to they were excellent at trying new things and to learning. They are getting along with the comfortable risking failure, because they are rest of the group. confident they will learn and grow from the experience. Imagine what it would feel like to have a whole team of people like that. Those people have the technical skills they need to do their jobs, but what you > Adaptability is demonstrated by being open to change. People who are adaptable understand that change is a constant part of maintaining a successful and adaptable business. They are easily able to be flexible and help others understand the need for change. While cognitive skills are important, they are becoming increasingly less really value them for is their soft skills. Leadership is another critical soft skill. There are many attributes people attach to leadership, 4 predictors of how people succeed at work. Research has shown that 85% but one of the most important is empathy. > Empathy is the ability to truly understand of our success at how another person may be feeling, and work comes from soft skills—things like to try to understand their point of view. communicating effectively, working as When you are able to put yourself in others’ part of a team, collaborating effectively, shoes, you can understand their motives and and navigating conflict. (Deming, 2017). connect with them on a personal level. The Yet, as we hire people and even as we think Communication Guys explain, “Leadership about our own development, we tend to focus is servanthood with vision.” (Barrett, 2020) on the technical or cognitive skills. While cognitive skills are important, they are becoming Emotional intelligence in the office is another key soft skill. It requires that you have self4 increasingly less predictors of how people awareness, situational awareness, and people succeed at work. awareness. What are soft skills? > Self-awareness is about understanding yourself—your strengths, weaknesses, what Soft skills are things like attitude, leadership motivates and de-motivates you and what style, emotional intelligence, creativity, flexibility, you value in your life. Self-management and communication skills. They are the less is the ability to use the self-awareness you technical, but still very teachable skills people have to better manage your weaknesses.

> Situational awareness is about understanding your work environment. For this awareness, you must be able to observe what’s going on the environment and understand any context that’s affecting it. > People-awareness is understanding how people may be feeling or reacting to the work environment. There again, you’ll need to have strong skills in listening and empathizing with people.

Creativity is an increasingly valued soft skill. You’ve heard the phrase “think outside the 4 box.” That’s really office jargon for “how creatively can you brainstorm to innovate and problem solve?” Hot Cheetos were invented by then Janitor Richard Montanez at Frito-Lay.

He’s now the vice president of multicultural sales at PepsiCo, the holding company of Frito-

Lay. (Crockett, 2017) Richard had the soft skill of creativity.

Strong communication is the original soft skill. This is an area where we can all constantly 4 work to improve. Strong communicators can clearly and thoughtfully express their ideas.

They listen well, make others feel heard and valued. They are able to help people find common ground, can manage through conflict, are optimistic and solutions-focused and are comfortable with constructive disagreement.

Strong communication skills have been valued for decades and will continue to be core skills for success. As the world gets more complex, companies need people who can talk about it.

How do you build these soft skills with your teams? Start with hiring for soft skills. Make screening for things like leadership style and communication abilities part of the interview process. Ask for specific examples of when someone has experienced conflict in the past and how they resolved it. Ask for examples of how they have managed through change. Talk about times they had to creatively come up with a solution. Find out how they have learned and developed in the past to become better at their jobs, better at communicating, or have shown curiosity about something professionally. Hiring people who have both the technical and interpersonal skills needed to be good team members helps build a strong team.

Coaching for interpersonal and leadership skills can be challenging. Often it requires a shift in culture to let people know that not only are the technical skills important, but how they communicate, function as a team, and lead others directly or indirectly are new expectations that you will be working to help the team develop. Share learning moments and resources. There are a lot of resources about how to build soft skills. Some good ones include The Communication Guys Podcast, Daniel Goleman’s book on Emotional Intelligence, and Crucial Conversations book or training from Vitalsmarts. These are great tools for how to be better at communicating and listening to others.

Finally, consider your own soft skills. Understand what you need to develop and be transparent and honest with your team about the things you are working on. Demonstrating transparency and being open to feedback will go a long way in helping connect you with your team and will demonstrate some of your own strong communication skills.

About the author

Erin Saunders is Regional Human Resources Business Partner with Leica Geosystems, part of Hexagon.