Step Up the Game in your Soft Skills

 

You've probably heard about soft skills or maybe you haven't. For the sake of those who haven't, I'll give a quick definition here:

Soft Skills are defined as: "personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people."

It is different from the hard skills which focus on technical skills needed to do a job and can be gained through work experience, practical training etc.

In today's world where automation and artificial intelligence is being readily adopted in various institutions, hard skills are becoming replaced by computers and robots. Which means that soft skills will become more and more important over the next coming years.

Therefore, you need to develop skills in this area and keep developing your already existing soft skills if you already have them.

I want to share this post from a man I respect Prof. Ndubuisi Ekekwe and his post made on his LinkedIn page was what inspired today's article. Here it is:

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The biggest irony in the world of business is calling the hardest skills for most of us to master “soft skills”. In 2023, if you want that ascension in office, invest time and efforts to master the hardest skills which are abnormally captured as “soft skills”.

“Hard skills are abilities that let you tackle job-specific duties and responsibilities. .. These skills are usually focused on specific tasks and processes such as the use of tools, equipment, or software.” 

“Soft skills relate to how you work. Soft skills include interpersonal (people) skills, communication skills, listening skills, time management, problem-solving, leadership, and empathy, among others.” 

Robots and modern machines are increasingly doing the “hard skills”, but the “soft skills” remain human-centric, putting humans at that level where nothing can easily displace them. Hard skills make you better on specific tasks and processes, soft skills elevate you to organize people, processes and tools efficiently, and that is a higher call and more challenging. To thrive today at work, do not neglect them. 

Yes, soft skills could be termed "soft" but there is nothing soft in a moving target. Do hard things better, become better with your “soft skills”

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Developing soft skills are not difficult, you just need to start with a genuine interest in getting to know people and understand the rationale behind their actions. 

You can build greater soft skills if you begin with that mindset. There are also online courses on developing soft skills and a simple Google search will take you to endless resources you can start learning from(most are free).

The best way to learn anything is to try things out practically. If you don't have much of soft skills at the moment, do not worry! Just make a commitment to start learning from any source that suits you and practice one thing each day on what you learn.

If you keep at this for even just 30 days, you will be surprised at how much better you become with people. 

So what's your take on what the professor wrote? And what other ways do you suggest one can develop their soft skills?

Let me know your thoughts if you have any!

Your man,

Ike