If these skills are 'soft', why are they so hard to master?
Purple Story (The Home of Operational Excellence)
Operational excellence unleashed! We’re the creative yet rebellious consultancy driving performance through people
We've all seen the job adverts looking for the 'hard' vocational skills required to do a job. Some of them even list the desired personal attributes a prospective employee should have. But how many hiring managers dismiss candidates on the basis of the first list, without even assessing the second? ?
The lack of focus on the core 'soft' skills required to take a business from surviving to thriving is something we at Purple Story feel super passionate about. A recent article on this very topic, 'Let's stop calling them 'soft skills' - and call them 'real skills' instead', had us nodding in appreciation and wanting to shout from the rooftops. ?
Those familiar with our sessions might appreciation the chocolate box analogy we use to get people thinking about how much time they spend as leaders focusing on 'hard' vocational skills - or chocolates - versus 'soft' leadership ones. ?
The ‘hard’ skills are those needed to perform the tasks of a job. Yes, some jobs require high levels of competency – you don’t want to take your pet to a vet with no qualifications – but many jobs require fewer ‘hard’ skills than we might like to admit, and this only increases the higher up in leadership we go.?
领英推荐
We need to focus on the core 'soft' skills required to take a business from surviving to thriving
Imagine someone who is technically competent but unable to engage colleagues and clients? Who struggles to coach their team to high-performance? Who fails to collaborate, hold people to account, or manage change? Or even someone who doesn't care and won’t go the extra mile??
Those are the leadership qualities that set successful businesses apart from their competitors, but they are harder to teach if the individual doesn't value them or want to learn. Which makes it even more important to find those people who are already on board when you’re hiring.?
The recent challenges in the job market have undoubtedly made this more challenging, as in so many cases there simply aren’t enough candidates to give you the luxury of choice. Where this is true, you might have to work a bit harder to give your new team member the grounding in behavioural skills you need, but it isn't impossible and it is always worth investing time and effort in.?
The Sticky Guy - Championing Retention, Human Leadership & Culture Change Support - Making Businesses Stickier From The Inside
1 年We've got to stop using the term "soft skills". It's a real trigger for me. For some reason it denegrates these skills against "hard" skills. That's just not right. I much prefer the term "human skills". When we're working with Purple clients, this focus on being more conscious of our impact on others is often the biggest lightbulb that goes off. The nuances associated with mastery of human skills is what makes it anything but soft. This is the game-changer stuff!
Slaving ?? Slaying ? I help busy, frustrated millennials trade slaving in the 9-5 for slaying in freedom-rich entrepreneurship through personal growth & neuroscience ??
1 年Fantastic post and loved the article you linked. I like the adage "hire for attitude, train for skill". In an ideal world, you'd have people with a combination of attitude and aptitude but I feel that people with the right attitude and real human skills can build aptitude.
I Coach the Leaders, Train the Team for lasting Cultural Change in Hospitality and Leisure
1 年Great post….even better question ????