Soft Skills

When we think of education for our kids we typically think about match, science, reading and writing skills but how often do we think of organization, planning, and listening skills? The latter are what are commonly referred to as the soft skills.

When I first heard of soft skills and their importance, I was just getting started in my career and my focus and emphasis was on the hard skills, commonly referred to as technical skills. These are the core skills for the profession - accounting and book-keeping for an accountant, medicine for a doctor, programming for a software engineer, and so on. My initial feeling was that the concept of soft skills was made up by individuals who did not have strong technical skills and therefore needed something else they could pride themselves about. However, as I progressed in my career I began to realise the importance of the soft skills. At junior levels in any profession technical skills are of primary importance however as one advances, organizational, planning, influencing, listening, and such other soft skills begin to gain increasing importance.

In some respects soft skills are more difficult to acquire than technical skills. The latter are taught in schools and universities but there is very little focus on the former, if any, in traditional education. Also, soft skills are somewhat intertwined with an individuals personality. This does not mean that they can not be acquired. It just means one may have to work harder to cultivate them.

Simple things that one can easily weave into day-to-day life can help kids develop soft skills from a young age. For example, one can have middle school aged kids in the family plan family vacations. Besides teaching them to plan and organize, this may also provide an opportunity to hone influencing skills as they influence other members of the family to agree on a vacation destination. Participating in sports and performing arts also help develop soft skills such as teamwork.