Podcast 16: Soft Skills: The True Differentiator for Employees, Job Seekers and Organizations

Soft skills are the true differentiator that helps people with
strong technical skills earn jobs and transform their
organizations, the hosts explain while answering listener
questions.
Introduction
Bob Graham (‘0:20'): Welcome to Serious Soft Skills, Episode 16.
With me is Dr. Tobin Porterfield.  For you newcomers and those
of you who have been with us for a while, you may or may not know
we have uncovered a list of 55 soft skills. We dug this list up
though academic research and our teaching of college students and
work in various industries. Paying really close attention to these
soft skills we are now doing this podcast to discover what each of
these soft skills means and how they fit into our lives. Today we
are going to extend that into a new direction and take some
listener questions. It's always exciting. We're picked some really
hard ones. Hopefully, we can find our way through them.
Soft Skills Are Not Teachable
Graham (‘1:16'): The first one comes from Anonymous, and you are
going to see why in a second. Anonymous says, “Why do you guys care
so much about soft skills? We either have them or don't so why are
you spending so much time on them?” 
Dr. Tobin Porterfield (‘1:46”): I like to question things. I have a
skeptical mind. I want to ask if this is real. The argument that
sets it up most. We kind of tee this up in the beginning of our
book. The business environment has really changed. The business
world is hyper competitive. Things are changing quickly. Technology
change is coming on. The workplace has changed. The type of work we
do has changed. It has made soft skills more important. It's not
that they haven't existed. There are ones of us that have stronger
sets of soft skills, stronger in some areas. But it's something
that we need to bring to the workplace these days. A recognition of
what they are is critical, as is a solid, honest self-reflection of
where we each are on those soft skills is essential to the success
of organizations. We have to say soft skills are there in the
workplace, and if an individual has been able to avoid developing
soft skills for a long time, that avoidance time is passed.
If we are going to be effective in the workplace today, soft skills
are not optional.
Graham (‘3:02'): I would agree with all of that. I would add that
you and I have countless examples of students we have taught who
performed better when looking for a job and get the job because
they have more soft skills. They are more in demand. We know that
from research, and not just our research. Employers are looking for
soft skills like problem-solving, written and oral communication.
When they see people that can offer those skills, those are the
people who are getting hired. I tell my students all the time that
there are thousands of people just like you with that same
engineering or writing degree, or whatever degree. How do you
differentiate yourself? 
You all know the same technical expertise. It's the soft skills,
how you are going to apply them, how you are going to interact with
people, that ultimately separates some from the pack.
Porterfield (‘3:57'): You said it and that is how we position soft
skills. They are not in place of technical skills. It's how we
implement and integrate those technical skills in the workplace.
The people and the organizations that have valued and strengthened
soft skills are better performers. They are able to take the same
engineering skills, which we can hire into any organization if we
have the money to hire people, but whether we are actually able to
innovate, solve problems or transform an organization using those
soft skills, that's where the soft skills are going to come in and
make a huge difference. Soft skills are the differentiator between
who gets the job an...

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.