The Importance Of Soft Skills
by Miki Saxon
I said yesterday that we would take a look at the skills needed to succeed in today’s workplace and, more importantly, in the future.
You probably read Yonatan Zunger’s response to James Damore’s manifesto.
One of Damore’s arguments focused on the worthlessness of so-called “soft skills” in a tech company.
Zunger was emphatic in his disagreement.
Essentially, engineering is all about cooperation, collaboration, and empathy for both your colleagues and your customers.
If someone told you that engineering was a field where you could get away with not dealing with people or feelings, then I’m very sorry to tell you that you have been lied to. Solitary work is something that only happens at the most junior levels…
Long ago tech more or less mastered the continued iterating of software and hardware, but when it comes to wetware not so much.
It’s soft skills that are crucial to when dealing with wetware, AKA, people.
Business Insider listed 16 skills that would pay off forever; the list was drawn from the responses to a question posted on Quora.
Empathy topped the list.
Empathy is the most important skill for understanding, relating, leading/managing and innovating.
These days, tech is enamored with life hacks and athleticism is all the rage.
Too bad more time isn’t spent developing and exercising what David Kelley, one of the founders of Stanford’s D School, calls the empathy muscle.
Image credit: Sean MacEntee
