The Soft Skills Dilemma

Soft skills are invisible on your resume, but visible when it comes to impact.

You have a choice: value them or don’t.

Most agree that soft skills are valuable.

Yet a small percentage of companies make the investment of improving them.

As a consultant, I’ve talked to many HR departments to know soft skill training is low on their priority (to-do) list.

That’s unfortunate because the reason most people leave their job is because of not feeling valued/appreciated.

Retaining talent is more dependent on how you treat employees than profitability, purpose or perks.

Here’s the dilemma: invest in soft skill training or risk losing talent.

Why? Because career development or learning new skills is #2 behind salary for retention.

How you interact with co-workers will translate to how you treat customers.

Ever notice how executives at every company have better soft skills than the average employee?

And that’s not directly tied to education or experience.

It’s how well you communicate, empathize and deal with conflict…

The same issues that plague companies will wreck your career growth.

Strong soft skills give you an advantage at work.

• Better clarity

• Better at navigating different personalities

• Better at building trust

Once again organizations and individuals benefit from soft skill development.

Practically this is how to get started:

1. Hire someone to give a talk on the importance of soft skills.

2. Provide a training workshop on how to improve soft skills.

3. Enroll people in coaching to enforce accountability and positive change.

Business is all about standing out - as a competitive advantage.

How often do new customers become repeat customers because of their favorable interaction with an employee?

The same can be said for one-time customers: bad interaction = never again.

So you see how the choice to invest in soft skill training is vital right?

It would be great if these skills were built-in, but the reliance upon technology for communication has its consequences.

AI will never be a suitable replacement for managers, co-workers or customer service.

Sure, it can expedite the process, but there’s a “human” element that only produces connection.

And isn’t that the whole point - to promote connection between workers and customers.

It’s a loyalty that has infinite value.

• Even in the state of Hawaii, it has lost the sense of aloha, or friendliness.

• That is a direct cause of the depreciation of soft skills as a whole.

So now you have a decision to make: keep riding the Titanic or jump off before it sinks.

I suggest you do something about by investing in your soft skills.

Otherwise you’re just going down with the ship.

What are you going to do about it?

God Bless,

Scott

P.S. If you found this helpful and you’re looking to improve your soft skills as a leader, here are ways to work with me directly:

• 🗣 Hire me to speak at your company or next event (watch my speaking reel here)

• 🎤 Invite me to lead an interactive training workshop, remotely or in-person (depending on location)

• 🤝 Start 1:1 coaching with me as a new manager, current leader or executive (I once managed 30 people 1:1 weekly❗️)

Also, you can help me out by forwarding this to friends whom would benefit from it! Thank you!