Your Skills List

By Soozy G. Miller, CPRW, CDCC, CDP

Here is an incomplete list of soft skills that I found. I think it merits discussion.

1. Sell and negotiate (negotiating is harder)

2. Shut up and listen

3. Read, understand, and memorize

4. Walk away (during an argument, to stop escalation)

5. Manage time

6. Stay positive

7. Decide based on facts

8. Speak in front of an audience (not family)

9. Trying after failure

10. Get things done regardless of situation

11. Self-analyze

12. Learn how to learn

13. Understand others’ feelings

14. Consistency

15. Master thoughts

16. Persuade and influence through writing

17. Ask for help

I would argue that 90% of people would say that they are good at 90% of this list.

For me, regarding #17, my ability to ask for help is totally dependent to how comfortable I feel with the person who I think could help me. If I need data on something, I’m going to pick the researcher or the account manager or the IT person that I feel most comfortable asking.

So for #17, my ability is based entirely on my relationship with someone else.

I think the juggernaut is actually #11, which is why I emphasized it.

I find it interesting that self-analyze is in the middle of the list. I think that whether or not you can say that you have all these skills is based on how self aware you are. For example, if you’re truly honest with yourself, are you really good at managing your time (#5)? Do you really understand other peoples’ feelings (#13)? A lot of people aren’t good at that. Are you really good at mastering your thoughts (#16)? I barely even know what that means.

One of my favorites here is #16, the ability to persuade and influence through writing. I would offer that most people are NOT good at this. The first problem is that they would not consider the merits of the conflicting opinion, which is crucial to the persuasion process and the influence. Most people therefore would not be able to come up with a coherent and convincing argument, other than how they feel about the topic. The second problem is that a chunk of the population is just not good at writing.

I’m an eternal optimist, so staying positive (#6) is not difficult for me. I’m also able to walk away from conflict (#4). Actually, I usually run from conflict, but only after trying very hard to talk it through. I’m particularly good at getting things done regardless of the situation (#10). That comes from being a single mom.

I’m not perfect. I could work on consistency (#14), and I could work on reading to understand and memorizing (#3). My 56-year-old brain is challenged that way.

In speaking with many executives, and many more other lower-level workers, I think that people have work to do on this list. Everyone can’t be good at everything, but I think that when they’re asked, they would say that they are good at everything. Or they'd say that they're good at most things -- particularly when it might be the deciding factor for landing a job. For example, pretty much every resume that I’ve ever looked at says “excellent communicator” or “good communicator.” However, when asked to prove that skill, they can’t. FYI, “Communicated with my team” does not prove good or excellent communication.

Many parents going back to work claim that parenthood has prepared them for the rigors of re-entering corporate life. I, for one, do not equate running a household with running a team, a division, or a corporation. I brought up two kids almost on my own, but I would never claim that as a result of that experience I could lead a team or solve corporate problems. While the multitasking aspect may be similar, nothing else about running a business is. Bugging kids about laundry and cleaning up after themselves is very different than something like deciding the sales plan for very capable regional, national, or global sales professionals.

If you don’t get that, you should probably get better at #7 and #11.

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Better job. More pay. More control.

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