NOTE: not sure why the bunny pictures. But I figured “soft”… and bunnies are cute. And that is just the mood I’m in right now :p
Check out this awesome post from HealthLeadersMedia titled Soft Skills That Deliver Hard Results. There are some super quotes in here… which I’ll include below.
I am a champion of soft skills. I generally like people, and want people to have rich and fulfilling lives. As long as I can remember I’ve cared about how people get that fulfillment, and have enjoyed learning about and from people.
JibberJobber is a tool to help people get back to fulfillment. I love talking to my users, and meeting job seekers when I present.
In 2012 I was asked to create a course for Pluralsight, which lead to me working on over 30 courses, many of which are soft skills courses. As I’ve been able to spend time and brain cells on soft skills I’ve fallen in love with the topics, which go broad and deep. From communication to listening to empathy to emotional intelligence to personality assessments to communicating up (and down)… I’ve been blessed to have my head in this space for a long time.
A few weeks ago my 16 year old daughter was chatting with me about my courses and she said something like: “It’s really cool that you can teach soft skills to programmers, who have really good hard skills, because when you have soft skills and hard skills… wow!”
Out of the mouths of babes, #amIRight? (<– Don’t judge too hard on that, I hear “am I right daily from my 10 year old son :p”)
Anyway, back to soft skills. I have always taken the position that the work I do on soft skills courses, along with my colleagues who talk about teams, HR stuff, project management, and other soft skills, add a very important and complementary line of thinking and training for people who are excelling in their hard skills.
Here are my Pluralsight courses. Did you know that if you watch my courses I give you upgrades on JibberJobber? If you don’t, ask us how… it’s easy.
Having said all of that, let me share some quotes from the article, which you need to read. It really is awesome. Read it here.
“It’s time to think about incorporating a culture of joy and love into your [work/company/team] to turn things around.”
“‘Soft” skills’ used in work environments are the new “‘hard” skills.'”
“if implemented well, softer skills can help healthcare organizations reap hard results in employee engagement, patient safety, and nurse retention and recruitment.” This article is for healthcare professionals, but the point is transferable to your industry. Soft skills can have a real impact on your culture and your bottom line, and other things: ” ‘hard’ issues like financial goals, patient outcomes, and patient experience that healthcare organizations are eager to achieve.”
“The American Medical Association estimates physician burnout costs range from $500,000 to more than $1 million per physician.” How much does burnout cost you, and your employer?
Culture. Empathy. Love. Joy. Resilience.
These are all words used more than once in this article.
Can you imagine working in an environment where those things are prevalent? Can you change your own environment by focusing on those things?
This is why I love the courses I get to work on at Pluralsight. Soft skills matter.
You can find my soft skills courses here:
Jason Alba’s soft skills courses on Pluralsight
