What Are Soft Skills And Why Are They Important

Democratic cultures endure a multi-year barrage of political campaign noise that has left many citizens dazed and depleted and yet appreciative that options are available.  

It would be a shame if the only product of the election cycle was a defined winner and loser (although we never want to take that for granted).

There are also valuable principles to learn from the political process that we should be investing into our business. 

We can watch how citizens are impacted by political candidates and draw insight and empathy into what members of your business team might be seeing as they look at you and your own leadership.

That is the core of what political elections are about; leadership.

Political positions are less about task-completion and are far more about people-motivation.

What can we take away from the election cycle that will give us special insight into our business?

There are three lenses by which we view a politician; policy, politic, and personal. 

Policy is the lense of the specific things they will hope to do.  Understanding policy leads to agreement or disagreement with the method.

Politic is how they will communicate the things they will do.  Watching politic helps us determine who we like or do not like.

Personal refers to the character base from which each person operates.  Knowing the personal helps us determine who we trust and don’t trust.

Three lenses, the lens of agreement, the lens of likeability, and the lens of trust.  I can assure that candidates are trained in great repetition on the first two lenses of policy and politic.  It is not always as evident if they put as much training into the personal.

Those same three lenses are present and necessary in your business.

In business, instead of policy, politic, and personal, we will suggest three renamed lenses with similar function.

First, every business owner must view their business, their team, and themselves through the lens of business awareness.

Being business aware is knowing and investing into the systems, process, and purpose every business relies on as fuel to push towards the ultimate destination.

If you are a trustworthy person, a great presenter, but are clueless about your vision or your process, then the business will break down.

Second, every business owner must invest in social and emotional awareness (politic).  Many would call these “soft skills”.  It is the ability to present things in a way that will be most effectively digested for implementation.

If you are hyper aware of your vision and systems, and have great character but struggle to communicate, then your message will never be heard and your team will lack motivation.

Finally, every business owner must invest in their own (and their team’s) personal awareness.  Spending time working towards personal discipline and health in your family, faith, finances, fitness, friends, and fun!

You may have a clear head on your vision, systems, and a world-class communicator...but if you lack character, everything else will eventually fall apart.

The hard work of a business owner is two-fold…

1. Make a commitment to personally work continually on refining all three lenses for yourself
2. Make a commitment to equip your team to look through the three lenses for themselves

Balance is not the goal because balance is impossible.  On the other hand, a consistent rhythm of investing in the three lenses of business is a worthy pursuit.