How are your soft sills?

(Ported from my old blog called Thinky)

Soft skills are essential when you need to work with people whether it be clients or in teams.

“Soft skills is a term often associated with a person’s “EQ” (Emotional Intelligence Quotient), the cluster of personality traits, social graces, communication, language, personal habits, interpersonal skills, managing people, leadership, etc. that characterize relationships with other people.” – Wikipedia

Everyone is different. People differ by backgrounds, upbringing, culture, beliefs, opinions, understandings, values, priorities, skills, preferences, well I suppose the list is endless. People see things through their own eyes thus creating a perspective in their minds about stuff.

I admit that my soft skills need a lot of work. I am impatient, emotional, easily frustrated and self-conscious. These are traits that I have identified that I am actively trying to improve on. I am not on expert on processes, people and interactions but I have learned through many of my own mistakes as well as from others around me. This journey of continuous improvement, not only with development, has definitely enriched me.

I don’t think that I am the only software developer that has soft skills that need improvement. I could be wrong but I think that developers simply love to code. We think about the code we can write to solve a problem. We want to try new technologies and techniques. We don’t want to spend hours talking about stuff and feel like we are getting nowhere. How does this impact a product or business? What if we write code that means nothing to the business? What if we cannot effectively communicate things to business? What if other developers need guidance and we react negatively to them? There are many negative repercussions to having bad soft skills.

After an interaction, meeting or a day at the office I rate my actions. I try to pin-point things that I have said or done that had a negative impact. I try to think of ways that I could have handled the situation differently. Granted, I am not usually the only one in the wrong BUT the change has to start somewhere. I can’t control how other people react but I can control how I act.

• Don’t interrupt. Listen to what the person has to say.
• Conversations can go on forever. Together agree on time-boxing the conversation.
• Don’t shoot down ideas or opinions rather offer food for thought.
• Try to stay calm. Be aware of your body language and facial expressions. If you get frustrated, breathe. Ask for a break if need be.
• Definitely don’t offend or belittle someone.
• Remember that people may not know what you know. They may also have a perspective that you don’t see.
• Try not to take things personally. Like you, they too could be suffering from a shortage of soft skills. They may not intentionally be doing or saying something to offend you.
• Stay on topic. Don’t go off on a tangent because you think you know better.
• Observe other people’s interactions and learn from their mistakes.
• Apologize if you know you have done something wrong.
• Be open and honest with people. Many people value the feedback and want to improve. This beats HR knocking on your door while you are oblivious.
• Be ready to take the criticism when people are open and honest with you.
• Don’t just rant about problems that you have identified. If you do, let the goal be to offer solutions or ask for help. Change your tone from rant to constructive feedback.
• Be clear when communicating.

These are points I have documented for myself to remind me of what I should remember to do. This is a journey of self discovery that does not happen over night. I am not too hard on myself. If I make a mistake, I try to learn from it and rectify it for the future. This is not easy for me as it does not come naturally.

How are your soft skills? Have you learned something valuable that could help someone else? Please share your thoughts.