Daily Learnings: Thu, Nov 09, 2023
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. — Helen Keller
Human Skills Instead of “Soft” Skills
I was listening to another episode of the Changelog podcast today featuring “K-ball”, a regular host on the other Changelog podcast “JS Party.” In this episode on the primary Changelog.fm feed, however, K-ball joined to discuss what he called “human skills”, or essentially the non-technical skills that one should develop to grow in his/her career.
There were a number of really great learnings that he shared, but I just wanted to highlight the main one that I’ve put to use as of today: I’m no longer referring to “human skills” as “soft skills”, but instead as “human skills.” K-ball’s point here is that when a person says “soft skills” there are a couple of things insinuated or connoted:
- These skills aren’t really concrete, they’re “squishy”
- These skills are more nature vs. nuture
- These skills are easy if you just have them
Instead, his argument, especially after conducting a number of interviews, research, and writing a lot on the subject, is that “human skills” are:
- Often concrete; you can learn specific things that will assist you in connecting better with humans
- Learnable; you can indeed learn skills and tactics
- Often as hard, if not harder than what are traditionally referred to as “hard skills”
That last point brings me to my final change: I’m going to do my best to reference “hard skills” as “technical skills” instead.