I Don’t Know How to Learn Soft Skills
Ok this is going to be a shorter, more off topic post. I have been focussing on improving my ability as a Product Designer and have been neglecting learning and improving soft skills.
When I first joined my company, I warned my team that when I’m head down solutioning, I completely miss social cues and become very ‘to the point’. Making some conversations painfully awkward or even coming across as rude.
So, over the past few months I have started to be more conscious of learning soft skills. Below is a list of recently adopted behaviours and the benefits and lessons that have come along with them.
What are soft skills?
Soft skills are the skills that help us navigate our environment, work well with others, perform well and achieve our goals.
They help us to think critically, solve problems, resolve conflict and interact effectively. Through a combination of people skills, social skills, communication skills, character traits, attitudes, career attribute, social intelligence and emotional intelligence.
We develop soft skills through experience. Focus, structure and repetition help us hone those skills.
Communication
Not that I’m not interested or socially awkward, it’s just that when I have something I want to ask or do, it’s all I can think about and it often ends with me awkwardly navigating the start of a conversation.
Creating time for communication has proven to be invaluable. It has improved my working relationships and made working with others effortless. I often ask people for coffee during the day and ask them how things are going.
Everyone needs to vent and feel like they are being listened to. So when I talk to people on these coffee breaks, I don’t tell them what they should do, or tell them about my similar experiences. I just listen.
If I can give advice or offer a different point of view, of course I will. But the idea is to let them talk themselves through to a solution or resolve.
Seeking feedback
I think it’s important to make it clear that people can give me honest, unsolicited feedback. We have a culture where you can book a 1:1 or go for a coffee and give someone completely honest feedback.
We’ll talk it out and both parties will give their perspective and then move forward with no resentment or bitterness. I value this so much!
But something I have been trying to do more is to seek out feedback. This can be at the end of a project or
Have confidence in your ability
I often get overwhelmed when starting out a particularly complex project. “Am I good enough to be doing this?” is an all too familiar thought.
I have since learned to trust in the process. It’s worked so many times before, so why do I doubt it this time? I now head into new challenges with the confidence that I my process will result in a solution.
I also communicate the value of each stage of the process to my team. Making them aware of what I am doing, how much time it’s likely to take and the value we get from it.
Leadership
Being that I’m the only designer at my company, it is important to have a clear vision of where things are headed. But the tricky part, is getting the rest of the company onboard.
Not long after I joined I was tasked with redesigning our core product. An application form that previously, had a lovely, colourful image in the background.
My proposed redesign, did away with this image as a way of making things more accessible. Everyone kept talking about how bland it looked and saying they preferred the old version.
So I booked a meeting with our CEO and the PM for that product. In the meeting I ran them through the reasoning behind most major decisions. Presenting facts to back up each decision.
A couple of weeks later I was speaking with our CEO and he mentioned that he much preferred my version to the old product. It wasn’t an overnight change, but my meeting definitely helped to get everyone on board with the change.
Learn to listen
I realised that I had 2 really bad traits when talking to people. It wasn’t until my colleague who doesn’t do these things showed up, that I realised what I was doing.
Firstly, when someone was talking I used to be formulating a response in my head. Meaning after a certain point I wasn’t really paying attention, but trying to remember my response.
This would result in me sometimes only addressing the first half of what they had said and losing track of what we were really talking about.
The second thing I would do, was finish other people’s sentences once I thought I knew what they were going to say. I think I probably did it as a way of confirming to them that we were on the same page. As well as trying to move the conversation along.
Now I’ve learned to listening to what people are saying with all my attention. And then think of a response once they have finished.
The differences I have noticed are, most of my responses now are questions whereas before they were usually statements. Secondly, conversations seem to go a lot slower, but are packed with much more information.
Be adaptable
Being able to adapt to changes quickly is something I’ve had to learn quickly at my current job. My previous jobs were all green field project that I work on in my spare time.
Meaning there was no firm deadline and always plenty of time to adapt. With my current job, no two days are the same. One day we can be planning what the next 6 months looks like. The next, we are reacting to something completely unforeseen.
Positioning myself in a way that lets me adapt easily, means that these surprises rarely catch me off guard.
