The Hardest Skills to Learn
When I was in line for a promotion to the managerial ranks at Costco, I had to go through a series of interviews with different people. The most important of those people was the gentleman in charge of the division that I was going to head in that warehouse. Even though he wasn’t in charge of the warehouse, warehouse managers trusted him because this division was his area of expertise. So whatever he said held a lot of weight.
I had a meeting with him one afternoon in the warehouse, where I was stationed. We had a good rapport, and I had the most experience in the company at that point. So I figured that the meeting, which I thought was my interview for the job, was a mere formality.
But it turns out that what I thought was an interview was more of an intervention.As I sat down in the warehouse manager’s office, the division head turned toward me in the office chair he was borrowing from the warehouse manager and gave it to me straight.
“Mike, you have all of the hard skills we need. But what you don’t have yet are the soft skills to lead this department. I’m afraid you’re not ready for this promotion.”
I was floored. I thought I’d done everything right to get the job. I knew this area of the warehouse better than anyone who was being considered for the promotion. But that ultimately didn’t matter as much as having the soft skills to land the job.
That was nearly 25 years ago. I was only 23 then, so not having those soft skills — those interpersonal ones that matter so much at the level they needed — makes sense as I look back on things.
The lesson I learned from that experience is that learning. hard skills is a whole lot easier than nurturing. soft skills. I’d say that is a reason why people tend to focus on gaining hard skills — because those are the ones they can grasp much faster. Soft skills don’t come easy to anyone. There’s a lot at play as you develop them.
I’m still developing the soft skills I need to make my way through life in the best way I can. Even in my new role as a productivity strategist, I can make my way through an app or a system much easier than I can navigate the soft skills that are so needed to be truly productive. It’s important to understand that measuring productivity purely by how much of a dent there is in your to-do list isn’t necessarily as impactful as what was part of that dent and what didn’t get done — simply because these aspects are tougher to quantify.
Qualitative productivity matters. And it takes soft skills to lean into doing more of those things that are qualitative.
I think the world would be a better place if we leaned a little more into that and a little less into things like Inbox Zero.
