The Hard Truth About Soft Skills
Career success relies on more than just what you know.
Natasha Potashnik, Known’s SVP of Media Science, leads an integral part of our Science team, which is responsible for investing hundreds of millions of client dollars in effective ways, using Known’s SkepticOS to optimize impact. Natasha’s team of Ph.D. data scientists and media specialists uses machine learning, AI, and cutting-edge technologies to provide media buying solutions at an enormous scale.
In two years, the team has expanded from five people to about 100 employees. With this much growth, one major obstacle has nothing to do with algorithms, data sets, or code. The challenge is getting everyone on the same page: clients, scientists, marketers, and leadership. Communication is paramount.
As Natasha recently told the Women in Technology World Series, comprehensible communication wasn’t emphasized when she was working toward her Ph.D. in pure math at Columbia University. Unlike other academic areas where scientific research is the primary method of publishing papers, math proofs were the primary medium. “There’s a history of proofs being super logical and rational, but very hard to understand,” she told the conference, adding that a lack of clear writing and communication is a factor in making the academic review process so drawn out.
“And I say this with a lot of love for that community,” she adds. “Unfortunately those proofs were often written from a perspective of purely the writer, and not the reader.”
After discussions with her grad school advisor who Natasha says is “an awesome communicator,” she came to understand that so-called “soft skills” are just as vital to one’s career as “hard skills.”
“Non-technical skills are really just as deep and just as worthy of study and practice as all of the technical skills like coding or stats or math or machine learning,” she says.
Here are some takeaways from Natasha’s talk that can help you with moments big and small in your own career — from making an important presentation or learning how to lead a group of people who do not report to you.
At the start of her career, Natasha admits she treated the ubiquitous “strong communication” bullet point in a job listing as a “throwaway,” but now knows it’s crucial. She recommends two tactics to hone your communication skills and make your colleagues, clients — and even friends — feel heard and understood. Good communication is a hallmark of great leadership, so she also offers guidance on how to strengthen your leadership skills.
Zoom out
No, don’t zone out! Take some time to examine the larger picture while in meetings, presentations, or even when you’re off the clock with friends. Practicing effective communication in lower-stakes situations will allow you to succeed in performance reviews, client presentations, product demos, or other settings where you have more on the line.
Look outside your own experience, and ask yourself questions like:
- “How is this group or person feeling about this encounter?”
- “Are they coming in with a good mood or a bad mood?”
- “What could be affecting their perceptions of what’s happening in this situation?”
- “What expectations might they have?”
“If you take a second to engage in this exercise, and ask yourself some of those questions,” Natasha says, “what you’ll find is that your intuition entering the situation is not always completely aligned with the answers to those questions.” This 30,000-foot view lets you approach a task from different angles, without relying on just your gut. Empathy fosters stronger collaboration, another important soft skill.
Prepare, don’t memorize
When presenting at a big meeting, how do you prepare? Memorizing the whole deck and your remarks is a waste of time. Major career moments are obviously not a time to wing it, and Natasha suggests there’s a happy medium between knowing content by rote and breezing onto a Zoom.
“The most important thing is really the audience,” she says. When you’re in the moment, you need to be able to pivot. To gain flexibility while presenting, Natasha recommends going into a meeting with the main idea and bullet points locked down. “The main objective[s are that] this audience walks away with XYZ feelings about this project, and XYZ takeaways for what we’re going to do next.”
Leadership is a skill, not a trait
As you work your way up the career ladder, you’ll hear more about being a leader. Many people assume that leadership qualities are something you’re born with. “I[‘ve] found that a huge part of leadership needs to be studied,” Natasha says. “And, really, it’s a skill.” That means leadership can be learned and improved.
You can build management chops by understanding that leadership is about more than being in charge of a specific team or project. “Think about [it] instead as defining and embracing a true mandate,” she says. That mandate can evolve as needs change, but acknowledging its existence and remaining accountable to a mandate allows you to lead cross-functional teams.
“You don’t need to always have that direct line of people management or direct responsibility over their careers to still be seen as the leader that’s accountable for this project,” says Natasha. Ask yourself about your wider role. “How do you serve your organization and your company?” is something to ponder.
The common thread in these takeaways is one of observation — taking the time to assess and empathize will help you hone your “soft skills.” As with anything, building these skills takes practice. Most engineers didn’t create perfect code the first time they tried. They tested, failed, and learned. It’s the same technique with communicating and leading.
Applying a “test and learn” approach to soft skills will aid your career as much as being fluent in three programming languages, and what you learn will also serve you outside the workplace. Make sure you know your audience.
