A few times over the last week I’ve read posts talking about how unhelpful the term ‘soft skills’ is. It really doesn’t conjure the complexities of relations based interactions, does it?
You’ll already know my view by now, that soft skills are the hardest to acquire.
You’ll also already know that from my research I discovered that technical knowledge a capabilities are referred to as first order knowledge, and emotions and behaviours as second order knowledge. I also add in systems think to first order and self awareness to second order. But putting emotions and behaviour second in the list doesn’t help either.
So, can we come up with something better than soft skills? How about….
- Emotional skills – this might be a bit narrow?
- Human skills – so are technical skills!
- Invisible skills – I think we’ll leave those to Harry Potter!!
- Relational skills – oh, this is getting closer!
- Resonant skills – fits with Resonant Leadership that’s based on emotional intelligence….?
- Emotio-Social Skills – takes account of emotions and the self in relation to others…?
I’ve set up a poll on my LinkedIn page for people to choose what fits best or to suggest something else. The poll closes in two weeks. I’ll let you know the outcome!