The Best Business Skills – Hard or Soft?

Well, if you want to achieve lasting business success; you should possess both. What do we mean by hard skills and soft skills? Why are such skills so important and vital to both personal and company performance? Why are soft skills harder to develop than hard skills? Which is more important?

A good example would be as follows: Bob has a very important sales appointment with a prospect which could bring much success to his company. He has prepared diligently and has all his facts and numbers ready. His presentation is professional, well versed and persuasive. However, when his client arrives for the meeting a half hour late; Bob demonstrates his disappointment by displaying a negative and impatient attitude which undermines his presentation and leaves the client with skepticism about his ability to handle conflict and change. Bob loses the deal. All of his work and preparation (hard skills) was defeated by his lack of (soft skills) – in essence a lack of understanding and consideration.

This gives us a good opportunity to define the two: Hard Skills – are technical or administrative procedures related to the organization’s core business.  They are easy to observe and quantify. It is relatively easy to teach hard skills through a formal training approach. Computer skills would be considered hard skills. Bob’s research and technical data can be interpreted as hard skills. His education and training helped him to develop those skills and he applied them in his presentation. They would also include such abilities as working with spreadsheets, operating machinery or speaking a foreign language. Soft Skills – are sometimes referred to as people skills. They are not easy to quantify and are sometimes best described as intangibles. They can include any or all of the following principles: professionalism, optimism, common sense, responsibility, sense of humor, integrity, time management, motivation, empathy, leadership, communication, good manners, sociability and the ability to teach.  Although hard skills are more tangible – it is usually quite easy to identify someone with strong soft skills since they possess a natural ability to work effectively with others. While hard skills can be obtained over a definitive period of time – say through a class or seminar; soft skills can take a lifetime to develop and demonstrate consistently. Soft skills are obtained through life and personal experiences. Most people either begin to develop soft skills long before they start a career or are hindered by the lack thereof.

Everyday in business we can see how a fine balance of both is probably the best scenario. A professional who has a good technical grasp of things but still possesses good interpersonal skills will be a more effective employee both internally and externally. If Bob had applied soft skills to control his emotions and exercised more patience with his client – he would have closed the deal.  So are soft skills more important than hard skills?  Probably not – since demonstrating one without the other will not be an effective way of handling clients and coworkers.  We have all encountered people with a great deal of knowledge; yet they seem to possess little or no people skills. We have also witnessed the other side of the equation where a person is not knowledgeable but puts on a good image and through their personality they appear confident but aren’t. The point is that the most successful professionals seem to have a balance of both soft and hard skills. They are both knowledgeable and personable.  It is often said that hard skills will get you an interview but you need soft skills to get and keep the job.