What are Soft Skills?
I must admit I had no idea what are soft skills when I graduated from college. I quickly realized on my first job at McKinsey how my lack of some soft skills were affecting my performance reviews. Here are some of the soft skills I lacked at that time.
- Stress Management and People Management Skills – At 22 years old, I was assigned an assistant at McKinsey. I treated her horribly when I was stressed out and I was immature to think I have the right to since she worked for me. Needless to say, she was NOT jumping to help me all the time.
- Confidence and Communication Skills – I was book smart and had great ideas on projects, but sometimes I was afraid to speak up when there were senior people in the room. I had no idea how to structure my comments and I didn’t have the confidence to think they would care what I think. McKinsey expects Analysts to voice their opinions.
- Resilience / Office politics skills – I was blamed for something I didn’t do on a project. It took me a few years to move on from this one. My manager succeeded in blaming me because he knew how to play office politics better than me. I had no close support from any partners.
After working 15 years in consulting with 20+ Fortune 500 companies dealing with all kinds of people, personalities, and unexpected situations, I have a much greater appreciation for how important soft skills are to achieve business success. So I would like to offer my own definition of “what are soft skills” in practical terms (see below). ...