Deer antlers are among the fastest growing tissues in the animal kingdom. In North America, deer start growing their antlers in April. They grow up to two inches per week and are fully formed by late August. The more sunlight the buck is exposed to, the more the antlers will grow, but without deer antler velvet, antlers won’t grow at all. The velvet carries blood, oxygen and nutrients to the antler, which is pliable like cartilage. Bucks go to great lengths to protect their forming antlers. By September, the velvet dies, dries and drops off or is rubbed off by the deer.
The beautiful velvet of the deer antler which nourishes the prongs atop the majestic buck reminds me of the “soft skills” we people use to grow stronger interpersonal outcomes with friends, family and co-workers. Our “velvety” characteristics help us form better relationships.
Soft Skills Are a People-to-People “Business”
I once taught a few semesters on Customer Service competencies to “Help Desk” representatives at the local college. Many of the students admitted they preferred working on computers because they didn’t like people! They hadn’t yet cultivated soft skills to complement the “hard” or technical abilities on which they placed greater value.
But as they soon realized, there are benefits to learning interpersonal skills:
- They strengthen relationships in our personal lives. The cost of divorce or separation, both in financial impacts and personal stress, has disrupted many lives. Good relations are good for the wallet and the psyche too.
- They improve job security, longevity and promotion. Studies show that soft skills are the leading contributor to job success and leaders without them can only rise so high in an organization.
- They are easily transferable. Because they are not task specific, soft skills are generic to other personal situations or work environments.
- They can improve wealth since customers respond positively to being treated well.
“While hard skills refer to the technical ability and the factual knowledge needed to do the job, soft skills allow you to more effectively use your technical abilities and knowledge. Soft skills encompass personal, social, communication, and self-management behaviors.” ― Peggy Klaus, The Hard Truth About Soft Skills: Soft Skills for Succeeding in a Hard World
So, how do you know ‘em when you see ‘em? Soft skills include:
- Problem solving
- Adaptability
- Resilience
- Innovation & Creativity
- Constructive Feedback
- Listening
- Collaboration
- Integrity
- Conflict management
- Teamwork
- Networking
- Organization
- Time management
- Delegation
- Initiative
- Work ethic
- Negotiation
- Emotional Intelligence/Empathy
These are all good qualities that we treasure in a team member, a spouse, partner or friend — qualities we hope to instill in our children.
How We Learn Soft Skills
Soft skills develop with practice. Like deer antlers, they strengthen over time. Some people are naturally gifted — we call them “people people” — but we all benefit from improving our interpersonal skills. To do that:
-Emulate role models, people you admire who possess specific soft skills. This is one of the best ways to watch, listen and learn how they interact with others.
-Practice with people at home, in school, at church, on the sports field and at work.
-Ask for feedback. Often, others can see things you miss about your own behaviors. Use my CARLA Concept as a guide for giving and getting feedback.
-Read books on soft skills that may include:
- First, Break All the Rules by the Gallup Organization
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D.
- Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
- Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work: Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles of RESPECT by Paul L. Marciano
7 Ways To Tell if You’re Successful
It’s often hard to tell whether your soft skills are effective. To tell whether your efforts have paid off, you have to look for proof by the results you achieve. For example:
- You make higher sales
- Employee retention numbers improve (better pay and having resources to do the job makes a difference too, but Gallup Organization research proves that the manager’s personal style makes a big difference)
- You get more cooperation from others
- You strengthen your network, not necessarily in numbers but in the depth of the relationships
- You have less stress
- There are fewer complaints
- Customer satisfaction scores are higher (the way customers are treated can matter even more than price)
“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” — Henry Ford
During spring and summer as velvet nourishes the forming deer antlers, bucks spend their time together in collegial groups. But when the velvet is shed, leaving hard, strong antlers, bucks become more aggressive in preparation for the rut. That’s where their sparring earns the winner the right to mate.
Yes, building strong people skills can improve our success in the mating arena, but it also helps us overcome challenging interactions with others. It’s those softer skills that often make us more successful in our dealings with difficult people. While deer do rely on their own forms of communication to win at their conflicts, we are blessed with a broader menu of skills to draw from to achieve better results in life, work and at play.
Unlike deer, going “head-to-head” with an adversary could leave us with a broken noggin’ and a bruised ego!