Analytically Speaking

Harnessing Human Skills in a Technical World

Very recently, I was a guest on the Entelect Engage weekly podcast where there the topic was the power of mentorship amongst the women in the company. The tech industry is still predominantly male and one of the strides that Entelect has taken to bridge this gap is to be intentional about creating an environment that not only invites female talent but retains it. One of the salient points that came through was about softness and it being seen as a strength not just for women but for men alike. Feeling that I could elaborate on this topic, I have decided to pen this piece, detailing how we can identify and harness human skills to thrive in a technical world. When hearing the word “soft,” often, the connotation that is carried along with it is that of docility however, to be technical about it – I will refer to the Oxford dictionary definition of soft skills which reads: “personal qualities that enable you to communicate well with other people¹.” Mastering soft skills is not a one-off process and on the journey to self improvement, it is not just you but those who interact with you are able to reap the benefits of this work that you do on yourself too. Self awareness is the first and most critical step in this journey of growth and is part of having emotional intelligence – a soft skill that is commonly referenced in literature and discussion around this particular topic.

How can you be certain that you have self awareness? I can approach this question as a systems analyst and say that we should first understand what it means to have self awareness and to my knowledge, it is being able to perceive yourself down to identifying your thoughts and feelings and why you may be having them, in this, taking into consideration how you are and may be perceived by others. I particularly love using the Johari window² as a tool to help me in this as it allows me to assess myself in the four categories of:

1. What I know about myself that others do not know
2. What I know about myself that others do know
3. What others know about me that I know
4. What neither myself nor others know about me

Armed with self awareness, it becomes easier to start looking at how to leverage your strengths as you develop the ability to use the soft skills of effective communication and collaboration with others. Part of effective communication is the ability to pay the necessary attention and using empathy in this goes a long way. Being able to cognitively and emotionally consider what it may be like to be in someone else’s position can enhance the ability to connect with them and having the understanding that they know more about themselves than you do, will fuel the curiosity required to ask the questions that will allow them to share their thoughts with you . On a technical project, knowing what the pain point of your stakeholder is goes a long way in identifying and solving the problem through delivering the appropriate solution – whether it is software or process improvements. With team members, it allows you to connect with them knowing how to share any knowledge that could help them in the way of achieving the shared goal of project success. It can also assist when it comes to conflict management – a soft skill necessary in times of misaligned priorities or perspectives and having those hard conversations. It takes emotional maturity to hold the space, creating psychological safety for someone to share something that they may be embarrassed to admit, knowing that you won’t break their confidence – humiliating them in the process.

Situational awareness is enhanced during interpersonal interactions with the team and project stakeholders, putting you in the position to connect the dots between what is required and what can be done as well as how fast it can be done and how to act when impediments rear their heads – things do not always go as planned in project delivery and knowing how to navigate the turbulence is an essential skill that requires the correct level of finesse and creativity where known solutions are not quite cutting it. So with all this being said, the soft landing that having soft skills will produce is worth the effort required to grow and refine them over time – for everyone involved.

I thought I’d end the article with a picture from the moment that sparked my inspiration, my feature on the podcast with the two awesome women who are also participants in the mentorship program.

1. This definition was taken from the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary ↩︎
2. Learn more about the Johari window here ↩︎