How to Strengthen Soft Skills?

By Tatiana Quiroz, Advisor in Soft Skills

"The power is not in the habits, but in how long they are maintained." - R. Samsó

Referring to soft skills implies, first and foremost, distinguishing them from what are called hard skills. As Berta Madrigal points out in her book "Management Skills," hard skills refer to technical knowledge, the learning of necessary resources to develop specific tasks that enable one to tackle problems encountered in professional performance; hence, they are acquired by mastering a career or professional practice. The art of management requires specific knowledge that empowers each person to achieve the expected results for their position or responsibility.

On the other hand, soft skills are defined as personal, social, and emotional (non-technical) skills that are essential for managing people, leading, and growing both personally and professionally.

Questioning whether they are necessary or not is a question that has been answered by the leading business schools and even the World Economic Forum. In the publication "The Future of Jobs" by Harvard University, it is stated that 85% of professional success is due to the early acquisition of interpersonal or soft skills, related to the social and emotional sphere.

So, if they are indispensable and increasingly demanded in the labor market, where, when, and how are they learned? We assert that technical skills (hard) are generally acquired in universities or technical studies. But what about soft skills? It seems they must be "brought" from before... from the family? From schools? If soft skills are habitual, observable behaviors that enable success, some characteristics can be drawn from them:

• Behavior. According to the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, behavior is conduct, practice, procedure. We could say, a way of acting or behaving.
• Habitual. A habit is defined as a special way of proceeding acquired through repetition.
• Observable. It means it is evident. Not hidden or secret.
• Enable success. That is, they favor it.

Returning to the initial questions, where are these habitual behaviors acquired? It implies they are not "exceptional" but the expected, accustomed behavior of that person; it is the way of behaving almost without realizing it. Like when one learns to drive a vehicle. The first lessons are a challenge for the instructor, and with practice, that coveted driving license is achieved. After a few years of practice, all the actions needed for the car to start, move, and take us safely to our destination are performed without thinking.

We learn from a young age to communicate, to identify and manage our emotions, to work and trust in the team. We understand how to resolve conflicts peacefully, manage our time so that it is sufficient for everything we want and is important to us. We accept changes and become resilient, become ambitious and seek more, run faster, know more places, dream and try to fly as high as possible.