Soft Skills

You might ask - how and why is article related to Project Management.

Back in the days when dinosaurs ruled the earth and not so far off till late 90s, it was thought that the Technical knowhow or the 'hard skills' was the only factor attributed a project's success. People who were pure Techo managers, sitting in one corner desk could solve the problems troubling planet earth.
But not any longer, the outlook has changed, C-level executives, mid managers etc have begun to realize that soft skills are also as important, infact soft skills are identified in today's world as also one the most important success criteria to execute a project.

What do you mean by soft skills -
Soft skills is an art - an art to communicate effectively. Effective meaning so that people will understand, listen and relate to what you are saying. For some people this trait is inborn. But for most, this has to be acquired by constant practice and learning.
This article is for those who, when surrounded by people, never fail to secretly salute a black spider that manages to find dark nooks and corners even in broad daylight.
For those - not so brave hearts, fear not - the art of soft skills can definitely be learned, cultivated and honed to the extent of becoming an expert.

One of the major issues wrt soft skills is, you do not know the importance of this trait till it hits you - like a deer hit by blazing lights of a running car,
The educational courses that teach management as a part of any curriculum talk about the technical aspects of Management, and prepare you with a Project Management framework but nothing prepares you for the soft skillset required.

Some may ask why do we need Soft skills to run a project? The reasons are many,
 First and foremost is 'Objectives and expectations alignment'
 - Projects deal with multiple stakeholders with varying skills, diverse personality types.
 - Each stakeholder may have different understanding of the project.
 - For influencing the work outcome either with stakeholders or even Team members, you will need strong leadership, communication and convincing skillset.

 Everyone has to be aligned to a common goal, just like a army of ants carrying grains of food in a straight line to its storage area.

 - At an individual level, i have personally seen many a talented people fail. Not because they did not have the Technical prowess, but because they only had Technical mastery.
No one wants to work with people, who may be so called masters of their Technology domain, but do not have the basic people skills. This is an attribute of a person's Emotional Quotient (EQ).
There is no magic formula to gain soft skills. The steps needed to achieve Soft skills could range from showing empathy and optimism towards your colleagues to extreme self-awareness in knowing what's going on around you and this is a constant learning process. You need to keep on practicing this day in and Day out.
As a person grows in his career, in order to reach higher echelons of success, it is much more important to be have soft skills competence than low level Technical knowhow.

In short, gaining Soft skills is like a fear factor game challenge where the contestant has to be on a running speedboat and has to climb the copter above using a low hanging rung of ladders in a limited timespan.
Standing on the speedboat and watching the copter above (The Project) is not enough, having excellent upper, lower body strength will not get the job done (Hard skills). But what will get you to the winners circle, is to reach out for the ladder and climbing it one rung at a time (Soft skills).

Baby steps:
You cannot climb Mt. Everest in one day (or maybe you can, but not in this case). There are certain steps that one can follow to achieve excellence in this personality skills
Join Public speaking groups:
1> e.g. Toastmasters Group: Toastmasters club is an excellent forum for personal development in terms of fear of public speaking, teaches you various traits required to be better listener and speaker. How to formulate your thoughts clearly and precisely.
One day at a time:
2> Start with meeting 1 person at a time. When you are meeting a person - even for project reasons, try to get to know the person, understand his background, his likes/dislikes, perspective on the project, what may be the pain points for him and how you can help resolve them? What does it mean by project success to him? Learn to be a good listener.
The person could be anyone from project sponsor to an end user-stakeholder to one of your internal development and testing Team members.
Professional Courses and Training:
3> Seek professional help. There are numerous training institutes and courses which delve on this particular subject. These courses will help you change the perspective and suggest ways and mean that will help you achieve your goals.

In Summary, be people centric and more extroverted than you are, start to get out of your comfort zone. We have to remember that a project is teamwork and a project is deemed successful or a failure only by the efforts of the individuals that make the Team. So encourage your Team members, have regular get together sessions, appreciate and acknowledge achievements, provide guidance and seek help, when and wherever required.

It is definitely time to come out of that dark cave and bask in the glorious sunlight.