How to improve soft skills?
Sometimes I’m not the most patient when dealing with people. I need to really improve my soft skills to advance. Sometimes I am too terse and emotionless. Sometime idc, and I am straight to the point with facts. Example 1 - sometimes I am talking to teammate, and he can talk forever and never shut up. I just want to leave convo, but he keeps talking whatever I say. I start to lose patience and get out of convo any ways possible. Example 2 - talking to diff teammate, he is new grad from college, he always focuses on “well this is ideal way to do this, I don’t want to do anything but that”. When realistically the problem at hand has multiple dimensions. One dimension is the technical solution. Another dimension is organizational, his ideal solution would require contributions from other teams, which we have no control over. This the original problem at hand is something of a stop gap which helps to Improve our lives, make the product better, and overall everyone wins, except for it not being an “ideal, by the book solution”. This constantly steers any conversation with him away from the original problem at hand and me having to explain how the real world works and that we need a balance of both. I have no idea how to prevent these conversations from taking lots of time, getting off focus, Example 3 - I work on high visibility projects with tight deadlines, I need to reach out and push people for updates, ask them to give focus to our work since it’s blocking us. I feel like I am not being as nice as I could be but not clear on how to improve. Example 4 - sometimes I feel the need to impulsively respond with smart ass comments. Some asks “how to do X”, I respond “well obvious you do Y and Z...” (actually with dot dot dot, on slack). In most situations I realize instantly or like a minute later, “oh no, I should’ve handled this better”. I can go back and fix bugs in code but I cannot go back and fix bugs in my conversations. I must learn how to improve myself in these types of situations to advance. I am given all the best projects at the moment, I can technically execute with no problem, but if I could fix these soft skills I would easily be next level. Any books, resources or tips to help improve? Thank you blind 🙏
Although you can get a jumpstart with eq-type books, a lot of this is experiential. If your company has cross-disciplinary teams for whatever, try volunteering for one of those. You will sink or swim.
How to win friends and influence others by Dale Carnegie. Follow it like a Bible.
This.
Based on the last part of your post, to me it sounds like you need to adjust your reaction in these scenarios from "act" to "think, then act". I almost had to learn this the hard way a few years back, but instead got sent off to be taught about emotional intelligence - seriously life changing stuff. You already have the understanding of how to ideally respond, and there's clearly a large amount of empathy present, you just need to shift your reflex to think about these things before you open your mouth. Regarding how to win friends and influence people - I'm actually not a fan - it's more around manipulation through pretending to care, which, while it works, has a trust burning effect when it doesn't work, and I personally think it's an outdated way of doing things. Stick to stating the facts, it's your framing that needs work.
Very interesting answer. Are there any resources you recommend toward “improving your framing”? (eg books, websites, etc)
I feel as if this exact thread has been made before, where the op had the exact same problems. I wouldn't follow Dale Carnegie's book like a bible, but I'd definitely recommend reading it just to see what it has to offer. all of your examples go back to your lack of patience, but the first one has an easy solution; humor your teammate for a bit and try to participate in the conversation even if you don't give a shit, so you can naturally interject with a "oh no, I forgot I have a phonecall/meeting with y in 5, let's talk later, x." you're still making up an excuse, but in our line of work, it's a believable one. it allows you to leave the conversation open for your teammate later, but you get to decide when that is. example 2, you're trying to get through to the new grad by fighting a pitched battle where he's wrong and you're right. you need to end the war and assume a more understanding stance: "yes, that is the right way to do it, and while it would be proper to do it that way, we don't have enough time or resources to do it that way." this sounds like the perfect time to give the new grad some company code history: "we should have done x but since we had y constraint and team b had z constraint, we had to implement it like this" someone else will have to chime in for 3. 4, you say obvious, but it's obvious to YOU. you need to step back and say to yourself, "oh, they might not know about x" or if they're not a great dev, you might want to go, "oh, you'd use this method. make sure to do y when using it, ask again in slack if you're stuck". realize that right now, instead of telling you any of this this, I could have just said "oh it's obvious to just use some social skills and placate these people..." as if I considered you a simpleton. all of this will take practice and aren't an immediate fix.
recently saw a book at B&N - Soft skills, check it out on Amazon. Still, nothing can replace experience