Sep 18, 2026 · 32 min · 11 segments
Upskilling is one of the most talked about topics in today's workplace, but many professionals still struggle to know where to start and what skills actually matter for the future. With technology and…
Yadira CaroGuest
Portia Parker GriffinHost
Because soft skills, we tend to, even the concept at the beginning wasn't quite familiar.
What are the skills that are the not, those that we assume that are part of our personality, that the thought that, We are either born a good communicator or we're not, or a negotiator, that if it's something inherent that we're born with that.
Soft skills are basically the skills that we need to work with people and also to manage the way we do the work.
Because, for example, when you talk about hard skills, you talk about skills that you learn, that there's a procedure, like learning a language is definitely a hard skill, or programming.
programming, data analysis, those are hard skills because those are kind of things that you've learned, you practice and come associated with the process.
With soft skills, it's a little bit more mushier, I would say, because of the fact that they still are skills because even if we are not born great communicators, we could use tools and techniques to become better at those.
They're not necessarily measurable, But we are able to use these to collaborate with others effectively, to just deal with people, and also to help us do our work better.
The soft skills you are able to apply to different scenarios, while the hard skills are more black and white type of situation where they're measurable and they determine a procedure to learn them.
So over the years as a coach and organizational consultant, I've seen some leaders and executives downplay the importance of soft skills.
And kind of to your point that you were saying earlier, I think some of this might be subconscious because of the term soft in it.
Yes, and it is interesting because when we, as either managers or either when we work in different organizations, if we take a deep look at things and realize that perhaps a team did not have the right skill set to do the work, but it boils down a lot of times to our inability to prioritize effectively, like having a mechanism.
Having a mechanism to prioritize effectively is something that organizations or leaders may not have.
Or we think at the breakdowns in communication, how we come away from a step away from a meeting and then everybody had a different idea of what the meeting was about.
So there's so much more time wasted on these activities that have little to do with the actual work, with the actual product, with the actual outcome that we want in an organization.
And this is why we tend to assume that managers can come and save the day, that they are the ones who need to align everybody to work together, or that if something fails, it could be a leadership failure.
But at the same time, it is very important for organizations to understand that We need to develop the skills, meaning the ability to prioritize, the ability to communicate effectively, clear messages, how we send the emails.
Because soft skills, we tend to, even the concept at the beginning wasn't quite familiar.
What are the skills that are the not, those that we assume that are part of our personality, that the thought that, We are either born a good communicator or we're not, or a negotiator, that if it's something inherent that we're born with that.
Soft skills are basically the skills that we need to work with people and also to manage the way we do the work.
Because, for example, when you talk about hard skills, you talk about skills that you learn, that there's a procedure, like learning a language is definitely a hard skill, or programming.
programming, data analysis, those are hard skills because those are kind of things that you've learned, you practice and come associated with the process.
With soft skills, it's a little bit more mushier, I would say, because of the fact that they still are skills because even if we are not born great communicators, we could use tools and techniques to become better at those.
They're not necessarily measurable, But we are able to use these to collaborate with others effectively, to just deal with people, and also to help us do our work better.
The soft skills you are able to apply to different scenarios, while the hard skills are more black and white type of situation where they're measurable and they determine a procedure to learn them.
So over the years as a coach and organizational consultant, I've seen some leaders and executives downplay the importance of soft skills.
And kind of to your point that you were saying earlier, I think some of this might be subconscious because of the term soft in it.
Yes, and it is interesting because when we, as either managers or either when we work in different organizations, if we take a deep look at things and realize that perhaps a team did not have the right skill set to do the work, but it boils down a lot of times to our inability to prioritize effectively, like having a mechanism.
Having a mechanism to prioritize effectively is something that organizations or leaders may not have.
Or we think at the breakdowns in communication, how we come away from a step away from a meeting and then everybody had a different idea of what the meeting was about.
So there's so much more time wasted on these activities that have little to do with the actual work, with the actual product, with the actual outcome that we want in an organization.
And this is why we tend to assume that managers can come and save the day, that they are the ones who need to align everybody to work together, or that if something fails, it could be a leadership failure.
But at the same time, it is very important for organizations to understand that We need to develop the skills, meaning the ability to prioritize, the ability to communicate effectively, clear messages, how we send the emails.
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