Soft skills, a new perspective
It is no news that the working environment has become more complex and that the market is increasingly competitive. It is news is that, in this context, where the information is just a click away and professionals have increasingly specific studies, we’ve had to turn and revalue something that is as basic as it is essential: the “how” we are with each other, how we communicate and how we bond. Basic things became essential and play a fundamental role, even when hiring candidates, being able to bend the balance in favor of one candidate over another applicant with better academic training
LinkedIn conducted a study on soft skills published on the LinkedIn Talent Blog[1], interviewing 291 Human Resources managers from the United States. They concluded that it is easy to find people with knowledge and skills in their area of expertise, but it is difficult to find people with the soft or social skills necessary for their job.
According to research by Harvard University[2], published on the web page NationalSoftskills.org, 85% of the success in the performance of a professional is due to the good development of their soft and personal skills.
I believe soft skills are crucial. It is a decisive element when selecting candidates, its impact being practically instantaneous: the daily work of the internal teams flows in an excellent work dinamic and we can observe a better relationship with our clients, better service, and better results.
If we add a high level of emotional intelligence to a team of qualified professionals with solid experience, the team’s success is assured. Nowadays, emotional intelligence is a fundamental tool in every job. We are social beings, we must communicate, work as a team and, as lawyers, we must understand our clients, their business, what they expect from us, and make them feel – in some way we are – their partners in their goals.
In order to deepen our strengths in these new market requirements, we have implemented a series of trainings that focus on teamwork, oratory, negotiation, communication and marketing, sales and responsible leadership together with a series of internal activities aimed at strengthening the bonds of the work teams and improve efficiency in our processes.
Today we can no longer separate the technical lawyer from the commercial lawyer, today we must all have a commercial outlook of our business, consider ourselves a service provider company and apply all our emotional intelligence and soft skills to get visibility and make the difference. The world has changed, our profession has changed. We need to work as a team, have critical thinking, be creative, have a multidisciplinary perspective, generate synergy with the environment to generate new opportunities.
In the midst of the turmoil we live in, where we have to adapt to new paradigms daily, sometimes we need to ‘unlearn’, be able to let go of the ways that have worked for us for years and let ourselves be surprised by new looks and new methods. To ‘unlearn’ we also need soft skills, we need to be able to accept changes and adapt to them.
I am convinced that soft skills can be developed and improved through training. However, some are easier to develop than others. I consider that some soft skills like good predisposition, empathy and optimism require an innate base that is very hard to acquire through organized dynamics. That is why the focus should be on these aspects when hiring someone.
Clearly, soft skills are here to stay and law firms are not exempt from this trend. Whoever does not get on this train and begins a process of revaluating soft skills, pondering this type of personal competencies, may lose opportunities that they could otherwise capitalize on.
For further information please contact: mchichisola@ojambf.com.
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/talent-strategy/most-indemand-soft-skills
[2] https://www.nationalsoftskills.org/the-soft-skills-disconnect/
