Issue#40 Let's Make Soft-skills Hard

This conversation is with Luki Danukarjanto - a career-coach, published author and and the founder of Focus Inspired, which helps young professionals and students build purpose-filled careers.

On a still-cold evening in April this year, I walked into an industry event. My first industry event, actually. I circled the perimeter of the room like an inept swimmer assessing how deep the water is.

I stepped in, talked to a few people. Some chats were better than others. Overall, we’ll call it a 6/10.

Then, I met Ariana.

She flitted around the room like a bumblebee in a flowerbed. She slid into conversations. She engaged, listened, contributed, pitched her services. She was strategic and effective. Worse, she did all this without any undue exertion. Meanwhile, I had retreated - hugging the walls and hiding behind refreshments.

I’m sure you’ve had moments like these -

You stuttered through a 10-minute presentation while Alisha had the audience eating from the palm of her hand for 30 mins straight. The thought of reaching out to strangers on LinkedIn makes you slightly nauseous. Meanwhile, your friend Jordan has connections peppered throughout his industry.

So…what’s happening here?
You’re an introvert, not a big group person, socially awkward. I hear you. Honestly, I find large events draining too. And don’t get me started on small talk…

This is just not our thing, right?!!
Ariana, Alisha and Jordan are just naturally good at this.

Well, Luki disagrees with us. Let’s hear why…

I challenge the fact that it comes “naturally” to some people.

The only 2 things that come naturally to humans are breathing and eating. Pretty much everything else you’ve had to learn. Were you born reading? No. There’s nothing natural about that.

Now, with the environment that you’re in, you’re pre-conditioned, you’re exposed to certain things. So there are some people who are more naturally introverted, extroverted, shy or whatever. I’m an introvert. I prefer to be in a smaller group of people. But if you’re forced, to be in a group of 10, 50, 100 people, and you do it day after day, then you improve.

If you choose to take it as a skill that you want to improve, you can improve.

The journey of developing human skills is personal to Luki. As a young professional, he noticed a gap. He had a background in computer sciences, landed a good job and felt his work would speak for itself. He was doing well, too - great feedback, stellar performance ratings. But every now and then, someone would get a better project, a promotion over him.

Sound familiar?

His own growth in this area has led him to where he is today - a passionate advocate for human skills development and mentorship. It’s also why he is convinced that you can learn these skills.

At the end of the day, it is a choice.

But at the same time, choice is not necessarily everything. Because choice, in order for it to be sustainable, has to turn into habits. Otherwise, you have to use willpower each time.

"Ooh, I’m not gonna get nervous.” “I’m going to do this instead.”
And that becomes draining.

If you put yourself regularly in those situations, it becomes more “natural”

You’re probably thinking why you need to do all this. What’s the point? You’re good at what you do. And you’ve done fine so far, after all. One way to look at it is this -

If your technical skills are 9/10 or 10/10, but your communication skills are 5 or 6, you’re seen as a 5 or 6. The challenge with this market is the opposite is not true.

If a person’s communication skills are 8 or 9, but their technical skills are 5 or 6, they’re probably going to get the job or at least push to the next round ahead of you.

You can’t go much farther into this conversation without hitting AI and how it has affected hiring.

People are now understanding AI can do a bunch of stuff - administrative work, the repeated, the tedious type, the automatable work - but it has to be monitored. There has to be some oversight.

So, instead of hiring 10 entry level folks or 10 interns, they only need to hire 2, right? When the job market goes from 10 roles to 2, it gets rougher. So the floor for everybody has gone up, right?

The bar is higher..

Here’s an example - A hiring manager looking to fill Project Manager role recently reached out to Luki. She asked if Luki knew any candidates that would be a good fit. But, didn’t she already find some good cadidates? She was interviewing, after all.

And yes, she had “good” candidates. She wanted “great” candidates.
She was looking for exceptional.

This captures an important reality -

Now companies are waiting for the A’s, the A pluses. The harsh reality for a lot of folks is, many folks are B’s or they might be A players in their technicals, but if their communication is a B or C, then [the hiring managers] never see it, right?

So yes, the job hunting landscape is changing fast. And experienced professionals aren’t entirely immune. And Luki sees many newcomers getting a few things wrong -

They will talk about, I’ve done this, this, this...

And the question that I encourage everyone to ask on the interview, on the networking, in the coffee chat is - “So what?”

Because yes, you’ve done it, but does that work and apply for me? Is that the same here? Is it similar context?

So, if you can say, “…and this is why”, then you’re filling in the blank for them.

It helps to start with a fundamental question - What makes people hire someone?

People hire for 3 reasons - Fit, Skills and Experience.
And everyone focuses on the last. But that to me is the least of the important of the three.

Luki puts it this way -

But fit is underappreciated.

Let’s say you have experience and skills nailed down - you have done it before and you can do it again. But the interviewer doesn’t like you. You can see where this ends. But, if you don’t have experience, they might just give you a shot if they like you enough.

The world of human-skills can be full of terms that feel squishy. One of the particularly squishy ones is Confidence. “Be more confident”, Alisha said when you asked her for tips on presentation skills. Umm…what the hell does that even mean?

Luki breaks down confidence into 3 elements:

Competence - are you good at the thing?

So the more you do something, the better you get, right? So if you want to be better at coffee chats, you have to have more coffee chats, right?

Belief - do you think you can get good at the thing?

…it’s sort of like the “fake it till you make it”. But to me, it’s actually, “believe it till you make it”. And the point is, you’re putting yourself, again, in the situation where you can gain that competence. Because if you sit there, you have the innate ability, the environment, but you’re not putting in the practice, you’re not going to improve.

Presence - are you right here in the moment?

…if you’re focused right now on this conversation, right? Um, you’re confident.

But if you start thinking about the future. It’s like, “Oh my gosh, what if I say this? What if I say something dumb? What if I say…?” That is where nervousness, anxiety, stress lives.

Or if you focus on the past. “Oh, last time, something really dumb happened. Last time I did this and I stuttered and I couldn’t say...” Well, that’s the past and you can’t change that, and the future hasn’t happened.

So if you focus on the right now. Then you can’t help but be confident.

Ok! Ok! You get it. Human skills matter. You’re ready to work on it. But what even does this shapeless term include? And what can you DO to start working on it?

Luki identifies 7 skills under the umbrella of “Human skills”.
Of these, the 5 foundational skills are: Mindset, Communication, Productivity, Social skills and Thinking.

He sharpens why communication matters a little extra -

…communication is one of the few outwardly facing skills. Because in your brain, you could be confident. But I can’t see what you’re thinking. It’s one of the most helpful or most important skills.

Finally, there’s Leadership and Creativity rounding out the 7 skills that Luki defines under “Human skills”.

Overwhelmed? Here’s the good news -

I often say with any skill. You have to suck before you’re any good. And the goal is to be less suck…to be a little bit better.

…they realized the key mindset shift is not focusing on themselves and focusing on the other person…the 2 aspects I tell people to focus in networking is care and curiosity.

How can I care? How can I add value? How can I help the other person? And how can I be interested? And that I want to learn more about that.

If you take those 2 perspectives, then networking, social interactions become much easier. When you focus on yourself that’s where stress and anxiety is…but you focus on the other person, then you’re focusing on right now.

Don’t let perfection paralyze you. The goal is not hitting 10/10 on everyyyything. BUT, you can aim to be a 5, right? I’m in this with you.

I can’t hug the walls, circle the perimeter and run to the refreshments forever, right?

I won’t always have an Ariana to save me from myself. Oh, and it turns out I got a few things wrong about Ariana. It’s true that she’s spectacular at large-event networking. But that’s because she attends a few of these events a month. This was not effortless success - it was something a lot less glamorous and a lot more achievable - Habit!

I know I need to pull up my socks in a few areas. And I’m going to start small, accept a little bit of discomfort and recognize that my fear is making this a bigger deal than it really is.

Will you join me?

Tell us, what human skills are you awesome at? What are you looking to tackle next?Luki and I would love to know.

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Guest Bio:

Books -
http://focusinspired.com/siwikebook
Http://focusinspired.com/ypebook
Career Confidence Gym