How to Become a People Person, Part 1

How to Become a People Person, parte 1 How to Become a People Person, Part 1 How to Become a People Person, Part 1As an engineer, you probably have pretty awesome hard skills, but what about your soft skills?Hard skills are the math formulas you can recite in your sleep, the precision of getting a part perfectly in spec, your ability to analyze any software. Soft skills, on the other hand, are the personality traits and characteristics that make someone a good communicator, a people person, if you will.Popular culture often portrays engineers as lacking in soft skills. While the stereotype is unfair, engineers do tend to emphasize hard over soft skills on the job, says Kyle Freedman, corporate training manager at Enercon Services, an architectural, engineering, and environmental services firm with projects in the manufacturing, industrial, and power delivery space.The good news its easy to brush up on and even learn how to best relate to other people, Freedman says. After all, not ev eryone can be a people person. Just how much depends on a persons job.The analysis guy doesnt need great soft skills, he says Hell be at his computer all day.Companies are offering staff members soft skills training to create mora opportunities for advancement. Image Enercon ServicesBut engineers who interact with others will need a little finesse when it comes to communicating. They may need to state the reasons for needed design modifications, present plans and models, outline project scope, or negotiate deadlines. More employers are also looking for job candidates who can demonstrate those skills.Most of our projects that go wrong dont go downhill because an engineer isnt smart enough to figure out a calculation or a design aspect or hasnt been diligent in paying attention to detail, Freedman says. The biggest thing that contributes to failure often comes down to communication.Businesses seek employees with both hard and soft skills, and the same is true at Enercon, Freedman adds . Employees who communicate well are usually team players, keep customers happy, close sales, and bolster the moods of their fellow workers.When Freedman started work at the company seven years ago, he found a glaring lack of soft skills. The missing traits included patience, listening, and emotional intelligence, which Freedman defines as the ability to recognize emotions in the self and in others.Enercon offers soft skill training for emerging leaders, middle managersincluding supervisors and project managersand senior managers.Weve seen some people who have invested time in becoming a manager at our company and theyve skyrocketed up because weve spent time with them working on those traits, Freedman says.Training includes classes on active listening, which encourages the listener to fully concentrate, understand, respond to, and then remember whats been said. Active listening can end the engineering proposal expectation tire swing, he adds.Thats where Jean says one thing and Suzy Q says another and its kind of like the telephone game, where the swing from what the client suggests to the actual proposal is pretty different, Freedman says. Then the whole client relationships can go downhill.Read Part 2 of How to Become a People Person to learn more communication strategies and best practices.Jean Thilmany is an independent writer.The biggest thing that contributes to failure often comes down to communication.Kyle Freedman, Enercon Services