Unicorns Are People, Too: Re-Thinking Soft and Hard Skills
summary
Argues that labeling skills "soft" or "hard" misleads hiring and rewards, proposes concrete replacements (examples: interpersonal vs quantifiable, psychological vs technical, life‑learned vs book‑learned), and gives actionable steps: change job descriptions with HR, make communication part of raises, run internal pair programming and code‑review workshops, teach shared ethics/code‑of‑conduct, do weekly check‑ins and frequent feedback. Jokes about "approximately 382 JavaScript frameworks" underline the need to build better vocabulary and tools.
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chapters (18)
- 0:00Start
- 0:07Unicorns ARE PEOPLE TOO.
- 0:51SOFT VS. HARD
- 1:37WHAT ARE SOFT SKILLS?
- 5:38WHAT ARE HARD SKILLS?
- 10:34COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS HAPPEN A LOT.
- 11:10Potential ALTERNATIVES
- 11:24INTERPERSONAL SKILLS PERSONALITY TRAITS TASK AND MANAGEMENT-RELATED SKILLS CUSTOMER-FACING SKILLS
- 12:05CERTIFIED, TESTABLE, OR MEASURABLE
- 13:17PAIRED ALTERNATIVES
- 13:36QUANTIFIABLE
- 14:17Psychological
- 19:47QUESTIONS ABOUT INTERPERSONAL SKILLS AND THEIR EXPECTATIONS FOR THE ROLE
- 20:51ADJUST EXPECTATIONS BOTH WITHIN THE COMPANY AND ON THEIR TEAM.
- 21:16COLLABORATIVELY CHANGE JOB DESCRIPTIONS MITH DIRECT REPORTS
- 21:52PROVIDE TRAINING PAIR PROGRAMMING, FEEDBACK, AND CODE REVIEW WORKSHOPS.
- 23:23MAKE OPPORTUNITIES FOR NEW LEADERS ON SMALL PROJECTS AND FOR PAIR PROGRAMMING TO REINFORCE NEWLY LEARNED SKILLS.
- 24:28IT'S EASY TO BE A UNICORN.
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