Wanted: Soft and Hard Skills

The construction business is a hard world, filled with danger and risk: saws that can take off your arm, buildings that can fall over, multimillion-dollar budgets that can result in messy lawsuits.  Project managers need to be direct and clear in their communication, even if comes off too hard-edged.  Being soft can get you killed.  But construction is still a people business. And you need tact to work with the people to both gain their cooperation and trust and avoid all the risks. You need soft skills along with the hard skills.

It’s a tricky balance to be direct but not too direct. In the best scenario, direct communicators are efficient, effective, and respected because they don’t play games. People like to know where they stand. In the worst scenario, direct communicators can be insensitive, hurtful, and not respected because of their lack of empathy and tact. People steer clear of them because they don’t value relationships. It’s pretty easy to see the wreckage of badly handled interaction when someone is too direct. However, it’s not as easy to see the wreckage of a badly handled interaction when there is a lack of clarity.

When we choose empathy over clarity, we can lose as well. When we skirt around issues, avoid them, or don’t say what needs to be said, there’s a cost as well: Work doesn’t get done. Bad work or problems don’t get addressed and continue. Accidents happen. People worry excessively. They talk about issues. They leave firms. Productivity suffers. The irony is that those who value relationships above all else can end up hurting relationships by a lack of clarity or outright avoidance of issues. People need to know where they stand.

In a recent workshop series on difficult conversations, I witnessed emerging leaders grow in both ways: direct communicators took a step back and considered more than the facts; empathetic communicators took a step forward and were more direct. If you can be both direct and considerate, you’ll build more trust and cooperation in your relationships and get more done.