What’s in a Name?
When Juliet famously posited that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, she was right. Not that it solved any of her problems. But sometimes names do matter. In the case of Forrester, there is a big responsibility in choosing the right label. One of the most important aspects of my job is to name things, specifically categories that I cover when I write evaluative research. So, I’m here today to talk about a classification of skills that has been challenging vendors and practitioners alike.
Soft skills.
What is a soft skill? The term was coined as a contrast to hard skills, those technical competencies that can be quantified, assessed, demonstrated, and are often role specific. Soft skills were… well, everything else.
Now a broad, catch-all term would include everything from adaptability to zeal (sorry, that was the best A-to-Z I could come up with). The reality is that it includes all the skills that humans need to function in the social construct we call work. It’s the how, not the what of our daily labor. Hard and soft are simplified inaccurate descriptors.
But does it matter what we call them if people know what we’re talking about?
This brings me to the crux of the matter. This year I will research and publish a landscape report on skills development platforms. But which skills? My wonderful colleague Jess Burn published a landscape and a wave last year on Cybersecurity Skills Development Platforms. My equally wonderful colleague Eric Zines published one on Sales Skills Development Platforms, and this year my also equally wonderful colleague Fiona Mark will be publishing one on Technology Skills Development Platforms.
You can see where I’m going here.
Each of those are platforms that include content specific to a particular domain of expertise. A so-called hard skill. My report will cover that broad-based range of skills that apply to nearly every employee. But I don’t want to call them soft skills because it’s the wrong word. So, what should I call this important classification of skills to any company?
Leadership Skills Development Platforms gets us part way there – it’s a title many vendors in the space use. But that’s too specific. These platforms do cover leadership skills, but many others as well. At CX Summit this year, the theme was Human + AI, and that is a continuation of a theme that has been running through the conversation about the future of work. What role will technology play; what role will humans play. This is why it is time to call these skills by the complete, correct name: human skills. Put that together and you have the title for my landscape report, which I am working on now and which I hope you will read when it is published, now officially called “Leadership and Human Skills Development Platforms”
Stay tuned!
