Director at JXD Consulting
Hard skills are important, that is not something we should ever call into question. What you initially learn through school, college and university is vitally important. They provide the solid grounding from which to move forward. These are your foundations and they will allow you to take your skills and passion for your chosen discipline into the world.
However, it is the skills you learn through hard won experience that will really differentiate you amongst your peers. These soft skills will not only let you realise your full potential but enable you to shape the industry sectors you apply yourself to, influence how they are perceived and give you the opportunity to encourage and develop the next generation.
It is this type of experience that can only be usefully gained by actively engaging in the complexities of the world in which we live and work. By engaging with the world you reinforce the need to embrace not only the responsibility you have – and should always have - to yourself, but the responsibility you have for your colleagues, your team and the organisations you work for and represent. The impact of what you do, or perhaps what you don't do, is now far wider reaching and has the potential to change the path a project takes and ultimately the overall outcome.
Successful outcomes are of course what we are always striving to achieve, but how we get there will almost always require a careful balance of both hard and soft skills. Undoubtedly, it is the hard skills that will produce the tangible end result, but soft skills are very much needed to effectively shepherd the project through the myriad of less tangible elements such as people, process and politics. Recognising this early on in your career and taking every opportunity to learn from the experiences each and every project or interaction presents you with, will bring balance and insight into how you go about your work. With time and commitment, this will give you what we can perhaps refer to as a ‘sixth sense’, which allows you to lead and influence in an informed and intelligent way, smoothing the path towards that successful outcome.
The reality with most projects is that whilst on paper you may have found the most direct path or technically best solution, you need to assess how that translates into the environment in which you are currently working. This requires a high level of discipline, self-restraint, compromise and the ability to listen effectively. Listening effectively, is quite possibly one of the most important soft skills in your arsenal and one you should never stop working on or paying attention to. If you can master these skills, they will continually reward you.
As change is inevitable, being able to evolve and adapt in an ever changing and fast moving world is a necessity. The hard and soft skills that shape you as a person and your chosen career, are something that require continuous development. As your career progresses, broadening your suite of skills and taking time to understand related disciplines, will allow you to empathise and adjust your approach accordingly; smoothing the path towards that successful outcome. Over the course of your career, this will allow you to build much more effective, productive and long lasting relationships.
So where does the EDT (Engineering Development Trust) fit in to all of this? Well, I had the opportunity to be part of both the Engineering Education Scheme (EES) and Year in Industry (YINI) programmes. Looking back, there is no doubt in my mind, these schemes provided me with an invaluable insight and an experience that would shape who I would become both professionally and as a person. The early exposure to working on real industry projects gave me an early respect for the soft skills that I would need to understand, develop and hone over time alongside my hard skills. Being able to instil this need to balance and develop both hard and soft skills early on, has undoubtedly contributed to the rewarding and successful career I have enjoyed to date and enabled me to develop that ‘sixth sense’.
Bio: James Mercer is a Director at JXD Consulting. He is a hands-on professional, driven by a passion to see clients succeed and turn IT into a strategic asset that both supports and contributes to the performance of their business. With a proven track record in delivering IT transformation, strategy, innovation, performance, optimisation and operational excellence, James is used to working under pressure and to high standards to deliver successful outcomes. Specialism is travel and airlines. Operates globally. You can contact James at @JXDConsulting.
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