Two Soft Skills You Absolutely Need Now (2021) To Be Successful in Smart Manufacturing
By: Mike Nager
Tags: Education, Employee Engagement, Workforce Development, Leadership, Soft Skills

As 2021 approaches, the technology behind Smart Manufacturing is maturing rapidly and is starting to deliver on its promise of bringing us personalized products that are available right away.

For someone with the necessary hard skills, Smart Manufacturers offers excellent opportunities to forge a successful career.

But keep this in mind. I have presented and brainstormed with hundreds of manufacturers and economic development committees about workforce development issues throughout my career. Discussions with them always include the topic of Soft Skills — every single time.

It seems that finding people with the right skill sets required aren’t confined to just the hard engineering or software programming skills. It seems that today, as we close in on the year 2021, there is a shortage of those possessing soft skills as well.

Soft Skills — Round Out the Professional

Soft skills are communicating effectively, exhibiting a ‘professional’ attitude, and working successfully in a team environment. But the list is growing.

“Brilliant Jerks Need Not Apply”

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is a hot topic in all sorts of business publications and is seen by many as a key indicator of success.

Almost everyone has a story of someone they know that was brilliant or effective in some area, but whose inability to work in the team (abrasive personality, hostile demeanor, arrogance, attention-seeking, or worse) was so disruptive the performance of the group or company a suffered.

Employers are actively looking to screen the ‘technical jerks’ no matter how talented in other areas.

Leadership Skills

Leadership skills are critically important in nearly every job position and level within the enterprise.

Why? Smart Manufacturing is flattening management hierarchies and requiring everyone in the organization to make decisions and act.

No-one is going to give you hour-to-hour tasks or even day-to-day tasks to complete. You are expected within a short time to take charge of your position and start making a difference by understanding the company’s goals and driving towards them.

No matter your position, you are expected to identify a problem, devise a solution, then drive the organization towards it as effectively and professionally as possible.

Not long ago, the engineers of the company were considered the Problem Solvers of the organization. But in 2021 and beyond, this won’t be enough.

Even in the United States, which traditionally prefers ‘money’ people＊ in the corner offices, has there is a recognition that the technical staff needs to be Problem Identifiers.

Bringing up problems to others in the organization that never realized there was an issue requires tact. It also requires the grit, ability, and drive to engage with upper management to change the project’s trajectory (or the department, product, or even company).

Employers need a higher percentage of people fully engaged because the organizations that harness all their employees’ creativity and passion will survive and thrive. And those that don’t might not survive.

Re-naming Soft Skills to Durable Skills

Perhaps the term Soft Skills have a negative or weak connotation, and a better name would be Durable Skills. Why Durable? Because these are the skills that will last your entire career, while a lot of hard skills have a short shelf life.

A hard skill I learned at college was FORTRAN 77 programming. I took that class right after English Composition 101, which at the time didn’t seem all that relevant. But which one do you think has provided me the most significant value in the long term?

＊This might be changing. Elon Musk publically pondered if there are too many MBAs running American businesses. Read about it here.