Earlier this week I was at a design review at Microsoft with the Web Platform team (comprised of the former ASP.NET, IIS and Visual Studio Web tools teams), where Scott Guthrie gave an awesome talk about how Microsoft builds and ships products. That's not the topic of this post (more coming on that soon, however, stay tuned). But in describing how his team worked Scott made an very interesting observation. He said:
"Microsoft is a classic meritocracy: the folks who are best at their jobs tend to become the leaders. And that can be a problem sometimes because the best developers often don't make the best managers."
If soft skills are important in a huge company like Microsoft with a lot of specialization, they are even more important in a consulting practice like Vertigo where we all wear a lot of hats. As we think about our professional development as engineers, it's well worth honing those soft skills as well. I'll start by introducing the most basic one, and add to the list in further posts.
Soft Skill #1:
Act with confidence (even when you don't feel it). Confidence is a sort of proto soft skill. If you have enough confidence to say "I don't know but let me figure out the answer." you are well on your way to developing great soft skills. But don't mistake arrogance or unpreparedness for confidence. Act out of respect for yourself and the other guy, and confidence will become one of your most useful soft skills.
Whether you are pulled into a meeting with Scott to explain a technology you don't really remember much about, or your demo fails in front of a few hundred people confidence is the skill you need to fall back on. Know that -- no matter what -- you bring something valuable and use your confidence to ask (yourself or your audience) how else you can help in this moment. For the technology question perhaps it's the promise to provide an explanation after you've had a chance to go do some research. For the demo, perhaps it's explaining the point of the the demo verbally. But keeping your cool and offering some value is always better than freaking out, or BSing.
Finally confidence is an end unto itself. People trust your judgement more if you appear confident. So try to act confident even if you don't feel that way. Folks will respond more favorably and you'll likely get better results simply from acting confident.
There's a great geek quote that someone sent me a few years ago during one of my more scary stretches at Microsoft, from the Sci-Fi space opera Babylon 5. In it, Delenn says "If you are falling from the mountain, you may as well try to fly." I took this advice to heart and you'd be surprised how well it worked. So the next time you are falling from the mountain, trying flapping. It's that simple.
~Susan