FORGET business balls, in the Noughties soft skills are the key to hard success. But there is nothing more difficult than trying to pin down a solid definition of soft.

A quick search on Google reveals that soft skills can mean anything from communication to creativity, teamworking to time management.

Melody Blackburn, a principal consultant with the business psychology consultancy OPP, says: “Soft skills is a term often used when we talk about people skills or anything that is not a technical skill.”

But this is not just about teaching monosyllabic geeks how to answer the telephone; soft skills become more important as you step up the corporate ladder.

“As you become more senior you let go of the need for technical skills. If you want to become a manager then you need to work on your soft skills because you need to achieve things through others,” Blackburn says. She lists her top soft skills for management as: communication, including the ability to listen effectively; empathy; motivation and inspiration; conflict management; and adaptability.

The problem is that we all know bosses who possess the people-management skills of a newt. So how essential are soft skills really? “Sometimes there are no consequences (of not having good soft skills) and people can be carried a long way on their intellect. But there is the potential to plateau or derail from your trajectory,” Blackburn says, “if you lack these skills.”

Professor Alex Scott, the academic director at Edinburgh Business School, says: “There are several interpretations of soft skills. One is that they are the touchy-feely kind of things that help you to get along with people. Another that they are those disciplines where there are no real facts and figures and you are dealing with imprecise fuzzy conclusions.”

But he points out that any distinction between hard and soft business skills is artificial in the world of business, where the two have to go hand in hand: for example, to be successful at the hard business skill of marketing you need the “soft” ability to understand what makes people tick.

A study by the Centre for Creative Leadership, in North Carolina, backs Professor Scott’s view that the best business brains are able to balance hard and soft skills. It found that “in organisations undergoing transitions, effective leaders . . . blend the softer leadership skills — trust, empathy, and genuine communication — with the tough skills needed to keep an organisation afloat during difficult times”. The good CEOs strike a balance between providing the support and direction that employees need and the bottom line goals of business. Poor ones were uncommunicative, insensitive to employee needs and seen as inaccessible.

The ultimate skill is being able to adapt your skills, hard or soft, to get the best from any situation.

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Soft cell

“SOFT skills” is a phrase that is bandied about a lot, usually by employers claiming that we don’t have enough of them.

But is it a well-founded gripe and do we really need to harden up our softer side to get on in the hard-boiled world of work?

Over the coming weeks we aim to collect some solid data about the flaccid field of soft skills: why do we need them and how do we get them?

We will also look in detail at some key soft skills, including teamwork, communication, adaptability, influence, integrity and problem-solving.

This week we sought answers from OPP (www.opp.co.uk), Edinburgh Business School (www.ems.ed.ac.uk) and the Centre for Creative Leadership (www.ccl.org)

• Next week: Do you have enough soft skills and what can you do about it if you don’t?

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