OPINION: CIOs and IT managers are constantly being reminded about the importance of soft skills. But is this management buzzword all that people claim?

'Soft skills' seems such a disparaging term. It has connotations of something squishy, slimy and altogether unpleasant--not like a discipline worthy of the effort of study.

As technologists, our primary dealings are with the hard skills. We are grounded in a world of certainties where issues are black and white, and solutions have clear-cut consequences. Hard skills have weight and substance. So, soft skills should be easy, right? That's why they are called soft skills.

Unfortunately, there is a prevailing sentiment that management is not a major discipline--that an MBA is optional rather than being a necessity for those in management, and is the quick road to corporate success and monetary gain.

I think we lose sight of the fact that it is teaching the skills of management so that we may be qualified for a management role. Somewhere along the way, we've all convinced ourselves that management is a skill that can just be picked up with little formal instruction.

In contrast, we wouldn't let an unqualified doctor operate on us. Or in good conscience, allow someone without a driver's license to get behind the wheel of a car. Dare I say that we would be outraged if a non-engineer performed the job of an engineer? Yet, without further consideration we allow untrained managers loose in the corporation.

Now you might say, 'well, management isn't a life-endangering, life-affecting skill'. No one is going to suffer from a bad management decision. That is, unless it is your boss we are talking about. When you are on the pointy end of the management scalpel you have a heightened interest in the skills of the person wielding the blade. And I don't think I need to mention the number of corporate corpses in recent years that have resulted from mistakes on the operating room table.

The reality is that management is a difficult skill. If it were easy, we wouldn't have the wealth of horror stories about bad bosses. Yet, despite all this evidence, we never associate the problem with a lack of training. From a casual survey of social gatherings at the local establishment on a Friday afternoon, people attribute most management problems to their boss's vegetative state of brain activity, the onset of hereditary insanity or other such neurological disorders, couched in the most colourful of language, never to be repeated in print.

Management is a learnt skill and is not entirely intuitive. You can learn it through a trial and error approach, making the same mistakes as those before you and worse, and not recognising mistakes for what they are. Or you can spare you and your staff the anguish by formally learning the management skills necessary for carrying out your responsibilities before unleashing your will upon the unsuspecting world. At the very least, you might avoid being the topic of conversation on a Friday afternoon for all the wrong reasons.

Jon Barnett is director and senior consultant at Amity Solutions. He can be contacted at j.barnett@amitysolutions.com.au

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