Soft Skills

SQLServerCentral is supported by Red Gate Software Ltd.

Popular Topics

Home

Members

Calendar

Who's On

Home » SQLServerCentral.com » Editorials » Soft Skills

85 posts, Page 1 of 9

1 2 3 4 5 »»»

Soft Skills

Rate Topic

Display Mode

Topic Options

Author

Message

Adam Angelini

Posted Thursday, July 17, 2008 10:33 AM

Ten Centuries

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Yesterday @ 8:27 AM
Points: 1,084, Visits: 808

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Soft Skills

Post #536148

Paul Smith-221741

Posted Thursday, July 17, 2008 1:48 PM

SSC-Addicted

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 8:08 AM
Points: 427, Visits: 276

I'm very lucky in this respect. My current (so far) manager is not from an IT background but rather from a communications one.

At first I dreaded entering his office or even going to a meeting he was attending as at the end of every session there would be a soft skills analysis.

But it Worked.

There are still some managers (especially 1 female one) that I cannot seem to communicate with but together we are working on it and I'm sure that it will come together :D

Post #536290

Jeff Moden

Posted Thursday, July 17, 2008 2:29 PM

SSC-Dedicated

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Yesterday @ 7:51 PM
Points: 32,910, Visits: 26,800

What if you boss asked you to work on your "soft" skills.

I'd take the nice Oak bat home and bring in a nice "soft" Pine bat :P

I'm a teacher at heart and have taught many courses and mentored many a developer. Soft skills are not a problem there. I do find it difficult to use soft skills when someone in high authority tells me to do something in the database that I absolutely know is wrong. It's starts out as a demonstration of soft skills but, depending on how insistant the manager becomes, I do sometimes bring out the Oak. ;)

--Jeff Moden

"RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for "Row-By-Agonizing-Row".

First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
Stop thinking about what you want to do to a row... think, instead, of what you want to do to a column."

For better, quicker answers on T-SQL questions, click on the following...
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/

For better answers on performance questions, click on the following...
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SQLServerCentral/66909/

Post #536320

GSquared

Posted Thursday, July 17, 2008 3:12 PM

SSCoach

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 1:55 PM
Points: 15,442, Visits: 9,571

Good question. My answer for soft skills is Scientology. Very effective.

- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread

"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon

Post #536344

bitbucket-25253

Posted Thursday, July 17, 2008 4:36 PM

SSCertifiable

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Yesterday @ 9:12 PM
Points: 5,103, Visits: 20,208

I too have been asked (directed) to improve my softskills, since I have the unskilled propensity to tell the truth. The request of me to improve frequently occurs right after I have informed another manager of equal rank as my manager, or higher when I know an item will NOT work, or the work can not be done within either the time or budget constraints imposed.

The suggested improvement generally follows along the namby pamby wording of "that might not be", "might be difficult to stay within".. notice the might be when in fact I know it will be. Having worked consulting gigs one definitely told it would be for 30 days, well that was extended to 180 days, another was told it would be for 3 months and that was extended to 18 months and finally the last one which I was told would be for a couple of months lasted 6 years, ending with my being offered a full time position with the firm ending my consulting experiences. And no gig was ever cut short!. And in all of them I was deficient in the "softskills".

Being an old dog, too old to learn new tricks I bumble along and spend my studying time learning the new technologies as best I can. Following the mantra of you do not have to like me, but you do admit that my work is of the highest quality.

If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

Ron

Please help us, help you -before posting a question please read
Before posting a performance problem please read

Post #536377

Dr. Diana Dee

Posted Thursday, July 17, 2008 11:09 PM

SSCrazy

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Friday, April 19, 2013 3:02 PM
Points: 2,768, Visits: 108

For soft skill acquisition, nothing beats Toastmasters.

) BigGrin

Post #536456

Shaun McGuile

Posted Friday, July 18, 2008 3:10 AM

Mr or Mrs. 500

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Thursday, October 04, 2012 9:20 AM
Points: 583, Visits: 1,060

GSquared: Scientology?!?

What does that mean? Cruise and Travolta come over and talk at you? :D

No the only truth is the "Theory of Constraints" - TOC.

And yes I'm like bitbucket I call a spade a spade.

I like spotting the flaws in other peoples' perfection, without predjudice of course. :D

I do not believe in ambiguity when it comes to deadlines and weather or not something is a good/feasible/rational idea.

Hey thats probably why I'm not a 'manager'.:D

--Shaun

Hiding under a desk from SSIS Implemenation Work Crazy

Post #536564

brendan.o'connor

Posted Friday, July 18, 2008 3:15 AM

Forum Newbie

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 10:55 AM
Points: 6, Visits: 178

I have to say that this worry about soft skills is the exact same problem that other people have about math and computing. How many times have you heard some saying that they can't do math? Or they hate computers.

Maybe I'm lucky because I moved from sales into computing or because my wife is a communications manager but communications skills can be learned like any other and require the same amount of rigor.

And to equate soft skills and communication as almost lying is very naive. Anyone who is telling people to replace yes with maybe is lacking in confidence not communication skills.

If you are in a discussion where you can't say yes to someone then that means the communication skills in your whole organization are lacking.

I'd say if people have to fudge project timelines then they haven't engaged the customer in the planning of the project fully enough.

Communication is all about engaging people in the process.

It's telling the truth and making sure that all parties can deal with the truth.

Post #536565

Anipaul

Posted Friday, July 18, 2008 3:29 AM

SSCarpal Tunnel

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: 2 days ago @ 1:35 AM
Points: 4,789, Visits: 1,336

Softskills comes 'softly' into one. Hehe

It takes time that's why freshers do not process it ;)

Joke apart I believe softskills comes with experience.:)

Post #536570

Jason Miller-476791

Posted Friday, July 18, 2008 4:49 AM

SSC-Enthusiastic

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Thursday, November 18, 2010 5:25 AM
Points: 162, Visits: 694

After a couple of meetings where I explained that some proposed solutions were lacking in their full consideration of variables, I was branded a malcontent. A short time later, I was "encouraged" to attend a couple of training seminars; "How to be an effective Communicator", etc. Incidentally, I'm still considered a malcontent, possibly a valuable contributor, but still a malcontent.

I'm a few credits short for my masters in math, and one of the things that has been absolutely drilled into my head is proofs. It seems odd to me that the idea of True v. False is foreign to some. Quite often in meetings people will give examples of a business / process flow, citing several examples to "prove" their positions on something they want me to code/design. All I need to do is find one example that invalidates their plan. When I do, I get a combination of scorn, furious glares, and in one meeting the manager asking for the change storming out of the meeting.

Someone once told me: "I'm very opinionated." I agree, and furthermore, if you can prove to me that my opinion is incorrect, I will still be opinionated, but my opinion will change to what is the truth/correct.

So as you can tell, I'm often changing my opinions.

Honor Super Omnia-
Jason Miller

Post #536620

« Prev Topic | Next Topic »

85 posts, Page 1 of 9

1 2 3 4 5 »»»

Permissions