Soft Skills and Hard Hats
Date Posted: June 25, 2019
Posted In: Workforce,
From Building Design+Construction: What does it take to do your job? It’s easy to name the “hard skills,” the ones that use physical tools to make physical things. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Critical parts of our jobs, the parts that deal with people, rely on communication as the tool – these are our “soft skills.” Soft skills allow us to navigate conflict, establish trust, and find novel solutions. They are the key to increasing productivity in the AECO industry, a sorely needed change considering the sector’s annual productivity growth has only increased 1% over the past 20 years despite accounting for 13% of the world’s GDP. This equates to $1.6 trillion of potential value, enough to meet half of the world’s infrastructure needs.
The concept of “soft skills” is hardly new. In 1959, the US Army created regulations called “Systems Engineering of Training” (CON Reg 350-100-1) to train officers in skills that involve little to no interaction with machines. Following this, in 1974 Dr. Paul G. Whitmore and John P. Fry co-authored a fascinating report called “What are Soft Skills?” They assessed thirty-five common officer job functions; I will focus on three that were considered very emergent at the time of the report. I would argue that they are still emerging across industries today. Those job functions are:
- Change subordinates’ counter-productive attitudes toward more positive ones.
- Determine and maintain trust and “open” (two-way) communication
- Facilitate innovation in the existing organization or system
Change Counter-Productive Attitudes Toward More Positive Ones
Institutional rivalries in the AECO industry – architects vs. structural engineers, general contractors vs. architects – are some of the most counter-productive attitudes I encounter. These frustrations and grievances put up barriers that prevent active problem solving. They also have a measurable cost. Dr. Julie Brockman of Michigan State University quantified the cost of arguments in the construction industry in a report funded by the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR). The report determined that episodes of “interpersonal conflict” on construction job sites averaged about $11,000 in labor cost per conflict. Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly), the CPWR noted that most arguments weren’t typical labor conflicts or jurisdictional disputes – they were mostly arguments “over the best way to approach a task.” In other words, counter-productive attitudes.
One of my main goals as a BIM consultant is to introduce new methods of collaboration, such as integrated project delivery (IPD), that help avoid these situations. IPD is a project delivery method that “integrates people, systems, business structures and practices into a process that collaboratively harnesses the talents and insights of all participants to optimize project results.” I apply IPD concepts on all of my projects regardless of the contract. I prefer to have the site superintendent, designers, and the modeler and foreman for each trade present at every coordination meeting to expedite clash resolution. When people take ownership of their decisions prior to construction, there is a shared sense of trust and understanding that this is the path forward.