Soft skills seem to be the hardest learned

As clinicians, we’ve spent our whole lives learning, consolidating, revising and sitting exams so, one day, we would finally be practising.

You would think after spending a couple of decades or more in full-time education we would be done with lusting after qualifications; that life would be about honing our newly acquired clinical skills, fixing broken animals and going home covered in whatever they had decided to throw at us that day.

Of course, there’s the small matter of compulsory CPD and keeping on top of all the latest clinical happenings, but is there room in our brains and busy days for the other skill set? If there isn’t, you’d better make it, because it might just be the key to unlocking more potential (and satisfaction) in your career.

Leading by example

I started a leadership course earlier this year. A few of them are about, so I needn’t advertise them, but it was a free pilot scheme and I figured I had nothing to lose except some hours when I was on call anyway. I wasn’t even in any sort of leadership position at the time, but I had a niggling interest in certain concepts we had discussed at work and regularly perused the social media gripes du jour on various veterinary Facebook groups.

It seems we aren’t the happiest bunch at times. Between complaints, conflicts, mistakes, stress, overwork, fighting public misconceptions and misinformation – and all the things that can haunt us as we try to sleep – we are often sapped of love for this profession.

By working through the course, I saw a glimmer of possibility I could better understand and work around some of the negative influences that impinge on our experience of being vets – and those workarounds are largely to do with increasing self awareness and trying to better understand and evaluate our interactions with other people.

Overwhelmed

What I initially found is there are many different factors to consider when we interact with anyone – from clients to colleagues, family members to strangers – that I could barely count them, let alone enact them.

It was overwhelming. I thought if I had to consider all of these different theories and concepts behind communication, I would just be staring blankly at people for a solid few minutes while I took the recommended “step back” to consider my reaction to their words, formulate an appropriate response and deliver it in a manner sensitive to their situation.

How can I be open and direct at the same time? How can I give someone unconditional positive regard when everything they say makes me sad? How can I choose my own feelings?

Some kind of awkward

It was hard going. Striving to achieve self awareness is one thing, but actually being self aware, even for a second, is a real eye opener.

Asking for and giving honest feedback is the sort of awkward that makes me want to cry and throw up at the same time. But I persevered – partly because I can’t leave a task unfinished, and partly because I was starting to see why people trained in leadership behaved the way they did.

It helped me to better understand interactions with everyone I’ve worked for, and perhaps most galling, realised a lot of the things they said that I had dismissed as “a bit wafty” were right. How annoying…

Difficult to master

It turns out these so-called soft skills aren’t soft at all; they’re really hard. So hard I don’t think any one of us will ever crack the perfect interaction or get it right all the time.

Alas, this skill set is not one to be dismissed – I’ve grown a lot since I started putting more thought into how I communicate and through being able to better rationalise how people react to emotional situations, my skin has grown just that tiny bit thicker.

A year ago, I would have sooner eaten my own leg than asked for feedback; now I am asking, in small ways, regularly.

Not just a fad

It’s a scary trip, but I’m glad I started on it – especially since I’m on it with lots of other delegates who are just as Bambi-like as I am, trying to navigate a new world of skills. Not all of us are in leadership roles either, but it doesn’t discriminate. We each manage something in our lives, whether it’s people, a fantasy football team or just straight up getting through a long list of consults – there’s a lot to be said for understanding yourself a bit better, especially on the tougher days.

I’m not really sure why it has only just become trendy to think about training up the soft skills, because they matter just as much as our clinical management of everything that walks through our door, field or yard.

Take it from a reformed skeptic; once I stopped rolling my eyes, things got just a little bit clearer. It might work for you, too.