9 ms·

The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market [pdf]

69 points by luu 11y ago

yarrel 11y ago
...is a class issue.
1971genocide 11y ago
Yeah, the thing that is missing in our paradise of an economy is more social skills. The labor market rewards social skills because the market's buying power is transferred to a handful of people. If you had a egalitarian market that truly reflected the demand of the ordinary citizen I am sure there would be a huge increase in demand for affordable housing, healthcare, cheaper college and renewable energy. Not to mention the demand that exists to find immortality - unlike in newton's time we actually have the tools to achieve it. Its only from the ivory tower at harvard can people see the increase in childhood poverty and homelessness and conclude that "hmm you know what is missing ? some serf to make me laugh !"
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  I think you're both right and wrong. Those other issues you mention are real problems, but labor is becoming a much less important factor of production in those fields than it used to be. I think the Harvard academics are observing that in a climate of automation and global supply chains, social skills are becoming more valuable because they are hard to engineer a replacement for, which is no longer true of many physical, cognitive, or administrative skills.
nether 11y ago
I'm terrified that my lack of social skills is limiting my personal and professional lives. I haven't had close friends in 13 years. My coworkers are middle aged, suburban folks, while mostly nice it gets tiresome explaining what a selfie is or how Twitter works (or having them explain football to me), and our workplace (mechanical engineering) is unusually antisocial. The vast, vast majority of the time we only talk about work because we're in a constant mild crunch. The people I've met via Meetup.com have seemed kind of narrow and were mostly older (i.e. a hiking meetup of 20 people where all they talk about is running/hiking). I despise so many aspects of the tech/startup world that I gave up hanging out at coworking spaces years ago. I've met some good individual out on hikes alone, but I can't hold a conversation or keep in touch to save my life. Is there any experience that I could get into serving as a crash course in social skills? It can be expensive like long-term travel, except I've done enough recreational travel to know that I'm just as nervous in a campsite in Europe as I am in an office in the US. I just want to develop these skills before my social ineptitude becomes permanently ingrained.
- demian 11y ago
  Try this http://www.refinery29.com/rejection-therapy http://www.refinery29.com/rejection-therapy Then this: http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm Focus on learning to really listen to what people say. IMHO that's generally the most important and underdeveloped social skill, the rest will follow.
  - nether 11y ago
    I feel crushed by small rejections. Burned once, twice shy is true for some people. For me it's 1,000x shy for the rest of my life. Even a minor rebuff can pollute my personality for the rest of my week and increase my pessimism and fear of people. Rejection therapy just seems like it'd push me over the edge into anger and bitterness.
    - CPLX 11y ago
      Yes, and if you lifted heavy weights tomorrow you'd get very sore. If you lifted them every day you wouldn't feel sore and they wouldn't feel heavy. Overcoming discomfort requires enduring discomfort.
      - HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
        What he said!
    - demian 11y ago
      Yup, it's not going to be easy.
    - jkaunisv1 11y ago
      Have you seen a therapist? It's hard work to reprogram your own brain, and even harder if you try to do it alone. I think of it as a microscope trying to examine itself. Even a few sessions can do a lot to point out your blind spots, give you objective feedback, and drill down on questions that you subconsciously avoid asking yourself.
zxcvvcxz 11y ago
Here's a snarky contrarian view: social skills matter more now because there is less meaningful production and creation occurring. When engineering consists of making CRUD apps and serving up ads, you're better off politicking to get a bigger piece of a not-so-expanding pie.
- conceit 11y ago
  > making CRUD apps and serving up ads It involves a lot of social engineering is all. To design an API is to offer a service. It's the service industry and it's possible thanks to a lot of production and creation.
- pm90 11y ago
  I think its a lot more complex than that. I agree that there are a lot of people who make their living making CRUD apps (and honestly, I think its a good thing if people can do it! Someone is paying for those CRUD apps which means there is a demand...). But...as the economy gets more automated and digitized and the population grows, you're success will be determined by how quick you are in recognizing opportunities (clients, projects etc.) and social networks seem to be the best way to get this information. So I would argue that its the advantage of this property of social networks which is what makes being social a valuable skill. Also, I see a lot of disdain over the term "being social" in the tech community: its not licking the boot of others, its as simple as being the one who initiates conversation. I cannot stress how important this simple skill is.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  T'was ever thus. I've been moving down the organization for a long time. It's only bitten me twice, but both times it bit hard. But I sincerely believe it's the way to make a career that lasts. Er, at least you'll last. The "politics" way is much more fickle. And I think it probably takes longer to get good at this stuff than we want to think it does.
- joe_the_user 11y ago
  That's not really that different from the article, which is saying social skills matter because other skills are more easily automatable.
rancur 11y ago
the best thing about non-clickbait articles is I don't need to read further than the title
conistonwater 11y ago
It's kind of cool how it looks like you can improve your log hourly wage at the highest percentiles by forgetting maths if you have good social skills, or forgetting good social skills if you have good maths skills. I've only skimmed the paper, but how do the "social skills" map onto what one would normally mean by the plain-English meaning of social skills? It seems to be some kind of composite of job description categories, which I'm not sure what that means exactly.
- Sven7 11y ago
  One way to think about it is the ability to pick up the phone and get a meeting setup with anyone you want, potential customer, investor, engineering talent, supply chain vendor, Elon Musk etc. To get to that level, takes a lot of social skill. It's why CXO's get paid what they get paid.
  - conistonwater 11y ago
    But that's not how he seems to measure "social skill" component of an occupation in the paper.
- reagency 11y ago
  Not "forgetting" math, but working in a more-social lower-math job. Aka management and sales, not engineering. But anyway a huge amount of variation us being compressed into over/under 50th %ile. You can't read anything into an anysis like this, outside of the range of near-mode (average people) incomes and skill levels. A full economy analysis doesn't say much about people in the 80+%ile of skill level, which even a junior engineer or MBA is at.
dsfyu404ed 11y ago
This paper seems to be equating social skills in general with communication skills in the workplace. There's a lot of overlap but in my experience one isn't a solid predictor of the other. Furthermore, communication skills don't take as much precedence until after you're able to assemble a team to do the work. Everyone wants to only hire programmers/engineers/whatever who are great at communicating but the impracticality of that is why team leaders, managers, etc exist. You can probably find 10 software engineers to write the bits and pieces for the back-end software supporting your a shipping business and you can probably also find 10 with great communication skills. When you want a team of 10 developers to write the code for a surface to air missile system who, by the way, will need to work with the engineering teams and understand how the overall system works and its intended implementation (in order to write workable code) you're gonna have a tough time finding 10 people with all the qualifications you want and sacrifices will be made.
- hyperpape 11y ago
  This use of "social skills" isn't the only time economic terms are used in a way that's misleading to non-economists. Another example is "technology" (http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/08/06/nobody_knows_where_economic_growth_comes_from.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/08/06/nobody_knows_...).

69 points by luu 11y ago

...is a class issue.

1971genocide 11y ago

Yeah, the thing that is missing in our paradise of an economy is more social skills. The labor market rewards social skills because the market's buying power is transferred to a handful of people. If you had a egalitarian market that truly reflected the demand of the ordinary citizen I am sure there would be a huge increase in demand for affordable housing, healthcare, cheaper college and renewable energy. Not to mention the demand that exists to find immortality - unlike in newton's time we actually have the tools to achieve it. Its only from the ivory tower at harvard can people see the increase in childhood poverty and homelessness and conclude that "hmm you know what is missing ? some serf to make me laugh !"

anigbrowl 11y ago
I think you're both right and wrong. Those other issues you mention are real problems, but labor is becoming a much less important factor of production in those fields than it used to be. I think the Harvard academics are observing that in a climate of automation and global supply chains, social skills are becoming more valuable because they are hard to engineer a replacement for, which is no longer true of many physical, cognitive, or administrative skills.

nether 11y ago

I'm terrified that my lack of social skills is limiting my personal and professional lives. I haven't had close friends in 13 years. My coworkers are middle aged, suburban folks, while mostly nice it gets tiresome explaining what a selfie is or how Twitter works (or having them explain football to me), and our workplace (mechanical engineering) is unusually antisocial. The vast, vast majority of the time we only talk about work because we're in a constant mild crunch. The people I've met via Meetup.com have seemed kind of narrow and were mostly older (i.e. a hiking meetup of 20 people where all they talk about is running/hiking). I despise so many aspects of the tech/startup world that I gave up hanging out at coworking spaces years ago. I've met some good individual out on hikes alone, but I can't hold a conversation or keep in touch to save my life. Is there any experience that I could get into serving as a crash course in social skills? It can be expensive like long-term travel, except I've done enough recreational travel to know that I'm just as nervous in a campsite in Europe as I am in an office in the US. I just want to develop these skills before my social ineptitude becomes permanently ingrained.

demian 11y ago
Try this http://www.refinery29.com/rejection-therapy http://www.refinery29.com/rejection-therapy Then this: http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm Focus on learning to really listen to what people say. IMHO that's generally the most important and underdeveloped social skill, the rest will follow.
- nether 11y ago
  I feel crushed by small rejections. Burned once, twice shy is true for some people. For me it's 1,000x shy for the rest of my life. Even a minor rebuff can pollute my personality for the rest of my week and increase my pessimism and fear of people. Rejection therapy just seems like it'd push me over the edge into anger and bitterness.
  - CPLX 11y ago
    Yes, and if you lifted heavy weights tomorrow you'd get very sore. If you lifted them every day you wouldn't feel sore and they wouldn't feel heavy. Overcoming discomfort requires enduring discomfort.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
      What he said!
  - demian 11y ago
    Yup, it's not going to be easy.
  - jkaunisv1 11y ago
    Have you seen a therapist? It's hard work to reprogram your own brain, and even harder if you try to do it alone. I think of it as a microscope trying to examine itself. Even a few sessions can do a lot to point out your blind spots, give you objective feedback, and drill down on questions that you subconsciously avoid asking yourself.

zxcvvcxz 11y ago

Here's a snarky contrarian view: social skills matter more now because there is less meaningful production and creation occurring. When engineering consists of making CRUD apps and serving up ads, you're better off politicking to get a bigger piece of a not-so-expanding pie.

conceit 11y ago
> making CRUD apps and serving up ads It involves a lot of social engineering is all. To design an API is to offer a service. It's the service industry and it's possible thanks to a lot of production and creation.
pm90 11y ago
I think its a lot more complex than that. I agree that there are a lot of people who make their living making CRUD apps (and honestly, I think its a good thing if people can do it! Someone is paying for those CRUD apps which means there is a demand...). But...as the economy gets more automated and digitized and the population grows, you're success will be determined by how quick you are in recognizing opportunities (clients, projects etc.) and social networks seem to be the best way to get this information. So I would argue that its the advantage of this property of social networks which is what makes being social a valuable skill. Also, I see a lot of disdain over the term "being social" in the tech community: its not licking the boot of others, its as simple as being the one who initiates conversation. I cannot stress how important this simple skill is.
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
T'was ever thus. I've been moving down the organization for a long time. It's only bitten me twice, but both times it bit hard. But I sincerely believe it's the way to make a career that lasts. Er, at least you'll last. The "politics" way is much more fickle. And I think it probably takes longer to get good at this stuff than we want to think it does.
joe_the_user 11y ago
That's not really that different from the article, which is saying social skills matter because other skills are more easily automatable.

rancur 11y ago

the best thing about non-clickbait articles is I don't need to read further than the title

conistonwater 11y ago

It's kind of cool how it looks like you can improve your log hourly wage at the highest percentiles by forgetting maths if you have good social skills, or forgetting good social skills if you have good maths skills. I've only skimmed the paper, but how do the "social skills" map onto what one would normally mean by the plain-English meaning of social skills? It seems to be some kind of composite of job description categories, which I'm not sure what that means exactly.

Sven7 11y ago
One way to think about it is the ability to pick up the phone and get a meeting setup with anyone you want, potential customer, investor, engineering talent, supply chain vendor, Elon Musk etc. To get to that level, takes a lot of social skill. It's why CXO's get paid what they get paid.
- conistonwater 11y ago
  But that's not how he seems to measure "social skill" component of an occupation in the paper.
reagency 11y ago
Not "forgetting" math, but working in a more-social lower-math job. Aka management and sales, not engineering. But anyway a huge amount of variation us being compressed into over/under 50th %ile. You can't read anything into an anysis like this, outside of the range of near-mode (average people) incomes and skill levels. A full economy analysis doesn't say much about people in the 80+%ile of skill level, which even a junior engineer or MBA is at.

dsfyu404ed 11y ago

This paper seems to be equating social skills in general with communication skills in the workplace. There's a lot of overlap but in my experience one isn't a solid predictor of the other. Furthermore, communication skills don't take as much precedence until after you're able to assemble a team to do the work. Everyone wants to only hire programmers/engineers/whatever who are great at communicating but the impracticality of that is why team leaders, managers, etc exist. You can probably find 10 software engineers to write the bits and pieces for the back-end software supporting your a shipping business and you can probably also find 10 with great communication skills. When you want a team of 10 developers to write the code for a surface to air missile system who, by the way, will need to work with the engineering teams and understand how the overall system works and its intended implementation (in order to write workable code) you're gonna have a tough time finding 10 people with all the qualifications you want and sacrifices will be made.

hyperpape 11y ago
This use of "social skills" isn't the only time economic terms are used in a way that's misleading to non-economists. Another example is "technology" (http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/08/06/nobody_knows_where_economic_growth_comes_from.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/08/06/nobody_knows_...).