Angry Robots (Where did the soft skills go?)
As a communication expert, I have noticed something in the last several years: People are losing their SOFT SKILLS. Basic things like being able to read the room, knowing when to stop talking or how to politely greet one another are losing their place in society. Basic social skills like respect and problem solving in social and work settings are almost non-existent. Spectrum disorders are on the rise, neurodivergent is popular, and more people are working and going to school remotely. There is not much of a requirement for face to face communication. It’s easy to opt out. However with lack of interaction comes lack of skills necessary to form relationships. Skills such as the art of negotiating, persuasion and interpretation are not being utilized because frankly, people just don’t know how to do it. People do not want to be uncomfortable anymore. Ghosting is commonplace. People just ignore you if things get uneasy or don’t go their way. Passive-agressive behavior is on the rise and taking responsibility for basically anything is a thing of the past. There is very little follow through and most people just want the easy way out. Anxiety and stress are on the rise, but basic problem solving skills are not practiced. There is a direct correlation. Being less social may feel like it is reducing anxiety in the short-term, but in the long-run, more anxiety is being produced because people do not know how to cope.
I have noticed something else with current communication. A large majority of Gen Z and maybe even with Gen Alpha who are up and coming is that they do not want help from previous generations. The respect from what came first is not there. The shallow belief seems to be that the boomers and the previous generations did everything wrong, so we do not need their help. There is little or no respect for elders or veterans or people who have had to fight for where we are now. Watch out, young grasshoppers, you are losing the ability to connect, and I do not mean to wifi. If human connection is lost, so is joy.
I was recently removed from a volunteer position that I was on by the leader. This millenial advisory board chair sent me an email out of the blue and told me she was removing me from the advisory board that I had only been on for 6 months. There was no explanation, no warning, no strategy in improving my skills. She just took me off. I had been so excited to be a part of this group. I had great ideas and had connected to some of the young girls we were mentoring on this board. I had never met this leader in person. I had had very little interactions with her as my leader in the six months I served. She had given me no direction in my role as a board member. When removed via email, I asked to meet in person, via zoom and by telephone, and she ignored my requests. I did not push the matter. It was a volunteer position after all, and I can be useful elsewhere. But, what I found most interesting through this whole experience was the lack of communication. She did not know me. She did not try to know me. She did not try to bring this board together in any way. She did not try to learn from others or even try to teach us what she wanted. I had received exactly one email from the so-called leader at the beginning of my appointment telling me to sign up for times to commit to a certain duty, which I did. I noticed throughout the six months that out of twenty something volunteers, exactly three of us signed up. She never explained any rules, any other duties or requirements of the board. We never met in person or via zoom. We never communicated except when I would text her occasionally. She just decided after 6 months of me figuring things out for myself that she did not like the way I was doing things and got rid of me. When I asked to meet so we could go over what I did wrong, she refused. She would not talk to me on the phone. She would not zoom with me, and she would not meet me in person. She took the easy way out and sent me an email and then refused to respond to my questions. I was flabbergasted. Who communicates this way? And this is a leader?
This is one of many examples of how communication is diminishing. Sure, maybe she thought she did not like me or how I was doing things, but I never met this person. I am not sure we even spoke on the phone. I am pretty sure all communication was through texts and there was very little of that. Maybe I was not needed and maybe I did not do things her way, but a conversation was most definitely warranted. She did not want to have the hard conversation. She did not want to be uncomfortable. No one wants to be bothered anymore. No one wants to put in the work to look at all sides of an issue. No one knows how to problem solve. We are quickly becoming a society of cowardly lions with false bravado.
New grads are showing up to job interviews with their parents. It’s a low percentage, but still, they do it. Emotional intelligence is low and soft skills are almost non existent. Young job seekers are also showing up, not in person, but via zoom which is fine if that is the only means of communication. I telecommute from home and am so grateful for the opportunity to do so. I understand the convenience of zoom or video chat. But, a large majority of interviewees are refusing to turn on the video screen during an initial job interview. New research shows that if they do turn on the video screen, very few know how to maintain eye contact or even how to ask important questions in a conversation. These skills used to just be embedded in every day life, and no one had to tell people how to be polite, respectful or just communicative. Children learned these skills at home, playing on the playground or in the backyard with neighbors and were able to naturally incorporate them into daily life. Daily interactions with others is not so common now.
Today, instead of having to listen, reason, be patient, problem solve or use persuasion skills, children are relying on someone or something else to do everything for them. Then, when it is time to be responsible and show up for something or try to acquire something like a job, the skills just are not there. Soft skills are not intrinsic anymore.
So, what are soft skills, anyway? Soft skills are part of your personality. Soft skills are supposed to be what makes you able to connect with others, those skills that make you human. In my opinion, they are the skills that make you likable. They make or break a relationship. They are those things like basic communication, reasoning, empathy, teamwork, negotiation and other “people” skills.
People are losing their humanness, and as a result, people are becoming more and more hostile and just plain rude. I specialize in social skills. It’s part of my job as a speech-language pathologist. I not only work with children and adults with autism spectrum disorder, but I have been involved with the public and private sector for many years, and something is just different. The customer is never right. I got fired from a committee without even a conversation. People are complaining left and right on social media, but no one is really talking. No one is really connecting and trying to solve a problem A lot of people do not even know how to say “hello” or “excuse me”. Entitlement is on the rise and people as a whole are just plain angry. Me included.
Why is this?
What happened to basic kindness, negotiating, persuasion and most importantly humor. Everyone is either afraid of offending someone or the complete opposite and is just offending for sport. Then there are the ones who take the offense. We are a society of offenders and offended. We all have chips on our shoulder. With X, Facebook, Tik Tok, Instagram, texting and all the other means of communication, you would think communication has improved. Quantity and ease is not better than quality. Miscommunication is so much easier in all of these passive forms of communicating. The soft skills are getting left behind. A quick type, an emoji or a meme is used instead of a conversation. Connection is lost.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe all of these means of communication are helpful and are here to augment true connection. But the soft stuff…It’s gettting left out. There is no room or time for children or teens to figure out how to respect other points of view, how to solve a problem.
We have become a society of people with low emotional intelligence. We are unable to be rational, problem solving, empathetic people. Things like Covid-19 and having a tiny computer in the form of a smart phone at our finger tips minute to minute have definitely impacted basic soft skills (called soft because in the past, they were just part of our human makeup, softly there..no effort to acquire.) Empathy, discipline, leadership, persuasion, collaboration, organization, responsibility, emotional regulation and problem solving are not showing up as basic human skills anymore.
We are not relating to other human beings anymore, not naturally. We are becoming angry robots. That is most definitley not what we were intended to be.
Inside each of us is a unique ability to create and express to others originally and individually. NO ONE ELSE IS LIKE US. It is God-given. We are made in a creative image. We are born to be something unique. God-nature is to be creative. Human-nature conforms. We are getting further and further away from God-nature.
Play, exploration, being in nature, creating and human interaction are important. We need it to figure out who we really are, what we like and dislike, what we desire. Stillness, quiet and time alone with the creator matter. If we know who we are, we can be it and allow others to be who they really are. The more we are authentic, the “softer” we are. We are human. Our soul needs to breathe and have room to grow and practice who we are with others.
Our purpose on this earth is to learn and to love as much as we possibly can while we are here. We are here to connect, and if we are losing the ability to do that, what are we doing?
Soft skills used to come naturally to us and were just taught incidentally. Maybe there just weren’t enough man-made inventions that were stealing nature’s place. That is no longer the case. We have to fight for nature. We have to fight for connection, for space. We must make it a priority to provide opportunities of play, rest, interaction and negotiation. We must teach these soft skills outright. If we want to be better as a society, we can’t let respectfulness, intentional communication and just plain kindness fall by the wayside. We have to recognize if we are missing any of these important soft skills and be willing to call it out in one another, respectfully, of course. We must make an effort to learn them or relearn them and teach them to others.
In my opinion, it is crucial for love. It is crucial for survival. It is crucial for joy and for us to live as a functional, healthy society.
I should not have let that leader get away with pushing me out of that committee without an explanation. I should have fought for a conversation. I should have made it more difficult for her to just discard me like a deleted email. I should have pushed for negotiation. I felt rejected. I felt hurt and misunderstood. I didn’t have the energy to fight for a space, so I let it go.
Are we all just letting things go? Are we all stepping aside and letting non-communication take place or are we fighting for connection.
I think that we must fight for the soft skills. I think we have to practice basic manners and kindness and rational thinking. I think we have to fight for face to face communication and basic connection.
It don’t want to be an angry robot. Do you?
