BP Perspective Insights from a Business Partner
Every Now and Then You Need a Salad
“Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.” – Miles Kington
The list of personal productivity tools most often used by lawyers likely includes technologies for email, calendar management, time reporting, web conferencing and document production. But what about the soft skills critical to demonstrating the value of effective technology use? After all, having the ability to develop a jaw-dropping PowerPoint presentation is lost without the finely tuned communication skills to deliver it.
Research shows the importance of pairing business competency with technical ability, and that both hard and soft skills are prevalent requirements for all job roles. In an article by international staffing firm Robert Half, David Jones states: “As our workplaces become more collaborative, employers need an employee who can not only perform the job well, but who also demonstrates sound communication, leadership and team-building qualities.”
Knowledge, understanding and ability are necessary to succeed. Like choosing a wine or salad to complement your meal, the perfect blend of soft skills with the necessary technical prowess can truly enhance your professional success.
To illustrate such perfect pairings, let’s examine the four primary Microsoft applications — PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook and Word — and the soft skills that complement their use.
POWERPOINT: PRESENTATION SKILLS
The ability to create a slideshow is great. But if you don’t have effective presentation skills, the audience may walk away with heartburn and a bad aftertaste. Engaging presenters leverage vocal tools (register, prosody, timbre, pace and volume) and physical tools (posture, eye contact, gestures and movement) to capture their audience’s attention. Likewise, good speakers pair presentation skills with effective visuals.
Just because information can fit on a slide, doesn’t mean that it should. Any slide requiring an apologetic “I know you can’t read this” detracts from the message and lowers engagement. In addition, the incorrect use of images and colors can have the same effect. Choosing the right design and image is not as simple as one might think. Research shows images can increase awareness of social differences, and colors have different meanings in diverse cultures. For example, red indicates warning in the United States, means celebration and luck in China, and symbolizes birth and fertility in India.
EXCEL: DATA ANALYSIS
The ability to digest and make sense of large volumes of data requires the right technical tools and the ability to decipher what the data is saying. Relying solely on technical expertise to display data in a chart layout is simply not good enough in the high-stakes legal industry. Don’t allow the chart to dictate how data looks; let the data dictate how the chart should look. The technical skill is complemented with the soft skills of data analysis — validity, reliability, accuracy and precision — things Excel can’t tell you about the data.
OUTLOOK: TIME MANAGEMENT
Lawyers live by their inboxes and calendars, and they likely face numerous unscheduled task assignments and interruptions daily. Pair the ability to schedule tasks and appointments and manage that unruly inbox with honing the skills of effective time management and prioritization methodologies. Leverage technology to keep abreast of upcoming deadlines and stay on track by using tasks and reminders. According to The Design of Everyday Things, interruptions are the No.1 cause of errors for highly skilled people. Instead of relying solely on memory, use the task manager to keep track of in-progress, high-priority, delegated and future tasks.
WORD: EFFECTIVE WRITING
On March 14, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit decided O'Connor et al v. Oakhurst Dairy et al. based on a missing comma. Law360 reported that it was the “lack of a serial or Oxford comma … that made the law ambiguous.” Circuit Judge David Barron stated, “For want of a comma, we have this case.” In addition to the soft skills of proper punctuation and grammar, the technical skills of using styles and automatic numbering help create polished and professional-looking documents while increasing efficiency.
There is a saying that “you never get a second chance to make a good first impression.” How you interact with others — whether delivering a presentation, disseminating data or collaborating on documents — is important because it’s not only that first impression but also the last impression that matters. Sharpening both your hard skills and soft skills will keep you from putting a tomato in the fruit salad.