Life Musings

Earlier, I talked about the parallels between Jennifer Massey and "Deb," a staff worker at a public charity. In both cases, their severe lack of people skills severely offset their considerable talents.

I'd like to make a similar comparision between Ms. Massey and "Wesley," an engineer that I once knew. Wesley was a very talented and creative engineer with considerable cross-disciplinary technical talent. He was a visionary, too. However, his planning skills were uneven, and people were known to complain about his interpersonal skills.

Therein lay the problem. He had brains, but his people skills (or lack thereof) offset those brains. I've been told that his gruff manner caused a great deal of difficult with the people he worked with. I've also been told that this caused friction between the company, vendors, and prospective clients.

Some managers would surely disagree with me on this, but I would not choose to hire an engineer who didn't have at least decent people skills. There are plenty of talented--even brilliant-scientists and engineers out there. some of them know how to deal with people. If an engineer is bright but unpolished in his interpersonal communications, I would rather hold out for someone else. Good people skills are vital for a company's long-term stability and morale.