‘Hard versus soft skills training’ by Natalie Henville, Training Journal, September 2012

The premise of the article seems, on the face of it, to be sound; we should examine the key success factors of both hard and soft skills training and see what each can learn from the other. But as you follow the arguments, it is difficult not to question the premise and the assumptions. There are many who would quite rightly question the validity of the author’s assumption that behavioural skills are soft and topics such finance and project management are hard. And at MTP we could point to many programmes that combine both these elements in one learning activity, for instance a Business Partnering programme for financial people.

In fairness to the author, she does come to some of the same conclusions by the end of the article but there still seem to be misconceptions about how so called 'hard' training is designed and delivered. It is obvious that she is coming from the perspective of a trainer in behavioural skills who has negative perceptions about any training other than her own, not an unusual feature of behavioural trainers in my experience! This impression is strengthened by the fact that the quoted examples of hard subjects are assumed to be covered generically, without the necessary tailoring to the target audience.

There is also a mistaken assumption that measuring the effectiveness of hard skills training is relatively easy because there can be tangible outputs, for instance a risk register or financial analysis can be produced. But this misunderstands the nature of measuring effectiveness; those involved in well-designed finance and risk management programmes would not regard such outputs as a sign of success; we would look for changes in behaviour and performance as a result of transferring that learning back to the workplace, in just the same way as a behavioural colleague. And this would be no more or no less difficult than for soft skills programmes.

Nevertheless, the author makes one or two valid points. One genuine difference is that retention of hard skill learning may be less easy because it depends on opportunities to implement the acquired skill soon after the training; you lose it unless you use it. We can recall in the early days of MTP how past attendees in Finance for Managers courses would tell us that they really enjoyed that course two years ago but it's all been forgotten now, because it was not applied.

The author argues that, on the other hand, most soft skills learning can be applied immediately on return to work because influencing, leadership and building relationships are part of the everyday life of all managers. There is a grain of truth in this argument but only if one assumes that training in hard skills is being carried out for target groups who will not have chance to apply it. This may have happened twenty years ago but, in these days of tight budgets and desire to see a tangible return, we do not see any companies wasting their resources in this way.

The author's bias is shown once again when she suggests that those who train in harder disciplines can learn from the interactive methods that are used by behavioural skills trainers which, to quote, are 'targeted, experiential, build on real work issues and …share knowledge and experience'. This is contrasted with the 'Death by Powerpoint' and 'Rigid Syllabuses' of the hard school. It is certainly true that, over the years, many of us in finance training have learnt from our involvement with the softer disciplines and stolen some of the ideas, but the stereotype advanced here is a least twenty years out of date. There may be some who use one way presentations of harder topics but they are unlikely to survive long in the current management training market. And it is sometimes because internal company presenters stick to these old fashioned methods that specialist trainers like MTP find a niche in the market.

It was hard not to let my irritation with the author’s prejudices cloud my judgement - and I probably failed in this respect - but I was pleased eventually to find something with which I agreed; that the hard and soft dichotomy is a false one because effective training of today’s managers should provide both elements, integrating them in a business context. The author mentions supplier relationships as an example of a topic that requires such integration, we would quote Business Partnering by Finance or IT people with their internal customers. By case studies or role plays, the integration can be displayed and the links back to the job demonstrated.

Towards the end of the article, there are several mentions of ROI - Return on Investment - and this is typical of the looseness with which this term is bandied about. It may be that, as a financial person, I am too precious about its correct meaning - the extra profit generated as a percentage of the investment made. I am not suggesting that such calculations can and should always be done but the way in which ROI is used here is to describe any benefit, even if not quantifiable. For instance it is suggested that 'increased visibility to the rest of the organisation' is 'a real test of ROI'. Not in my book it isn't.

But despite all the above criticism and scepticism, I still found the article stimulating and worth reading. To be as irritated as I was, you have to be engaged and challenged. I have no doubt that those involved on the 'softer' side of training will be equally irritated with my views but, as long as we are learning, this doesn't matter. I would like to think that the development of MTP into a more cross-functional and business focussed organisation has, to some extent, resulted from this kind of debate.

Read the article
http://www.trainingjournal.com/feature/2012-09-01-hard-vs-soft-skills-training/