Soft Skills Is Not the Correct Term — It’s Processes

Most career advice for senior professionals eventually boils down to:

“As you progress, soft skills matter more.”

It’s not wrong, but it’s misleading. “Soft skills” is the wrong term entirely. What people are calling “soft skills” are actually processes.

Why “Soft” Is the Wrong Word

Soft sounds optional — like it’s a nice-to-have that you sprinkle on top of “real” skills.
It implies something innate and unteachable, which conveniently excuses companies from actually training it.
It makes critical work habits sound fuzzy and unmeasurable.

The reality? These “soft skills” are repeatable, improvable workflows. They can be documented, refined, and measured just like version control processes or API response times.

It’s Not Personality — It’s Process

Take “communication,” for example. People treat it as a personality trait: You’re either a good communicator or you’re not. But that’s nonsense.

The truth is, communication in a business context is:

Choosing the right medium for the message.
Structuring information for clarity.
Creating feedback loops to ensure understanding.

Those are processes, not personality quirks.

Same with “conflict resolution” — not magic, not vibes:

Understand the perspectives.
Isolate points of friction.
Propose paths forward with clear tradeoffs.

Again: process.

Why This Matters

If you think of these skills as personality-driven, you’ll only try to “hire for them” instead of building them in the team. If you treat them as processes, you can:

Document them.
Teach them.
Measure them.
Improve them.

And suddenly “soft skills” stops being HR fluff and becomes part of the core operating system of the company.

The Mental Shift

Stop asking:

“Do they have good soft skills?”

Start asking:

“Do they know the processes that create effective collaboration?”
“Do they use them consistently?”

This shift turns what’s normally a hand-wavy, feel-good idea into a competitive advantage.

💡 If you want a high-functioning org, stop hiring for “soft skills” and start training for process mastery. Culture is what you repeatedly do — and process is just culture you can document.