Over the years I’ve had an aversion to the use of the adjective "soft" to describe anything associated with the dynamics of organizations.
Most particularly, the use of the term "soft skills" to describe the people aspects of leadership capability tends, in my experience, to subordinate these in some managers’ minds to what they see as the ‘real work’. More importantly from an informal coalitions perspective, the association of 'the people side of organization' with what is often dismissively referred to as the "pink and fluffy" stuff means that the very fundamentals of organizational dynamics – the complex social process of human interaction – get lost.
This process is far from ‘pink and fluffy’. It is power-laden and political. It involves the coming together of people with differing and often competing interpretations, interests, ideologies, and identities. Much of the process takes place informally, ‘in the shadows’ of the formal structures, systems and procedures. And it is influenced by taken-for-granted patterns of assumptions that have arisen over time as a result of past sense-making-cum-action-taking interactions. All of these factors, and others, arise because organisations are dynamic networks of people interacting with each other. So it seems to me that an understanding of these dynamics, and how they impact upon business change and performance, should be at the heart of HR practice. Sadly, it isn’t.
"Soft power" exercised through coalitional activity
So what about the notion of "soft power"? Mark McKergow has identified this as one of the central characteristics of "Host Leadership" that he advocates in his related website, and about which I blogged earlier. Is this similarly tainted by the use of the adjective "soft"?
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