Fixing Soft Skills That Kill Careers
Key Points
- The creator expands on a TikTok list of “soft‑skill career killers” by using a longer YouTube format to explain not just the problems but concrete ways to fix them.
- A common sign that someone is “hard to work with” is a noisy process—excessive meetings, unnecessary involvement of bosses or peers, and constant re‑explanations that waste everyone’s time.
- Over‑precision in inputs (being too picky about tolerances) often reflects an inflexible mindset; by reverse‑engineering the true requirements you can determine when strict inputs are truly needed versus when they can be loosened.
- The remedy is to own and streamline your workflow: run the process autonomously with minimal meetings, keep updates on a cadence your manager prefers, and widen your “input aperture” to match the real constraints of the project.
Full Transcript
# Fixing Soft Skills That Kill Careers **Source:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXE576Eq6Xw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXE576Eq6Xw) **Duration:** 00:14:52 ## Summary - The creator expands on a TikTok list of “soft‑skill career killers” by using a longer YouTube format to explain not just the problems but concrete ways to fix them. - A common sign that someone is “hard to work with” is a noisy process—excessive meetings, unnecessary involvement of bosses or peers, and constant re‑explanations that waste everyone’s time. - Over‑precision in inputs (being too picky about tolerances) often reflects an inflexible mindset; by reverse‑engineering the true requirements you can determine when strict inputs are truly needed versus when they can be loosened. - The remedy is to own and streamline your workflow: run the process autonomously with minimal meetings, keep updates on a cadence your manager prefers, and widen your “input aperture” to match the real constraints of the project. ## Sections - [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXE576Eq6Xw&t=0s) **Detecting Hard-to-Work-With Habits** - The speaker outlines a plan to dive into ten career‑killing soft‑skill flaws, starting with how to recognize and correct a noisy, overly‑process‑driven reputation for being hard to work with. ## Full Transcript
all right I did a video over on Tik Tok
on like 10 things that are soft skills
that can be career Enders if you don't
figure them out and people don't
generally tell them to you but what I
didn't do is go through and talk about
how to fix it and the reason why is
frankly the format is too short and this
is exactly what YouTube is this is for
these longer form conversations so we're
going to go through all 10 and I'm going
to break them down and I'm going to show
you how I think about them and how you
can fix the soft skills and how you can
tell if you have them right because at
the end of the day is it really much use
to you if you know that there might be a
problem but you can't tell what it is
and you can't tell how to fix it no it's
not much use so we're going to make sure
that doesn't happen so the number one
thing I want to talk about is people
won't tell you if you have a reputation
for being hard to work with and so how
do you know right well I will I will
tell you how you know in my experience
over multiple decades in Tech probably
worked with thousands of people at this
point all and the the number one thing
that I notice about people who have a
reputation for being hard to work with
is that they are churny about their
process they have what I would call
noisy process so they have unnecessary
meetings they call the boss in too much
more than the boss is asked to be called
in they get peers involved more than
they really need to
be and anyone who works with them
recognizes that if they work with that
person there's going to be a cost in
terms of time or explaining and
oftentimes noisy process looks like a
lot of
explaining the number two thing that
this looks like by the way is being
picky about your inputs now you might be
in a world where the company has
specified that your inputs have to be
really precise a great example of this
is if you work in a machine shop and you
have really tight tolerance
I actually built steel products and uh
I've got welding scars on my hands um
and I understand that sometimes you have
to have tight tolerances but in those
cases even if it's like in Tech and it's
not like actual physical Goods you still
have a opportunity to understand where
the company has mandated those
tolerances versus where you have and
most of the time I find if you're
working in Tech you have an opportunity
to be much more flexible about your
inputs if you want to be and by the way
that Clues us into the fix right like a
lot of the the key here is basically
reverse engineering the inputs and so if
you have a noisy process if you call
unnecessary
meetings if you talk to your boss more
than maybe they want to be talked to
focus on driving your process
autonomously like own the process drive
it you take care of it minimal meetings
make sure you know the details if your
boss needs to know them make sure the
updates are on a Cadence your boss wants
and that's it and just get it done and
on the input side I call it opening your
input aperture uh which is a silly way
to put it but at the end of the day you
just want to be more flexible about the
kind of thing you can bring into your
process and by the way everyone has
process even CEOs have process and often
they are very specific about it
actually in as an
example let's say as a product manager
which I am I write a one pager and the
one pager isn't perfect and there's like
a missing section or I'm writing fast or
I have like 90% of the requirements done
and I hand it to engineering now I have
to take ownership of that and say it's
not where I want it to be right and
that's my job but let's pretend for a
minute that you're sitting in the tech
leads chair you have two choices there
you could either say go back and rework
it and take a couple days or you could
say okay this is good enough to get
started on and let me just huddle with
you quickly and I'll make a quick note
on the thing that I'm not quite clear on
and you can finish up in a bit the
second way is going to lead you to have
a better reputation to work with it just
is all right moving on to the second uh
one so that was number one you're hard
to work with how do you know and what
the solution is number
two the reputation for being
slow and by the way the way to tell that
is to look at your peers who are doing
similar work and to
say am I BAS basically delivering
something that's relevant that's of
similar quality at a similar Cadence or
similar timing that's it if you get
farther in your career and there's only
one of you at a company like right now
I'm head of product at a company and
there's only one of me part of how I
Benchmark how I'm doing is by looking at
other peers who are in my job at other
companies and looking at the Cadence of
their releases looking at the quality of
their releases and I judge myself and by
the way I don't give myself a free pass
like part of this is being honest with
your
s and so if you want to get better you
have to sort of get that competitive
Spirit engaged a little bit you have to
say Okay well I'm G to do better I'm
going to beat my peers I just as a game
with myself I don't have to brag about
it I don't have to talk about it I don't
have to admit to anybody it's a
competition but I'm going to beat my
peers number
three people can sometimes have a
reputation for
complaining if you are often the person
who is bringing it up quote unquote or
starting the conversation down the sort
of path of complaining what you'll
notice is that people frequently get
nervous around you or maybe you don't
notice it and that's why you're here but
whether you realize it or not people
find it really worrying when you
complain about work at work because it's
dangerous because you don't know who's
listening you don't know who they'll
talk to especially if it starts to get
personal especially if you talk about
individual people you have to be
absolutely sure the person you're
talking to is not going to towel on you
for lack of a better term this is going
back to elementary school social
dynamics but that's really what it
is and even if you're sure it's usually
not a good idea and the reason for that
is you're putting your breath into
complaining instead of into fixing what
you can fix and instead of into
nurturing positive Dynamics which is
actually almost more important in
situations that are really toxic if you
can put your energy into nurturing at
least a small positive dynamic in your
space it's going to give you more
bandwidth
to engage in your work to survive your
day like all the stuff that people talk
about complaining doesn't really fix it
even if it's soft stuff even it's even
if it's stuff around how difficult the
workplace Dynamic is and you can't fix
it complaining still doesn't make it
better it still makes it worse um and so
my suggestion here is if it's it's it's
sort of feeling habitual for you and
like you kind of know you do it but like
it's really hard not to because it's so
obvious see if you can find another
topic for a bit um look I have a corgi
talking about dogs is usually a winner
I'm not necessarily some someone I would
describe as always a dog person but I do
find that that's like a helpful topic of
conversation for a lot of people because
a lot of people like dogs they like to
hear what the dog did and like it's a
light topic and you can pick something
different right pick hats pick going on
a hike pick whatever you want pick a
movie just find a way to switch the
topics so you switch the track in your
head and that's how you kind of undo the
complaining track all right number four
icing or cake this sounds like some kind
of comedy routine but the the truth is
you don't get credit for doing the extra
stuff at work the icing if you're not
doing the core stuff which is the cake
and so if anyone has had to ask you
where is the cake and they don't mean it
literally they mean like where is the
chord deliverable for your work in the
last month or two stop doing anything
that is extra until you figure out what
is going on there just focus on
delivering on the cake just bake the
cake for like a month see if you can do
it
perfectly and that's it's really simple
on that on that one uh so that's one two
three four uh and then the fifth one
is sometimes people will focus on others
or on the past or anything that they
don't have to take ownership for they'll
sort of like deflect right so if you
ever find yourself saying well that's
why that's a
clue and the the solution there is
actually to it's in your head
practice a
game where the reason why is always you
and I don't say that because I want you
to blame yourself etc etc that's usually
not productive it's because if you
practice that game you're rewiring your
brain a little bit so your brain doesn't
always go to like running away from the
responsibility it doesn't always go to
well it's you know it's the manager over
there and they're the ones that are
keeping me from delivering my
project and if you practice that game
you're going to find that you probably
have more control in the situation than
you realize and you are also going to
have a better reputation for focusing on
stuff you own which tends to lead to
more positive social dynamics for your
career
all right let's keep rolling here uh
lack of
flexibility that is the next one so this
is time spent like explaining the edges
of your work that's how I describe it so
if you if you find a you spend a ton of
time saying I don't do that I do do that
this is The Edge this is what I don't
do and you spend almost more time on
that than on the work itself you are
probably in a situation where you need
to be more flexible and you're probably
the inflexible person and the solution
for that is simply to say I don't know
if it's my job or not it seems like it
might be close I'll pick it up and own
it just try that for a bit and I'm not
saying try that to the point where you
literally can't do anything else I'm not
saying try it to the point where your
core work suffers as we talked about
that already in the cake versus icing
problem but you usually have room to
pick up a couple of pieces here and
there and you can do that and you can
change your reputation on whether or not
you're flexible okay so where are we so
flexibility was number 1 2 3 4 five six
so now number seven I can count uh you
got to own your activity and and not
your impact if that's you that's a
problem you got to own your impact first
always and so if you catch yourself
saying stuff like oh I did my part like
I did my part I wrote the code and uh it
went to it's the product manager's fault
that like it didn't work I've talked
with Engineers like that that is not a
fun conversation um own the
impact and it it's actually one of the
quickest ways to build your career and
it's a really simple way to reverse
engineer because if your response
instead of saying well I did my part is
to say well let's see what happened and
how we can fix
it that's a much more Curious mindset
it's a mindset that admits the problem
is real
and the issue like driving impact is
real and it admits that you can play a
part in driving it and that's what
people are looking for in people who
want to grow their
careers okay uh the next one this is the
second to last one this is number nine
um if you are not showing enough
dedication to the problem it's a problem
if you say it's not my problem or if you
say you know what I'm out of
here and and my challenge to you by the
way that the solution here is not
overwork the solution here is to become
the office expert on a problem space
that is relevant to your
area if you become the person to go to
the subject matter expert on an area
relevant to your discipline so people go
to you and they know that you care about
it and you can address it that's a huge
career hack that's the solve all right
number 10 socially awkward people give
you sidelong glances people step away
from you in convos
people make
excuses you find it really really hard
to have people not like walk in and
close their backs to you in a circle in
social situations and by the way this is
all like I'm talking about IRL social
situations here but this also happens on
Zoom or Google meet and you can find
that people will like sort of glaze over
when you say something in the first five
minutes of the zoom call and they move
on if if this happens to you one that's
how you know and two it is a big problem
whether we like it or not people are
social creatures and if you cannot work
how work out how to be social it's going
to be an issue and the key is actually
recognizing the purpose of conversation
in a work setting it's supposed to be
fairly brief it's supposed to be lights
it's supposed to be novel and so there's
a little bit of an entertainment quality
to it and you kind of want to find
something where it's like oh that's kind
of a new fact or that's an interesting
thing and that's why people talk about
what happened this weekend they're
looking for like a novel thing that can
talk about because it's recent we
haven't talked about it yet um and so
find something that you can talk about
that sort of fits in that novel and like
category and that is going to depend on
you on what you know on your interests
it's going to depend on your co-workers
and the culture you're in so I like to
talk about my dog I talk about my dog I
like to talk about hiking I do hikes I
live in the Pacific Northwest whatever
it is for you find something that's
relatively light and novel and talk all
right so I did the 10 number one you're
hard to work with number two your slow
versus your peers number three you
complain a lot number four you do the
icing work and not the cake work number
five you focus on others you focus on
the past you don't focus on what you own
number six lack of flexibility number
seven you're owning only your activity
and not your
impact number eight you are not showing
dedication to the problem and number
nine did I not did I do nine not 10 oh
well whatever we'll figure it out this
was a good run uh your so awkward it is
too early in the morning and I need to
have coffee I broke down all of those
problems for you I talked about how you
understand the inputs that drive those
and I talked about how you solve for
them leave comments and let me know
other ones you want me to address um or
areas where it wasn't quite clear and I
can do another video cheers