Why Do They Call Them Soft Skills When They Are Really Hard?
The often overlooked Soft Skills are brought front and centre by no other than Clair Heaviside, the co-founder and creative director of Serotonin, a multi-award-winning digital agency based in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. In 2023, Clair was named Business Woman of the Year. She is a proud Trustee of Haven, a charity for children and young people impacted by domestic abuse.
We had a blast hosting Clair at our Agency Growth Summit, back in December 2023.
In 2018, Claire quit her agency job and started a business that, four years later, has won multiple awards, has made a pretty healthy profit, and employs twenty people across offices in Manchester and London.
In her words, she wanted to see what would happen. But more than that, she wanted to see what would happen if she went outside her comfort zone.
And, after being on the receiving end of some pretty toxic leadership, as many would relate, Clair wanted to see if she could grow a business that thrived on something different.
“Because I am what LinkedIn would refer to as a leader who embraces ‘soft skills. I’m caring and compassionate, the one you can come to for honest feedback delivered in a positive and thoughtful way. I lean into empathy and transparency and believe in bringing the best out of people around me. I’m nice.”
Although, here is the kicker. Nice is not enough. And it took Clair a while to learn that. For the better part, she could not ‘nice’ her way to the business she wanted to build.
Instead, she needed to use the soft skills that came naturally to her to drive growth and embrace change, confront the toughest side of managing people, and push through challenges, all while maintaining her values and not compromising who she was as a person.
It turns out all of that is very hard. About as hard as running an ultramarathon.
So she decided to do that too.
Spoiler alert: She has found that many of the same skills are required for running an agency. We're not surprised!
Key sections from Clair's article from Agency Growth Book 2024
Resilience is consistency compounded
Build a support system that cheers itself on.
Solving problems on your feet
Manifest it into existence.
People get into ultrarunning and running businesses, for that matter, for many different reasons. Rarely is it because they are looking for an easy ride. Both can be a journey of personal growth and self-discovery. Both demand physical endurance and mental toughness, high levels of resilience, adaptability, self-discipline, teamwork, visualisation, mindfulness, and positive self-talk.
Even if ‘soft skills’ come naturally to you, nothing about them is easy.
You don’t need to run 100km. You don’t need to run for the bus if you don’t want to.
But working on your ‘soft skills’ is a commitment to hard work. To constantly push yourself to go one step further than you think you can.
So be painfully honest, drive creativity with passion, listen and learn with relentless energy, motivate and inspire the people around you to achieve their goals, be fearless in giving feedback, and throw everything you’ve got at your vision. Work hard at the soft stuff.
Just don’t forget to look back every now and again, and make sure you enjoy the view. Download your complimentary copy of our Agency Growth Book 2024 to reveal the full article.
