And the twain must meet…

I recently attended a session that focused on the importance of bringing both, your masculine and feminine energies to the workplace. As human beings, we often fail to acknowledge our vast energetic system, which may lead to us feeling chronically out of balance. In such cases, while maintaining our physical health through conscious eating and fitness is important, it becomes even more crucial for us to pay attention to our subtle energies, which will eventually help us to live a healthy life. The session in question, discussed how at the workplace, all employees need to display their masculine and feminine energies, depending on the situation. Regardless of gender, each of us contain masculine and feminine energies. Words like logic, planning, structure and discipline are often attributed to the masculine trait, while words like intuition, receptivity, emotions and dreams fall under the feminine category. In a world where individuals are mocked for portraying traits that are usually attributed to the opposite sex, we subconsciously wire ourselves to behave in a manner that befits the gender we represent. When we operate primarily from one side of the energy, our minds and behaviours become one tracked, which is a sign that we need a re-fuel of the other side of the energy. 

The reason I write this post today is, while I was in the session, I kept thinking to myself - it is so crucial for there to be an equilibrium in the world, be it in our behaviours, in International Relations or even our professional lives. While listening to the speaker talk about the importance of switching to either sides of our energies, depending on the situation, I was transported to my college days when I studied about the use of ‘Soft Power’ and ‘Hard Power’ in International Relations and how nations need to exercise either of them when dealing with other nations. I was further reminded of workplace situations, when we have to display our soft, as well as hard skills, a company’s culture needs to be hard and soft, depending on the organisation’s journey and goals, and most importantly, soft and hard models of Human Resource Management. 

I present below some examples: 

Soft Power and Hard Power

Hard power is based on military intervention, coercive diplomacy and economic sanctions, and relies on tangible power resources such as armed forces or economic means. America’s ‘Marshall Plan’ is a classic example of the use of Soft Power.  This was an American initiative to provide economic aid to Western Europe after the end of the Second World War. The Marshall Plan included humanitarian aid, such as food, medical care, expert advice for rebuilding destroyed infrastructures - transportation and communication networks and public utilities, and monetary grants. When talking about the use of Hard Power, the first example that often comes to my mind is the German invasion into Poland in 1939. After Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, he had plans to invade and partition Poland, annex Bohemia and Austria, and create satellite or puppet states, economically subordinate to Germany. After the failure of Adolf Hitler’s “rapprochement” policy and other talks of diplomacy, German troops marched into Poland in 1939, thus marking the beginning of the Second World War. Soft power is the ability to attract and co-opt, rather than by coercion, which is a form of hard power, which involves using force or giving money as a means of persuasion. Soft power on the other hand is the ability to shape the preferences of others i.e. nations, through appeal and attraction. The term was coined by Joseph Nye Jr. in 1990 in his book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. In this book, he wrote, “when one country gets other countries to want what it wants - might be called co-optive or soft power, in contrast with the hard or command power of ordering others to do what it wants”. This concept was further discussed in Nye’s next book (Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, 2014). Today, the term has come to be used widely in international affairs by analysts and statesmen. The concept of Hard Power and Soft Power can be seen as a continuum, with several instruments of different degrees of coercion or persuasion - instruments like punishment, compulsion, inducement, agenda setting, persuasion and attraction. It is interesting to note that, some foreign policy strategies may be perceived as effective combinations of the two poles of the power continuum, which led to the coining of the term “Smart Power’ in 2004. Smart Power is an approach that underscores the necessity of a strong military, but also invests heavily in alliances, partnerships and institutions. Smart Power is an ability to combine elements of soft and hard power to make them mutually reinforcing. 

Soft Skills and Hard Skills

I deal with this a lot at the workplace, where there is a constant debate on whether an employee’s hard skills are more important for the job at hand, or it’s the soft skills that do the trick. For the uninitiated, hard skills are specific, teachable abilities that can be defined and measured - like domain knowledge, technical knowledge, professional qualification etc. On the other side, we have soft skills, which are interpersonal skills, behavioural and abstract in nature, but essential for performing a job well. These skills tend to influence how we interact with each other. While hard skills involve little or no change in the rules, regardless of the business or the circumstances, soft skills involve rules that can change, depending on a company’s culture or colleagues’ expectation. Let’s look at a simple example of how an employee switches between their hard skills and soft skills. The rules for a programmer to create the best code will remain the same, irrespective of where the programmer works. However, the same programmer may be able to communicate effectively to peers about the technical details of the code, but can fail to communicate effectively with senior managers about the success of the project and the necessary support required to succeed further. Coding is something the programmer has learnt through studying, however, the confidence to communicate effectively will come in from experience and trial and error. Remember, your hard skills can get you an interview, but it is your soft skills that will get you the job! 

Hard Management and Soft Management

Hard management views employees as resource of the business, alongside equipment and infrastructure. This style of management focuses on the requirements of the business, recruiting and managing employees accordingly. A soft management will focus on employees’ roles, needs, rewards and motivations, thus treating them as individuals. It is only in extreme circumstances that managers assume either of the styles, most managers draw on the combination of hard and soft styles. Let’s look at an example - A small business that is just starting out will have a manager that will focus on building the business by making use of their employees’ hard or task based skills. However, the same manager will turn to the softer style when expanding, by encouraging collaboration and team work. It is evident from this example that managers will adopt elements from both types of management to get the best out of their employees to help the business succeed.  

Coming back to the session I attended - I came out of the session feeling more confident about the way I deal with various situations at the workplace. I don’t need to think twice now before I react to or act in a certain way in a particular situation - it is just the way we are all wired!