In the series ” Soft skills “, the scientific directors of the MSc & MBA INSEEC Paris give their advice and their expert opinions on this valuable theme for students. Serge-Henri SAINT-MICHEL, founder of Marketing-Professional and Marketing PME and Scientific Director of the programs Communication, Marketing and Digital, today gives us his point of view on a very popular subject, beaten and rebatted: soft skills. For the professional, there is no doubt: the communicator today must be a five-legged sheep! But does it really have to be the seemingly unattainable five-legged sheep model that we automatically think of? Quick focus on the subject!
Soft skills are based on strong qualities… Attitudinal, behavioral and intellectual qualities. Marketing and communications value three key qualities :
- Mobile : open mind VS petrified of certainties of the ” world before “
- Ability to question oneself, to learn constantly, in beta version (by accentuating the versioning and reducing the beta) : keep on learning ! Because nothing is ever acquired or definitive.
- Ability to be moved and reason, to write, to express and conceive a thought, to formulate an argument, to juggle concepts
Perhaps the communicator/marketer must navigate this universe by rowing…
- Respectful, responsible, realistic and dreamy
- Adaptable, pleasant, autonomous
- Motivated, motivated, a potential manager
- Ethical, efficient
The world of work today is looking for the five-legged sheep, whatever the function envisaged in marketing and communication ; soft skills take a large place:
- Specialist and generalist (paradox), because of his skills. Hence the notion of expertise to have…
- Experienced and young, but as profitable as possible
- Farmer/gatherer (what is communication if not agriculture ?), initiator of ideas and projects, transformer of the world. In short, the head down on the results, but the head in the stars of the objectives to be reached!
- Adaptable but respectful of the company’s practices (for example), charters of conduct, processes, compliance, quality… So resistant to stress !
- Autonomous because often management levels are missing or files are passed on quickly, but able to work with distant teams, in different disciplines, with jolting timeframes (alternating stop and go on projects), and often in a foreign language.
I am convinced that your passion and the INSEEC MSc & MBA courses can turn you into a 5-legged sheep !
Updated 24 February 2022