Soft Skills vs. Hard Skills.

"It's interesting that hard skills are considered better than soft, but when people go into management, it's the soft skills that ... make the difference in career success." C. Thomas Howard, director of the M.B.A. program at the University of Denver, explaining in a New York Times story (23 Feb. 1997).

Many students in my school seem to view the Communication module, which I facilitate, as an optional and unimportant module. So don't even begin to talk about the Culture module.

However, recently I got an MSN message from one ex student who is now working as a early childhood trainee teacher. She said something to the effect of "Mr Chen, you were right. Communications is more than just talking. I'm glad I took the course from you. Working life has so much politics."

That made my day.