Why Personality is Only Getting More Important
In the current globalized and technologically advanced job market, competition has intensified, with remote work making it a global competition. While technology has elevated the quality of output, it has also led to homogeneity in performance. As a result, interpersonal skills, sales, marketing, and customer service have become crucial differentiators. Despite the emphasis on high-level skills in education, the ultimate career success often hinges on effective people skills. This shift is particularly evident in sectors like real estate, where data accessibility has made markets more competitive, emphasizing the importance of character and customer service in investment decisions. Lone Star Capital Group recognizes the significance of enjoyable interactions in business partnerships, reflecting the broader trend in prioritizing relationships over technical skills alone.
As economies continue to globalize and technology democratizes access to information, the job market has seen a dramatic increase in competition. Additionally, technology has enabled employees to work remotely which means the competition for many jobs is now global. Even though job competition is now fiercer than ever before, pretty much everyone has access to the information and tools to compete. This has led to the homogeneity of the quality of output from individuals and companies in almost every area of business. For example, let’s say you apply for a loan, interest rate cap or an insurance quote from multiple companies, and the bids all come back with very similar results, who are you going to work with? The answer is simple: the people you enjoy working with! People skills have always been important, especially in business (not so much in computer science or engineering – my favorite engineering joke – "How can you tell an extroverted engineer? When he talks to you, he looks at your shoes instead of his own").
Today, high quality output is easier to achieve yet it is now harder to stand out since everyone can perform at a similarly high level, thus increasing the importance of sales, marketing, and personality. As I mentioned earlier, if everyone is offering the same product or service, customers are going to buy from the companies which have the best customer service. This idea, however, is rarely discussed in school. Schools tend to focus on developing an in-demand, high-level skill which can be leveraged to land a well-paying job. This strategy works very well but typically has a ceiling. Eventually all career paths lead to jobs or entrepreneurial pursuits which require true people skills, rather than just continuing to build on one’s original high-level skill. A tech startup founder who achieved his initial success on the back of his coding skills eventually needs to learn to be a CEO if he wants to take his company to the next level.
What all this really means is that pretty much every person or company today can perform at a high level, so the primary differentiator is really in sales, marketing, and customer service. We at Lone Star Capital Group, like everyone else, prefer to work with people we enjoy interacting with. To bring just a little bit of real estate into this article, all investing markets have become more competitive and efficient due to easy access to information. Real estate was once an extremely fractured market but today there is enough data to illuminate the true value of almost every asset. This makes buying bargains and effectively achieving above-market returns extremely difficult. Therefore, picking an investment manager or sponsor becomes less about the manager’s investment decision skills and more about their character and customer service.