Why Systems Alone Can’t Fix Your Team Problems (Soft Skills Matter) | EP 17

Ever hire talented people, set up strong systems, and still feel like something in your team just isn’t clicking? We bring you into the messy middle of team building, the part no one warns you about. The part where miscommunication, awkward conversations, and unmet expectations creep in… even when you’re “doing everything right.” We share a real story from behind the scenes, one that every business owner will instantly relate to.

We break down why soft skills (not software) are the foundation of every successful team. We why communication gaps turn into frustration, why assumptions derail projects, and how simple shifts in clarity, boundaries, and emotional intelligence can transform your entire work environment. Whether you’re a team of one or leading a full department, this conversation will help you understand the human side of business and how it impacts performance, culture, and long-term growth.

What to Listen for in This Episode

Why your systems aren’t the problem; your soft skills are: Discover the real reason talented teams experience tension, missed expectations, and burnout even with strong SOPs, tools, and workflows.

Three shifts that immediately improve communication: Learn how clarity, psychological safety, and active listening can dramatically change how your team interacts and performs.

How soft skills shape culture, trust, and leadership: Hear how one business owner transformed her team by adding soft skills into her culture and why your leadership sets the tone for everything.

Reflection: Where is a lack of soft skills creating friction in your business or with your clients and what skill do you need to strengthen to lead with more ease?

Transcript

You're listening to Entrepreneur Encounter, the podcast where soft skills meet real talk for creative business owners who are building with purpose. I'm Dana, a Pinterest marketing strategist and agency owner helping wedding pros and creative entrepreneurs get seen without burning out. And I'm Sarah, a business and team strategist who helps small teams and podcasters communicate clearly, lead with empathy and grow sustainably. Together, we're unpacking the messy, side of entrepreneurship.

from boundaries to burnout, leadership to listening, so you can build a business that actually fits your life.

You ever noticed how building a team can feel a little confusing? You hire the most talented people. You feel like you have the best processes, such as like the SOPs, the project management tool. And for some reason, something is just not clicking. Maybe conversations get a little bit awkward. Maybe expectations are missed. Maybe you feel like repeating yourself over and over again because

I'm telling you this happens quite often and you're sitting there thinking why is this so hard? I'm doing everything right. If that's you, I want you to take a deep breath, take a moment because nothing is wrong with you. You're just dealing with a part of the business no one really warned you about and that's the human part. See, we get told to improve our systems and

I telling you right now, I've said this too. I'm just like, improve your systems. Everything will be okay. Fix your workflows, tighten your onboarding. And I've learned that that's not all that matters. Yes, we want to improve our systems. Yes, we want to fix our workflows, but your team is not going to break because of software. They are not going to just break because of your project management tool. They break because of people.

And people need soft skills, communication, self-awareness, clarity, boundaries, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, just as much as they need the workflows and the SOPs. Soft skills are not just a nice to have. Soft skills are what are going to hold your team together, your business together, you together, so everybody as a whole.

There's a difference between a team that grows with you and a team that burns you out. I'm going to give you a prime example of how I've seen this happen. I worked with this business owner who kept saying, my team just doesn't get it. She had great people, but there was constant miscommunication, missed deadlines, and there was so much tension that nobody talked about. The team would work.

There was tension and nobody would say anything. And she was trying to figure out like, what is going on? Is this me or my team or what is going on? When we sat down to really look at what was going on, she had great systems. She had SOPs and her team was great at what they did, but it wasn't the skills issue. It wasn't the workflow issue and it wasn't she hired the wrong people. It was.

a soft skills gap. She wasn't clearly expressing expectations. Her team was unfortunately like afraid to ask her questions. We don't want that. We want everybody that's in the workplace, virtually or in office. We want everybody to feel comfortable enough to go to whomever that they report to to feel comfortable to ask questions.

Everyone was assuming instead of communicating. So I'm going to assume this. Everybody knows what happens when you assume, right? So, but we don't want to assume. want to get clarity. We want to make sure that the expectations are getting met. know, obviously tiny misunderstandings were turning into like these big frustrations. Everybody was tense. Like this is not how the workplace should be. And as a freelancer, as a contractor, as a business owner,

you know, working with my clients, I felt frustration. I felt that there was miscommunication, misunderstandings, expectations weren't there. So this goes not only for your team, but for the clients that you have. It goes both ways because if you're feeling tension from clients, so now you got to have those conversations with your clients. So when you start to build these soft skills into your culture, your team of one, you and somebody else on your team,

You want to make sure that these are being intertwined in every aspect of your business. So when she started implementing these soft skills into her business, the meetings became so much better. The projects, tasks, everything that was delegated out, they were actually being done like two weeks in advance. And that's my goal, right? I want to help you figure out the bottleneck of what

is happening? Like why is X, Y, and Z happening? Because yes, it can be a delegation misunderstanding. It can be a time management. It can be an empathy. It can be time management. It can be like all these different self skills, right? So it's, you don't know until you have those conversations and having these conversations with anybody that you work with, it's going to help so much in the long run.

So this is the power of soft skills because now that she implemented soft skills into her culture, things started looking better, feeling better, no more tension. People actually felt comfortable enough to go to her and say, hey, I'm having a problem with this. I need help with this. Whatever their question or whatever their feedback was, they were definitely more comfortable with that.

So let's break this down into a few simple shifts you can do right now. You can prioritize clarity over comfort. Most problems come from unclear expectations, unclear communication or unclear boundaries. So be direct, be specific and don't assume. Create a culture where questions are welcome. If...

your team, with your clients, whomever you work with, if they don't feel safe enough to come to you to ask you questions, you'll stay stuck in miscommunication. You want to build that safety for everybody that is in your space. You want to practice active listening. Not just hearing to respond, but listening to understand. Your team will feel the difference. You want to normalize the feedback. Feedback shouldn't only come up when something goes wrong.

You want to use the feedback to grow for yourself, your people on your team to grow, and not just only using feedback to correct people. You want to model the soft skills you expect. You set the tone. If you're calm, they're calm. If you communicate clearly, they will follow the lead. If you take accountability, they will feel safe doing the same thing. It all starts with you. Your business.

You created the vision, you created the services, all the things, that's you. So then it starts from the top and it goes down. And when everybody sees that, they're going to be like, yes, I want to be like that person. I want to show up like that. That's who I aspire to be. That is great leadership. Soft skills are not just tools. They're not hacks. They're not something that you're going to, it's a quick fix. It's the foundation of leadership because when you're

building and growing your team. You're not managing tasks. You're guiding humans. You're helping these people grow, whether you know it or not. If you have a toxic environment that sticks with people and that sometimes it's hard to overcome. I mean, I know we've all been in a tub of situation. I've been in that situation and it took me a while. It's like,

Figure out like, is this situation supposed to be like this? Am I supposed to feel this way? You don't want that environment to be toxic because now that you're running a business and if you do have that toxic environment, people will talk about that and leave you a bad review, say something in their network. That's your reputation. If you are not...

leading your team in a good way. If it's that toxic environment, you're not implementing the soft skills, you're not leading by example, people will talk. And that's bad talk. You don't want that. People that are in your space, they're humans, they need clarity, they want to trust you, and they need to feel seen and understood and supported. Soft skills make you a leader that people want to be around. They want to be in that environment that you're in.

not just someone they have to tolerate. You know, one of the episodes that we talked about, we talked about self-awareness, which I will link down in the show notes. Definitely, I would advise you to go check that out, listen through, because self-awareness is definitely key to all of this as a leader. There may be times that we're not aware of certain aspects in our life, and you have to be okay with somebody being like, hey, that's bothering me, or I want to give you feedback. So go check that episode out.

So let me ask you this, where is a lack of soft skills creating fiction in your business right now? With your team, with clients, what does that look like? Where is a lack of soft skills creating friction in your business? And if you wanna go even deeper, what soft skills do you need to strengthen to lead with more ease and less exhaustion?

I would love to know what your answer is. So wherever you're listening to watching, definitely put a comment down below or feel free to send us a DM on Instagram because we would definitely love to hear your feedback. Thank you for spending time with me today. Team building gets a whole lot easier when you focus on the human skill set, not just the technical one. Soft skills matter and soft skills will.

matter and help you grow within your business for the long run. Whether you're growing your visibility through Pinterest marketing or streamlining your podcast operations and team management, we help you build systems that work for you, not against you. All of our information is in the show notes. Until next time.