Vanessa Van Edwards: Social Skills Are Trainable (Yes, Even for Engineers)

When I was preparing for the European Space Agency astronaut selection, people kept telling me the same thing: communication and empathy can't be trained. “You either have it or you don't.” “It's part of your personality.” The implication was that social skills were fixed, like height.

The most important question during astronaut selection isn't about technical competence. It's: would I want to be stuck with this person in a tiny space for six months? That's a social skill question. And if it couldn't be trained, a huge number of technically brilliant candidates were simply out of luck.

I don't believe that anymore. Communication and empathy are complex skills. They feel like personality traits because most of the learning happened in childhood, when we don't remember the process. But complex doesn't mean unlearnable. It means the training takes longer and the components are harder to isolate. Vanessa Van Edwards' work is built on that exact premise.

Social skills as engineering problem

Van Edwards calls herself a “recovering awkward person.” She approached social interaction the way an engineer would: if it's not working, study the system, identify the variables, test interventions, measure results.

Through her platform Science of People, she breaks social skills into small, specific, trainable components: eye contact patterns, vocal tone, body posture, question types, opening lines, ways of showing genuine curiosity. Each one is small enough to practice in a single conversation. Combined over time, they compound into what other people experience as “charisma” or “social intelligence.”

For engineers who have been told they're “not a people person,” this reframe matters. You're not missing a personality gene. You're missing specific micro-skills that other people learned unconsciously during childhood and you can learn consciously now.

How this connects to the Compass

Van Edwards focuses on the observable, external side of communication: what to do with your body, your voice, your attention. This complements the internal work elsewhere in the Compass:

Chris Voss teaches what to listen FOR (the emotional data underneath the words). Sue Johnson teaches what to transmit (vulnerability, not encoded complaints). Daniel Siegel explains why connection matters at the brain level. Van Edwards adds: here's specifically what to do with your eyes, your posture, and your first sentence.

Internal understanding without external skill leaves you knowing what to feel but struggling to express it. External skill without internal understanding makes you polished but hollow. You need both.

What to be careful about

Some of the science Van Edwards references is on shaky ground. The 7-38-55 rule (7% words, 38% tone, 55% body language) comes from Albert Mehrabian's research, which specifically studied communication of feelings and attitudes, not all communication. It's widely cited and widely misapplied. The general insight (how you say things matters as much as what you say) holds up. The specific percentages don't generalize the way they're often presented.

Power poses (expanding your body to feel more confident) were popularized by Amy Cuddy's research, which has been partially challenged in replication attempts. The idea that posture affects mood has some support. The specific claims about hormonal changes are disputed.

As with Robbins' NLP techniques: if a practice works for you, use it. Just know the evidence strength behind it.

Try this now: genuine curiosity

In your next conversation, try one thing: ask a question you're genuinely curious about. Not a polite question. Not a conversation-filler. Something you actually want to know the answer to.

“What's the most interesting thing that happened to you this week?” is better than “How are you?” because it invites a real answer. But only if you actually want to hear it.

Van Edwards' most practical insight might be the simplest: genuine curiosity about another person is the single most effective social skill. Everything else (eye contact, body language, tone) follows naturally when the curiosity is real. When it's performed, people sense it.

Who Van Edwards is for

You're technically strong but socially uncertain. You want specific, practicable micro-skills rather than vague advice about “being more confident.” You like the idea that charisma is a learnable system, not a genetic gift.

Who should look elsewhere

If your communication struggles are rooted in emotional patterns (anxiety in conflict, shutting down when vulnerable, the spiral in relationships), micro-skills alone won't solve it. You need the internal work first ( Compassionate Inquiry, Seven Conversations) and the external skills as a complement, not a substitute.

The bottom line

Before astronaut selection, I was told empathy and communication are innate. I now believe they're skills. Complex, slow to develop, and easy to mistake for personality because most people learned them before they could remember the learning. But trainable. Van Edwards breaks them into components small enough to practice one at a time. For engineers who have written off their social abilities as “just how I am,” that reframe alone is worth the encounter.