> helps them see through the seemingly-meaningless boilerplate and social grease that we call people skills.
Seemingly-meaningless boilerplate? I disagree: (1) There's plenty of meaning to be found if you want to pick up a psychology, PR, or sociology book and actively try to learn something about people, (2) People skills are extremely important if your company needs to deal with the public or forge business relationships. You are just making your life difficult if you refuse to acknowledge or learn what most of the world takes for granted.
Regarding 1) — I very much doubt so. Some amount of social grease is needed but not in ammounts where it turns into mud where we are stuck. Believe me, I have read quite a few of the books in the fields you metioned.
2) There is a difference between refusing to learn, and learning and seeing no meaning in some of that stuff. The problem with so called people-skills is that they tend to become automated actions, some kind of cargo cult. You can execute them perfectly, and not care a bit about the people you so smoothly interact with. When you see that real thought are dilluted beyond any reconition in a sea of polite babbling you know that something is wrong.
Seemingly-meaningless boilerplate? I disagree: (1) There's plenty of meaning to be found if you want to pick up a psychology, PR, or sociology book and actively try to learn something about people, (2) People skills are extremely important if your company needs to deal with the public or forge business relationships. You are just making your life difficult if you refuse to acknowledge or learn what most of the world takes for granted.