Soft Skills are Anything BUT Soft
Leading and Being Human are the True "Hard" Skills for an AI (Artificially Intimate) Future
As I administer “StrengthFinder” assessments for a cohort of clients where I provide coaching, I get a mixed response when “empathy” comes up in the top five. Some groan, and others diminish this strength as no big deal.
Many coachees have been told they need to get more technical experience before moving to the next role, or that they need to “pay their dues” at the organization to earn a promotion.
In our session, I ask clients to talk about a time when empathy (or another human strength, like “relator” in Gallup-speak) served them at work.1 As they work through their top 10 strengths as ranked by the report, they start to loosen up. These stories help them embrace and own these qualities that seem easy to them, but are harder for others.
There are four domains (as defined by Gallup): relationship building, strategic thinking, executing, and influencing. Most clients deeply long for the ones they don’t have. Meanwhile, I’m astonished at the emotional intelligence, “people skills,” and connective fluency these clients display.
Each time when I tell my clients, “these are the HUMAN skills! These are the ones that cannot be outsourced!” they scoff a bit. That’s not what their boss told them at work.
They are partially right. We need to learn some technical and field-specific skills. We need to learn how to assess data, write persuasively, and use our minds. But now, more than ever, we can have computers assess data, even generate draft text, and create clever graphics.
What remains when the “hard skills” we took years to learn are delegated to AI?
We are left with real, difficult skills for the messy process of being human. A podcast conversation with Brené Brown and Esther Perel on Artifical Intimacy as part of Dr. Brown’s Unlocking Us series brought this home to me again. Rather than thinking of the AI we usually focus on, they describe what we feel in the social media realm as Artificial Intimacy.
They speak about living “beyond human scale” these days in this era of broadcasting in new ways. To be sure, there are benefits for those of us who are connected to relatives around the world using this tiny device in our pockets.
But why does all this technology leave us more lonely than ever?2
Perel mentions the notion that we may have a thousand “friends” or followers on our social media account, but nobody to feed our cat when we go out of town. How real are our connections when we can’t count on them for the caring we need in an emergency?
Spending time in recent weeks with my Mom while my Dad is in a nursing and rehab center to help him get stronger to return home, I reflected my own support system. Grateful to my husband for being a huge part of it. I also have a handful of close friends that I see periodically that would help if I asked.
I know many people feel lonely when they don’t have many friends. I can feel lonely when I’m in the presence of too large a group, and deeply need “rest away” from the in-person fray.
Skills for in-person relating are awkward and difficult.
Mom tries to engage with my Dad (who is much less talkative these days) in the rehab center. He has nothing to say. It’s painful for me to sit and witness this, or to try to elicit a response from him.
Then he says in a tiny voice barely louder than a whisper, “I rest better at home.”
Oh. I look at my Mom’s face, but her hearing aids didn’t pick this up this plea. She missed this particular “bid” for connection, and I feel sad having to repeat it to her.
He’s not ready to go home yet, judging by the effort it took for the physical therapist to help him stand up to practice using his walker. I notice he’s dressed in his purple Vikings jacket and wasn’t willing to be put into his wheelchair or the bed after PT.
He thought we might take him home today. My heart sinks.
When I repeat what he said to Mom, she tells him she wants him to come home soon. He has to eat more, and keep doing his exercises, so he will be strong enough to manage on his own at home.
Sitting on her walker before we start the journey home, she tries to keep a cheerful face as she wonders if he will be able to go home soon.
I modulate my emotions long enough to reach the privacy of the car. Then I express my sadness to Mom, and the worry I have over the delusion that he feels ready to leave. I reflect on my empathy for the boredom he must feel not having access to all the things he has at home, and allow a few tears to fall.
My thoughts flash to an incident a couple months before when I’d been cleaning their home before Christmas dinner. Unbeknownst to us then, he’d stopped taking his meds and was having an unexpected withdrawal response. He shouted at my Mom: “why is SHE here?” as he retrieved the half gallon of spoiled milk in I’d set out on the porch to take to the trash.
After weeks of tolerating his strange behavior and finally cracking (holidays are hard), she burst into tears. “Why is YOUR DAUGHTER here on CHRISTMAS? She’s HELPING me get ready for the MEAL!”
Dad stomped off in a huff.
I gave my Mom a big hug. He was unaccustomed to my “cleaning rage” energy. I may have projected my own shame over my family’s messy house, just before my husband and our cousin were to arrive for a meal.
Years of Mom feeling responsible for everything, and Dad’s sadness over his own mother’s death during the holidays decades had earlier boiled over again.
Human connection?
Messy.
Awkward.
Necessary.
Fraught.
On the other hand, we scroll, like and comment on the socials. Zero at stake.
Our phone becomes a defense against the “dark arts” of human relating, responding to emotions, and expectations, and disappointment in real time.
Why are we so lonely?
Because we default to what keeps us comfortable and numb. I’m raising my hand on this too. It’s often easier to listen to an audio book than listen to Mom’s “organ recital” of things that are wrong today, or which doctor wasn’t interested in the condition du jour.
I come back to the moment again, breathe deeply, exercise my empathy, and realize how lonely she is. I notice how much she and my Dad have longed for connection but have missed each others bids for years.
Awash in sadness and guilt over turning away from them far too often, I ignore my disdain for commercial television and ask what she’s watching tonight.
***
Are empathy and “relator” skills are less valuable than strategic thinking?
No, they are damn hard. Every day we lose a little more tolerance for holding others’ emotions skillfully, which makes them worth more than gold.
Side note: I love to use the CS34 Full Report rather than the Top 5, as it color codes into specific domains, and generally gives more of a representative sample, using the top 10 out of 34, and ranking all of them for a fuller picture. It is more expensive, probably three times the cost of the Top 5 report, but much more valuable as a coaching tool.
For one article on this: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-americans-are-lonelier-and-its-effects-on-our-health
And the book by the Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, MD, I’ve been meaning to read (but is waiting behind a cue of many) Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World.
What a beautiful and in moments heart-breaking post, thank you for sharing it with us, including the messy bits. I love these concluding lines: “Are empathy and “relator” skills are less valuable than strategic thinking?
No, they are damn hard. Every day we lose a little more tolerance for holding others’ emotions skillfully, which makes them worth more than gold.” Needed to hear this today, thank you ❤️❤️❤️