Is leaning into being more human the way to negotiate everything leaning into AI?
Face-to-Face might be the ace...
I did a Q&A a couple of weeks ago, and the last question was about how someone young should prepare for their careers if they were graduating now. I’d answered this question before and generally made two points, but the previous few weeks had made me realize there’s a third that’s even more important.
My first two points are about the need to really invest time in learning the right tools, and the need to develop grit and agency using them - since what’ll distinguish people quite often is their sophistication in being able to use and edit these tools and the ambition they have.
However, what I think might matter just as much is old-fashioned people skills - are you able to convince people in person? are you able to influence them? do people trust you? are they energized by you? are you someone they just want to work with?
As information commoditizes and sophisticated analysis of that information commoditizes (since AI will be doing quite a bit of it), I do think people will want to trust the people behind recommendations and decisions more and paradoxically the people will matter even more - so authenticity, presentation skills and even the determination to get in front of people will become just more important skills to cultivate.
What do you think?
(pic credit to @rtilleard and @legoodsociety on Twitter)
