How to develop your soft skills in the era of AI?

How to develop your soft skills in the era of AI?

It's been a few years since soft skills (behavioural and interpersonal skills) were part of our daily professional lives, in particular with the arrival of the digital world and AI.

Since its creation, Extia has been urged to place “the human asset” at the heart of its activity, specifically by developing soft skills, major assets in our constantly evolving world. The Business Communities by Extia regroup passionate experts. They gathered to discuss the newest technical subjects. After all, they grasped the importance of it in 2021 when they created the Soft Skills Business Community.

In their perpetual quest for knowledge, the team of the Business Community assisted the conferences of Jérôme Hoarau, co-leader and author of various bestsellers about soft skills and leadership.

Why bet on soft skills?

The high bet on soft skills is a necessary task because hard skills (the technical skills) tend to become obsolete faster. The obsolescence of our skills is a major issue for companies and workers; they need to adapt and constantly seek knowledge, and acquire new technical skills.

Hard skills can be defined as knowledge replaceable by AI. On the other hand, soft skills are far more complex to master and are limited for AI; for now, they are in fact far more mastered by Humans.

For now, AI is not likely going to reproduce soft skills, so you need to bet and focus on them. Moreover, those skills are multifunctional; they will serve you well for your future missions in the professional world.

What are the most developed soft skills, and how do you recognise them?

Foremost, you need a way to recognise the soft skills: a skill is recognised with this kind of formula: “I have developed my/mine …”; it differs from our responsibility (that we can’t change) recognised in the sentence “I am…”   Jérôme Hoarau suggests an exercise that highlights 5 developed soft skills, which, as a matter of fact, you will know are the ones you need to work on, develop, or keep. Here are the main points:  

On a piece of paper, draw a table with two columns: one for the significant experiences (it doesn't matter if they are positive or negative), and the other will serve as a reminder of the soft skills used during these experiences.   Once the table is carefully completed, some soft skills will be repeated, while others will be less or more present. With this kind of skill repetition, it's possible to create the top 5 of your most developed soft skills. A soft skill that often appears all across your experiences is a soft skill that is very much developed. The exercise is simple, but you need to do it with calm and patience and try to avoid being superficial.   You can also ask people around you (personal or professional contacts), they are the key elements of reflection about your soft skills.    

How do you develop your soft skills?

It's important to remember that soft skills are not acquired and fixed: it's possible to develop soft skills that are not yet learned.   Firstly, it's important to adapt to the "growth mindset",constantly challenge yourself, and ask questions by changing and practising your internal dialogue. For example, stop saying "I'm anxious,” which sounds inevitable and fatal, and just say, "What if I found ways to manage my stress".   We need to regularly cultivate this “change mindset”, by accepting criticism, finding inspiration in the success of others (instead of envying them), and also by seeking challenge and surpassing ourselves.

Beyond this growth mindset, the first pillar in the development of soft skills, we need to maintain our cerebral plasticity and continue to create neuronal connections by seeking out these 3 complementary axes:

• Novelty: keep learning.
• Challenge: challenge yourself, get out of your comfort zone.
• Repetition: regularity is essential for brain plasticity.
    For example, to learn how to manage stress, 15 min of meditation every day for 3 months will be far more effective than a 2-week “emotional management” course.    

The top 5 soft skills to bet on

Jérôme Haorau has selected 5 skills, the most adaptable ones, in a "VUCA" world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous). These acronyms sound as complex as the world we live in:  

1. The ability to learn: knowledge is constantly emerging, often rendering old knowledge obsolete.
2. Creativity: the world is uncertain, and the field of possibilities is immense (whether these possibilities are pleasant or not).
3. Leadership: without mentioning the hierarchical posture, this skill leads to initiative-taking, the change aspect is rather chosen than imposed.
4. Time management: the continuous innovations give us the impression that time is accelerating, and you need to be able to control it.
5. Digital intelligence: the risk of "digital illiteracy" can be a disabling factor.
     Let's have a closer look at these different soft skills:
    

The ability to learn

Today, it's quite simple to fall into the abyss of cognitive laziness, or, in other words, to not be the master of your own mind, you will let the machines and computers do all the work for you. It is essential to develop and not get carried away by this flow; self-development will construct your critical knowledge and problem-solving skills.   Here are 3 useful tips to maintain or develop your learning ability:
1- When using ChatGPT, do not ask for answers but ask questions that will help you achieve your mission. Example: “What kind of information is needed to help me find the answer …?”   2- Train your visual memory through retroactive visualisation and spaced repetitions. Retroactive visualisation? That's a good question. It's the analysis by learning from past experiences. Example: Playback the day and try to remember the tasks you did and how you could have done them differently. Start by doing it in the evening, then a week later, a month later. This method, combined with the concept of spaced reviews (the anchoring informative tool), helps reduce the forgetting curve and it trains your cerebral plasticity.   3- Practise the fast reading method (in particular with the help of the Neoboost app co-created by Jérôme Hoarau) which maintains your intellectual vivacity. It's a mental training tool, not a fatality.    

Creativity

Creativity is developed by working on finding a solution to given problems, here are a few tips:

• Creation comes from inspiration. Example: If this person was me, how would he act?
• Use the powerful problem-solving tool known as the “6 Thinking Hats of Bono”. To solve a problem, you will use 6 different and very distinct approaches that will give you a wide range of solutions.    

Leadership

This soft skill is very important and gathers a lot of criteria and skills:

• You must have a global vision. This is the foundation, and it must be clear to you AND to the group (the educational dimension). The vision must be owned by everyone, and each role must be defined. If everyone finds their place, the movement will be natural.
• Exemplariness
• Setting the flowing movement of the group
• The willingness to make the “other” grow
• Emotional intelligence : you need to know how to act or react to others.
• Courage and boldness. It's when things don't go according to a plan, and at that exact moment, these skills come to the rescue. Courage is action taken out of fear (a challenge undergone), whereas boldness is a challenge chosen. A leader needs these 2 skills.    

Time management

We live in a fast-paced world; time management is essential, and it's quite important to find the time for a self-care moment, essentially to not get dragged into a vicious cycle.  

Digital Intelligence

Here are 2 practical tools to keep or even develop this Digital Intelligence:  

• Keep an eye on things, be curious, and be interested in what’s going on. You need to test things out, have an appetite for novelties, and not be overwhelmed by them. Example: look up the new social media such as TikTok or Thread.
• Face challenges with curiosity. Curiosity is the anchor of your reality, and it develops your critical sense.     The promising development of soft skills will act as the perfect arsenal to face changes and gain confidence. This virtuous circle must be maintained; changes are undergoing, and they can be destabilising.