Soft Skills You Need to Have in the World of A.I. — Part 1
Are you like me who loves technology?
Technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), is one of the topics that bring out the nerd in me and something that I want to talk about since I do a lot of things around virtual staffing.
We are living in a technology-centric environment. We have artificial intelligence all around us. We carry it with us, in our phones, in our TVs, cars, and houses — it is here to stay. It will be even more powerful because AI can already do everything. It enables us to do things more efficiently and quickly than before.
But for AI to keep doing more things for us, we need to have the soft skills to use this technology to its best potential.
In the book I’ve read, The Intelligence Revolution: Transforming Your Business with AI, written by one of my favorite authors, Bernard Marr, he listed nine soft skills every employee will need in this age of artificial intelligence. These are the skill sets that you should be looking for in your team. You should be hiring people that have these skills to be able to cultivate growth for your business as we move deeper into the 21st century and become even more technology-driven.
In this post, I’ll go through the first 4 of the soft skills Bernard Marr mentioned in his book.
- 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆 — We know that robots and machines can do many things, but they struggle to compete with humans when it comes to our ability to create, imagine, invent and dream.
An example of this is creativity. We can program a computer to design a picture or make art for us. AI technology can surely help you do this and can create design and art for you. It can bring pieces together but the feel and touch for creativity might be lacking in its output. It is something that we cannot just replicate. That’s why we need to bring in people around you that are naturally creative. People who can put the human touch of design and visual art into the work.
2. 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 (𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹) 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 — You need to have people that are analytical and critical thinkers. People with critical thinking skills can come up with innovative ideas, solve complex problems, and weigh the pros and cons of various solutions– all using logic and reasoning, rather than relying on gut instinct and emotions. These are people that know how to push the envelope and maximize the use of AI technology for something that we’re not using it for and think of ways how to improve it.
We need these analytical and critical thinking skills to make technology work for us and lessen human efforts. For instance, we do not look up in newspapers anymore to know what time movies are playing, we don’t use atlases or even maps to navigate and ask for directions. We could easily ask our phones since all information is at our fingertips. There are so many things that we figured out because of AI. And it makes our lives better by making quicker, faster, and more educated decisions, that’s where critical thinking comes in handy.
3. 𝗘𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 — Given that AI technology cannot easily replicate human’s ability to connect with other humans, then it makes sense that people with high emotional quotient (EQ) will be in even greater demand in the workplace.
We can build the perfect logarithm into it but we still need to give it that EQ to be able to have effectiveness with people and figure out what their reaction will be. These reactions are not always driven by logic, but can also be driven by emotions. AI technology won’t accurately predict emotions, maybe in some cases, but we don’t want to take a chance. That’s why we want to include emotional intelligence as a key skill.
4. 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 — This is the ability to successfully exchange information between people, which is a vital skill. Here we use the right tone of voice and body language in order to deliver a message clearly to your audience. We may live in a highly tech-centric world but this skill will never go away.
We spend more time doing business virtually, like in Zoom than in a physical office. We are now connecting more often through social media, texting, and chatting than we ever did over the phone or in person. This virtual or online communication makes the ability to communicate interpersonally even more challenging and even more important than ever. We need to deliver the conversation with even a higher level of interpersonal communication skills because we cannot physically see them or you’re not in the same room. And these skills are what you want your team to have. You need people that will be able to communicate and understand each other even with the limitation of physical interactions.
These are the first four soft skills, written by Bernard Marr, that you need to have in your team. It is important to have these skills while using AI technology to be able to allow us to stay innovative and be able to embrace the new ways of doing things, with the newest tools and applications.
That’s what we do in Sonic VA. Our virtual assistants can help you do tasks that need to be done. You can delegate those that keep you busy like bookkeeping, appointment setting, data entry, social media, video editing, and other tasks that can be done from a computer. If you are looking for the right people to hire, who can help you use AI technology to your advantage and help grow your business, Sonic VAs are here for you.
Dan Meyer Sonic VA, which specializes in matching Filipino Virtual Assistants with American Small Business clients and has been a leader in the outsourcing industry since 2011.
Dan is also one of the top experts in Virtual Staffing and has personally trained over 10,000 Filipinos in areas such as virtual assistance, data analytics, business process outsourcing and social media marketing & management.
