Skills And GenAI: Tech Down, Social Up, Product Essential

“The decline in soft skills is one of the major threats to the Republic.”

Prof. Joseph Fuller, Harvard University
as stated at MN Tech Talent conference, October 11th, 2024, Bloomington, Minnesota. 

Every so often, I attend a conference that knits together disparate influences into something greater. I had that experience last Friday, at the Minnesota Technology Association’s (MTA) Tech Talent conference, at Best Buy headquarters (I lead Forrester’s global EA coverage and get into other kinds of mischief from my home base in Minneapolis).

About 100 local IT hiring managers and HR professionals concerned with the tech workforce attended, reflecting MTA’s ongoing interest in fostering the technology talent pipeline. After an informative, well-quantified presentation by Real Time Talent on the state of the MN tech workforce, the star of the day was Harvard’s Professor Joe Fuller, with a tour de force keynote and followup breakout covering generative AI’s (genAI) impact on software development and more.

So what does genAI have to do with the product model, sometimes called the product-centric operating model? It’s an interesting line of sight. Fuller pointed out (consistent with our research) that the demand for technologists is stalling. Here’s a recent statement by Dr. Erik Meijer, as summarized by Gene Kim: “As developers, we thought that we might be safe, unlike doctors and surgeons and plumbers. Instead, we’re the first to be affected by large-scale automation.”

Prof. Fuller’s talk, however, took things in a direction I hadn’t heard explored in depth before: It’s risky to focus on technical skills, because they’ll no longer be the constraint — “soft” skills will be (Forrester prefers the term “social skills.”) If it’s increasingly easy to get engineering expertise, then competition will shift to other fronts. That’s the nature of constraints; there’s always a weakest link.

Now, Prof. Fuller didn’t use the term “constraint” or name check Eli Goldratt (originator of the Theory of Constraints). But Fuller’s gist, as I interpreted it, was this: Someone has to figure out what we’re going to DO with the AI. This requires collaboration and emotional intelligence. 

Enter the product model (to be clear, Prof. Fuller did not talk about this, I am now extrapolating). I helped lead the product model coverage at Forrester, now in the capable hands of my friend and colleague Fiona Mark. “Collaborative” is one of the essential principles of the product model. What’s essential for collaboration? Emotional intelligence and social skills.

This is where we get to the lead quote, “The decline in soft skills is one of the major threats to the Republic.” When he said it I wrote it down immediately. His conversation (and subsequent lunchtable conversations) then veered into the problems we’re seeing with young adults, especially those whose critical emotional intelligence development was disrupted by COVID.

If genAI disrupts tech careers, this almost feels like a forcing factor and corrective — for 70+ years, the socially awkward (including yours truly) have had a secure and profitable refuge in creating and stewarding digital systems. Out of this we created a society increasingly based on mediated interactions, corrosive of real human connection. 

Now, base digital capabilities no longer need that level of specialized human focus. They’ll not need that workforce, at least not in the same numbers. But there are still questions of purpose, intent, and outcome (“the business,” in that overused term). These cannot be ceded to the machine — the machine, while it might even be a counselor, can’t determine what YOU want to do. 

I also started thinking about remote work in light of this crisis of social skills. I have read many articles furiously condemning the “back to office” movement, yet I have seen few if any that discuss intergenerational obligations and knowledge transmission; however, I know that these concerns are top of mind for at least some of those pushing a return to the office.

Back to office may or may not lead to better collaboration on the work of the moment. But I’m highly skeptical that younger colleagues derive the same EQ learning from remote collaboration that they do from in-office interactions. If you think they can and do, I welcome evidence. I admit that I’ve been a remote worker much of my career; however, I taught as an adjunct for 8 years, mostly in person, hopefully making up via that channel.

So, is this the perhaps hopeful future? Out of the digital world, the collaborative imperatives of product management, its necessities of empathy and empowerment, take deeper and deeper root? To the point where people’s instincts for personal survival and prosperity redirect their focus to a more human-centric world? That would indeed be ironic.

And yet, as I write this and listen to my favorite songs from musicals, cued up is “Defying Gravity” from Wicked. “I’m through with playing by the rules of someone else’s game” hits me — Elphaba is renouncing the wizard and his technologies and striking out for a new, uncertain future.