What the experts say

I've attended my share of high-profile business conferences. Before the pandemic, I had attended the World of Business Ideas in New York at least seven times, and I have returned since then. The difference this time is that I did not attend alone.

- FRANCIS J. KONG

I brought with me a small group of business and industry leaders, gathered, shared learnings and selfies, collaborated and networked. It was an awesome experience.

The conferences I have attended in the past are not a lightweight gathering; they put serious thinkers on stage — people like Jim Collins, Tom Peters, Jack Welch in earlier years, and now Adam Grant, Brené Brown, Seth Godin, James Clear and even gymnast world champion and legend Simone Biles.

The content shifts with the times, but one theme keeps getting louder: in an AI-saturated world, “soft skills” are the new hard edge.

For decades, we treated soft skills like side dishes — nice to have, but not the main course. The word soft didn’t help. Who wants to budget for anything “soft” when the quarterly numbers are “hard?” So, we underinvested.

And then the world changed.

AI can draft memos, summarize meetings and build decent first drafts of strategy decks. But it still can’t do what sets leaders and teams apart: clarify purpose, earn trust, coach behavior, resolve conflict, make ethical decisions under pressure and inspire action when the playbook breaks.

Why is this hard to hear? Because it asks us to grow where we've been coasting.