I subscribe to HBR’s Management Tip of the Day. A recent tip was “Train Employees on Skills That Evolve with AI.”
That’s a lovely sentiment. And totally wrong-headed and insufficient for any workforce, never mind people who might need to learn how to use AI.
Yes, I agree that people need training to use AI at all, never mind well. (Never for writing itself. See How to Use AI for Writing Without Stealing from Others, Yourself, or Cheating Your Readers.)
But here’s what I see: Somehow, managers still want adult humans who need zero training on the skills they need to succeed here, in this context.
Why would you not take advantage of relatively frequent training to build the necessary skills: the technical skills and the interpersonal skills to use those skills effectively?
Why would you only train on AI—and not on all the other skills people need to succeed?
(Yes, imagine me shaking my fist at the sky, pulling her hair out.)
We can’t just use the skills we learned “before,” regardless of when “before” was. Our skills need to evolve because the world changes. And right now, we’re in a time of tremendous change.
All Skills Evolve
When I hired people, I focused on two things: the ability to learn as fast as necessary, and the ability to collaborate with a team or group of people. That’s because product development requires everyone to learn to:
- Understand what the desired product is.
- See their progress and understand if they are moving in close to the “right” direction. (See How Product Goals Make it Easier to Create Sprint Goals and Reduce Feature Factories, Part 1 or Project Charter Part 1: Write (And Test) a Product Vision for This Project.)
- Figure out how to work with the other people who are on your team or in your group.
I’ve had to learn how to use applications (other products) to do all three of those. As an example, I’ve learned how to use drawing tools and kanban boards to draw my vision of the product and see progress. Those tools—and more—also supported my collaboration with others.
My first computer language was assembler, and the next was Fortran. Then, I learned several other proprietary languages, all nudging me to object-oriented languages. Yes, my first LISP program looked a lot like Fortran, but I was learning.
My programming skills evolved.
If you read my early posts on this blog, you can read how I’ve evolved my thinking via my learning about all aspects of management, project, program, and product management. (I’ve been blogging since 2003, so yes, there’s lots here to read.) While our learning reflects how our interpersonal skills evolve, those skills are the ones that matter the most.
Everyone Needs Excellent Interpersonal Skills
The thesis of the HBR article was that everyone needs AI skills. To that, I will say, “Yes, and…”
That’s because we know that anything AI can do is not the hard part of product development. Worse, if we allow people to work with AI as “individual contributors,” we can actually create bottlenecks in the work.
I am a fan of AI for certain technical tasks, such as creating prototypes that people can then judge whether to trust. Or to use AI to analyze a Big Ball of Mud codebase and create tests at all levels to make future changes easier.
Let me challenge you: What useful and difficult decisions can you make alone? The higher “up” the hierarchy you work, the fewer the decisions you should make alone. That’s because other people have insights and experience that you should take into account before you decide. You might even realize you should delegate that decision to avoid long feedback loops.
Which interpersonal skills do people need? Consider these:
- Negotiation and influence skills. Not to “make” people agree with you, but to explore the options you have.
- Collaboration skills: How can people work together on a team or in a group? What kind of culture do they need to succeed?
- Speaking and writing skills: Speaking and writing require that you explain your position in a way other people can understand. And if you’re like me, the acts of preparing the talk and the writing means you learn as you exhibit these interpersonal skills.
I could add more, such as interviewing skills or selling skills. But I’ll stop there.
Train People on the Skills They Need
Managers: People come to an organization with experience, especially in how they learn. It’s time to offer them training in all the skills they need—especially interpersonal skills. Create a culture of ongoing learning.
Everyone: Learn how you learn. If you’re like me, this might be different for different kinds of skills. However, I always need practice with feedback to learn effectively. Now, choose a skill you want to learn. Set up a way to learn it and practice it.
The faster you learn how to learn, the more easily you can get your managers (at any level of the organization) to offer training on the skills you need.
Maybe that’s how AI can really help us in organizations. It can show us where the learning gaps are. Not to supplant those gaps, but to expose them. Then, managers, please, train people on the skills they need.
(I wrote a lot about the training and interpersonal skills problems in the Modern Management Made Easy books.)
This is one of the intermittent “management minute” posts.