Let’s not sugarcoat it: tech has a soft skills problem.
We’ve optimized for tooling, speed, and automation. And it’s great—until your project goes sideways because someone didn’t speak up in a discovery session, or your timeline blew up over misaligned expectations no AI could detect.
That’s the trap. And it’s also the opportunity.
Because in the age of copilots and auto-generated everything, the most undervalued—and irreplaceable—asset in your delivery toolkit is your presence. Your ability to catch what AI misses and de-escalate what dashboards can’t.
I’ve been calling it out for years: Soft skills are your hard currency.
Let’s Talk Outcomes
McKinsey and PMI found that up to 95% of digital transformation efforts fail to meet expectations. Not because of bad tech. Because of human friction:
- Miscommunication
- Hidden agendas
- Lack of stakeholder alignment
Ironically, the more automated your systems get, the more expensive those gaps become.
That’s why when I show up to an org and practice what’s in the People First Method playbook, people don’t say, “He’s efficient.” They say, “The team just plays better when he’s around.”
What Makes That Possible?
It’s not magic, it’s a method.
We built Soft Skills = Hard Money as a field-tested response to this exact shift. It focuses on five human strengths I see driving results again and again:
- Empathy: Spotting stress signals and adjusting pace
- Advocacy: Noticing who’s quiet and asking why
- Complexity: Translating the Frankenstein workflow into something everyone understands
- Transparency: Explaining trade-offs in language that builds trust
- Adaptability: Pivoting mid-meeting without losing the room
Each section includes:
- Practical prompts for real client conversations
- Situational examples from Salesforce delivery
- A People/AI decision grid to help you know when to lead and when to co-pilot
Why It Matters More
Now
AI is powerful. I use it. But it’s not going to:
- Catch political tension between product teams
- Notice the budget-holder who stayed silent
- De-escalate the stakeholder who feels steamrolled
And that means your people skills aren’t “extra.” They’re what make the transformation stick.
When your client renews your contract, it’s rarely because you crushed the flow builder. It’s because they trust you to bring clarity when things get muddy.
Download the Guide
We put the core of this method into a concise, zero-fluff PDF:
If you lead workshops, coach internal teams, or run projects with real humans involved – this will land.
Soft skills aren’t the “nice-to-haves.” They’re the skills that keep you in the room.
And they’re more valuable than ever.
Jon
