The superskills of the future (hint: they’re not digital)

Last week I posted a job ad – and received a flood of great feedback. Many people mentioned they loved the way I described the skills I look for in new team members. I decided to share it with you, and I think it might be useful for two reasons: if you want a great job and a future-proof career, or if you’re looking to hire great people. These are not digital skills. Some would call them “soft skills” – I prefer to think of them as superpowers.

Here are what I believe are the essential skills that will prepare you – and your children – for the future, whatever it brings:

1. High agency (ownership and proactivity)

“Agency” is tricky to define precisely, but the best description is a combination of ownership (over your own growth, education, and actions) and proactivity (not waiting to be told).

In the workplace, there’s enormous value in people who see a problem and either solve it or arrive with a solution. Someone who has an idea in the evening and is already trying it out the next morning. Simply put: people with the energy to create and the drive to do something meaningful with it.

Naval Ravikant put it perfectly:

“Hire people who solve problems on their own – without being asked. They notice an issue, they go fix it, they don’t need to update you on every step, they don’t ask unnecessary questions, and they simply show up with finished solutions.”

People like this are worth their weight in gold – but, unfortunately (or fortunately, if you’re one of them), there aren’t many of them.

2. Communication

Communication is absolutely critical – even in the age of AI. Writing prompts is nothing other than formulating thoughts and giving feedback. That’s exactly why it matters that people learn to write well. Writing shapes thinking – and since so much communication in companies today is asynchronous (emails, messages in apps and on networks), this is becoming more important by the day.

If your work also involves human contact, the ability to run a compelling video call or deliver a presentation that genuinely excites people is absolutely essential.

This is how I describe it in my job ad:

“I need someone who can write great copy, get on calls with people, and make things happen. Can you flirt over messages? Then you’re our person – because you clearly have empathy, you can express an idea, and that means you have the potential to communicate brilliantly with AI.”

Yes, you read that right – flirting, in my view, is about empathy, wit, and the ability to express yourself so the other person understands, even when you don’t spell it out literally. Isn’t that the highest form of communication skill? And if you’re an introvert, the arrival of AI is a genuine gift – because you can handle so many things through it rather than through people.

3. The ability and willingness to learn

This includes being open to direct feedback – which is absolutely essential when working with AI. All of us will have to learn to work with AI differently. Very differently. And we’ll also need to unlearn traditional, ingrained ways of working. That means preparing for continuous learning and feedback – from more digitally fluent peers, younger colleagues, or direct reports.

That’s why we look for people who “aren’t afraid to show their work, accept criticism, and use it to keep improving. Someone who adapts quickly to new tools and processes, especially in AI. And someone who isn’t afraid to give brutally honest feedback – even to me.”

Working with AI is not a one-time training event. It’s a constant cycle of experimenting and improving. And often, the biggest leaps forward come when someone shows you a completely different way of doing things.

Beyond these three skills I mention in every job ad, I’ve been noticing others lately – qualities I see in successful people around me, regardless of their role:

Curiosity and the appetite to experiment. Just open AI in a second window and you can ask it anything. And what’s the worst that can happen? It doesn’t work. That’s fine – you can always hit CTRL+Z and go back. Experimenting is the foundation. The more you try, the faster you discover what works and what doesn’t. More importantly, you build intuition – so you know exactly when and how to use AI.

Problem-solving and the ability to break work into steps. Or, if you prefer the fancier term – “process decomposition.” AI and digital tools are excellent at helping with individual steps in your work. But we can’t expect them to handle complex, multi-layered tasks all at once and without clear instructions. The better you are at breaking any activity into concrete steps, the more precise and useful the results you’ll get.

Experience, intuition, and taste. This is the one I think about most – and in my view, it will be the defining factor that separates those who thrive in the AI era from those who don’t. Working with AI requires not just giving it a task, but evaluating whether the output is good or not. That’s why it works best for people who know what a quality result looks like and have deep knowledge of their field. Or people with genuine taste – who know the difference between an outstanding and a mediocre output, understand what works, and can envision a better solution.

That’s why AI today has the greatest potential to help professionals who are already good at their work. Or who want to become good at it. Fortunately, we’re living in the best possible time for that – when anyone has a greater opportunity than ever to become exactly that kind of professional.

FD