A quiet crisis is brewing in today’s workforce, and it’s not about automation or AI replacing jobs. It’s about the erosion of human skills that make teams work: communication, empathy, adaptability, and emotional intelligence.

These so-called “soft skills” are proving to be among the hardest to teach and the most critical to get right. In fact, the lack of them is costing U.S. companies an estimated $160 billion a year in lost productivity, poor communication, and employee turnover.

In 40-plus years of building a global technology company, the biggest performance gaps I’ve seen haven’t come from a lack of technical skill, but from a lack of training in how people communicate, lead, and connect.

Most employees will tell you it’s not the technical tasks that keep them up at night; it’s th

See Full Page