Soft Skills Are the New Strategic
Why curiosity, empathy and dialogue are the tools for tackling 21st-century complexity.
One day in class back in 2020, a guest lecturer introduced the concept of degrowth. As someone long engaged in the private sector, my ears pricked up. I immediately sensed how that word would land in sectors where ‘growth’ - however ambiguously defined - is the default mantra. Any conversation that began with the word degrowth, I suspected, would stop before it started.
Sure enough, media coverage showed exactly that: hostile reactions across sectors, from business and finance to architecture and design. Yet the majority of academic degrowth advocates stood firmly by the term - their ‘missile word’.
It was fascinating. Here was a topic so charged that a conversation couldn’t even start. And it highlighted a critical point: communication on complex issues doesn’t just happen. It needs careful design - or relationships are damaged before they even have a chance to develop.
That curiosity led to my Master’s dissertation. Using a grounded theory approach (essentially, a detective following a hunch to see if it can be substantiated enough to form a theory by ‘grounding’ it in evidence), I researched academic degrowth discourse to understand the principles and proposals underpinning it.
Then I set the contentious word aside. I took those principles and ideas into UK industry discourse - specifically finance and technology, revealed to have the most media influence - and looked at how similar concepts were being framed.
And what emerged was striking. The two groups were often talking about the exact same ideas - but in entirely different languages.
In academic contexts, the conversation was about degrowth and sustainability.
In industry contexts, the same themes appeared under The Future of Work or Smart Thinking.
Where academics talked about planetary limits, industry talked about purpose and meaningful work.
Different vocabulary - same underlying concerns.
If you’re a systems thinker, you’ll recognise that’s not a contradiction; it’s just a different angle of approach. The goal wasn’t agreement, it was understanding different perspectives - the other people’s motivations, fears and hopes - enough to get past the barrier and find shared ground.
The framework I designed revealed overlapping values and practical starting points for collaboration. Slowly, what began as a source of tension became an opportunity for further exploration - and that exploration began to generate routes to strategy and implementation.
Overall, this process showed me that so-called soft skills - listening, reframing, empathy, curiosity, perspective-taking - aren’t soft at all. In the 21st century, they’re strategic.
These are the capabilities that let us:
Navigate tension in high-stakes conversations
Translate between different professional languages and worldviews
Reveal shared purpose and entry points for collaboration
Build relationships that last through uncertainty and change
We live in an era where technical competence is vital, but it’s not enough. The greatest leverage often lies in how we talk, listen and bridge - before we build.
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report highlights these same skills - analytical thinking, resilience, creativity, social influence, and communication - as central to the jobs of tomorrow. And in design and foresight literature, the integration of human-centred design with scenario planning or strategic foresight is increasingly seen as a way to anchor ambiguous futures to real-world purpose.
So the next time someone rolls their eyes at the mention of ‘soft skills’, allow yourself a sideways smile.
We’re not talking niceties here.
We’re talking strategy.
And in an increasingly complex and highly-charged world, the rare skills of curiosity, empathy and carefully crafted dialogue might just be your superpower.