Chapter 1
The Rise of Human Skills in a Machine-Dominated World
What if the skills that make you valuable today become obsolete tomorrow? This isn't just a hypothetical scenario-it's already happening. In a landmark demonstration, IBM's Watson demolished human champions at Jeopardy!, processing complex language clues and accessing vast knowledge without internet connection. But this technological triumph signals something far more significant than a game show victory. As machines rapidly master tasks once thought uniquely human, we're witnessing what former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers calls "the defining economic feature of our era"-an economy that can increasingly provide what people want using more machines and fewer people. Yet amid this technological revolution, a counterintuitive truth emerges: our most deeply human capabilities-empathy, teamwork, storytelling-are becoming our most economically valuable assets. Geoff Colvin's "Humans Are Underrated" has become required reading in boardrooms worldwide, praised by leaders from Google to the Pentagon for identifying the skills that will determine who thrives and who struggles in tomorrow's economy.
Chapter 2
The Machines Are Coming for Your Job
Technology's mind-bending progress makes it easy to imagine a nightmare scenario where computers become better at thousands of tasks people are paid to do. Unlike previous economic shifts, today's technology can substitute for labor entirely rather than complementing it. Google's self-driving car needs no human operator whatsoever. Employment recovery is taking longer after each recession, with the 2008-2009 recession requiring over six years to return to pre-recession employment levels.
Fear of technology replacing jobs dates back centuries-from Queen Elizabeth I rejecting William Lee's stocking-knitting machine to John Kay being driven from England for inventing the flying shuttle. Historically, these fears proved wrong as technology created better jobs and improved living standards. But now, mainstream economists are questioning this orthodoxy. A 2014 Pew survey found half of technology experts believe technology will displace more jobs than it creates by 2025.
We're experiencing the fourth great turning point for workers in 200 years. First, industrial technology devalued skilled artisans while creating demand for machine operators. Second, electricity enabled sophisticated factories requiring educated workers and managers. Third, starting in the 1980s, information technology eliminated medium-skilled jobs while benefiting both high-skilled workers and low-skilled service workers. Now technology is advancing into both ends of the spectrum, threatening workers who thought they were safe.
Even highly skilled professions aren't immune. E-discovery software reads millions of documents without fatigue, cutting legal costs by up to 98% while detecting patterns humans would miss. Companies like Narrative Science write sophisticated articles by analyzing data and determining important angles. Major outlets like Yahoo, Forbes, and the Associated Press already publish computer-written content. Automated essay-grading software is being used from middle schools through universities, with research showing it's as consistent as human graders.
Physical tasks once thought beyond computers' reach are now threatened. Google's autonomous cars could eliminate America's most common male occupation: truck driving. Robots like Baxter can be trained to pack boxes, fold clothes, and inspect items simply by moving its arms in the desired pattern. Even fine motor skills are advancing rapidly, with robotic hands now able to pick up credit cards, insert drill bits, and turn keys.
The overwhelming conclusion is that almost no worker is safe for long. As Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT Media Lab, responds when asked what people will do better than computers in five or ten years: "Very little, other than 'enjoy.'"
Chapter 3
The Social Brain: Our Evolutionary Advantage
We are fundamentally social creatures, hardwired to connect interaction with survival. Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga explains that "Natural selection mandated us to be in groups in order to survive," making social relationships "the raison d'etre of our lives."
Our remarkable intelligence didn't evolve to solve abstract problems like calculus or physics, but rather the incredibly complex challenges of social interaction. Understanding how our actions affect others, anticipating their responses, and navigating shifting social signals requires intellectual faculties "of the highest order." As psychologist N.K. Humphrey noted, social interaction is what our brains are fundamentally designed for.
When seeking our value as technology advances, looking at ourselves proves more useful than asking what computers will never do. The history of technology is littered with embarrassingly wrong predictions about computers' limitations. Early researchers dismissed the possibility of effective computer translation, yet now Google translates written language for free and Skype translates spoken language in real time. Economists Levy and Murnane thought driving vehicles would be extremely difficult for computers, yet Google introduced its autonomous car just six years later.
Rather than trying to predict what computers can't do, we should ask what activities humans will insist be performed by other humans. This approach requires two assumptions: humans remain in charge of the economy, and perfect mechanical imitations of humans don't exist in our lifetimes. We'll continue to demand human involvement in roles requiring accountability (judges, CEOs, government leaders), in solving problems where goals keep changing and group interaction is essential, and in deeply human interactions like receiving medical diagnoses or negotiating agreements.
These changes in work are already happening on a significant scale. Employers now prioritize relationship building, teaming, co-creativity, and cultural sensitivity over traditional business acumen and analysis. McKinsey found that while transaction and production jobs decreased by millions, human interaction jobs increased by 4.8 million between 2001-2009, becoming "the fastest growing category of employment in advanced economies."
The economic story of the twentieth century centered on people acquiring thinking skills through education. Harvard's Goldin and Katz showed that America maintained the world's highest living standard because Americans were the most educated people. Yet even they now believe this century-long recipe may no longer work, stating "College is no longer the automatic ticket to success."
Smart, highly educated people won't necessarily be scorned in the coming economy, but their value will shift. Consider lawyers, whose work is increasingly being taken over by technology. Northwestern Professor McGinnis believes average lawyers "face a bleak future" unless they leverage interpersonal abilities "by persuading angry and irrational clients to act in their self-interest." The key to differentiation lies in deeply human social interaction: understanding irrational clients, forming emotional bonds, and rendering the sensing, feeling judgments that clients insist on getting from humans.
The growing importance of social interaction extends beyond business into other sectors, including the military. Initially in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. commanders based their strategy on superior technology and knowledge - "fire and maneuver." But they discovered this approach wasn't working. Individual social interactions between U.S. forces and local civilians proved critical to mission success.
Chapter 4
The Atrophy of Human Connection
Just as interpersonal abilities are becoming crucial to creating value, these skills are atrophying in many people due to technology's influence on our daily lives. A revealing experiment with fifty-one sixth graders demonstrated this phenomenon: after just five days at a screen-free camp in the San Bernardino Mountains, the students showed dramatically improved ability to recognize nonverbal emotional cues from other people-a skill they had been losing through hours of daily screen time.
Technology is changing not just our work but our fundamental human abilities. The ability to instantly read emotions from facial expressions and other nonverbal cues-crucial for appropriate social responses-is diminishing as screen time replaces in-person interaction. Research shows people who excel at reading these cues do better in school, experience less social anxiety, and form better relationships.
We face a paradoxical situation: the supply of basic human social abilities is decreasing while demand for these abilities is actually increasing. Our brains remain wired as they were 100,000 years ago, craving human empathy, companionship, and group interaction. As these experiences become scarcer, we value them more highly.
Our lives have become primarily cognitive and increasingly virtual, starving essential parts of our nature. Our sense of touch illustrates what we're losing. Touch, our first developed sense, profoundly affects our social perceptions in surprising ways. Research shows people handling rough objects perceive social interactions as more adversarial, while those using heavy clipboards rate job candidates as more serious. Even handshakes dramatically influence how we perceive others' trustworthiness and competence.
Our fundamentally social brains are unprepared for our suddenly virtual lives. Heavy screen users among American youth show poorer grades, worse relationships with parents, and higher rates of unhappiness. Online social networks affect us opposite to in-person networks-making us less happy rather than happier. Research tracking Facebook users found that happiness declined after Facebook use, unlike after in-person interactions or phone calls which improved well-being.
Face-to-face interaction creates neural synchronization between people that's impossible in digital communication. Brain imaging shows that when two people talk face-to-face, the same regions of their brains light up simultaneously-we literally get "in synch." This synchronization disappears when people talk back-to-back, and weakens further in digital interactions.
In-person interaction makes us smarter both collectively and individually. It strengthens our executive functions-the abilities that coordinate our basic cognitive skills, help us solve complex problems, and override immediate impulses for longer-term goals. Just ten minutes of trying to understand another person's thoughts in face-to-face conversation measurably improves these executive functions.
To see people disconnecting from experiences we evolved to have is both strange and familiar. We avoid phone calls, preferring text, and choose keyboards over human voices for efficiency. Yet deep down, we sense something profound being lost. But we needn't surrender our most human skills. We can choose not only to retain these abilities but to excel at them.
Chapter 5
Empathy: The Essential Human Skill
Empathy-discerning what others think and feel and responding appropriately-extends far beyond just feeling someone's pain. It encompasses recognizing joy, anger, confusion or any mental state, whether dealing with colleagues, customers, competitors or loved ones. Employers worldwide explicitly value this trait, with thousands of high-paying job listings specifying empathy as a requirement. Even tech companies want more of it-Infor's CEO calls it "a key skill," SAP's CEO devoted a book section to it, and Oracle executive Meg Bear declares empathy "the critical 21st-century skill."
Medical research provides compelling evidence of empathy's power. Patients with highly empathetic doctors show better control of blood sugar and cholesterol and experience fewer complications. When caregivers demonstrate empathy, patients more readily follow medical instructions-a finding that defies pure rationality but reflects our social nature. Even a doctor's tone of voice significantly affects likelihood of malpractice suits, with tones conveying "higher dominance" and "lower concern" correlating with more lawsuits.
We're hardwired for empathy from birth. Newborns cry when hearing other newborns cry, but not when hearing older babies or recordings of themselves. This emotional contagion forms empathy's foundation. We catch others' emotions unconsciously-mimicking happy or angry faces we glimpse for just 1/30th of a second, responding to pupil size changes that signal sadness. We evolved these traits because they made us stronger. Empathy binds groups together, making us safer on the savanna and more effective as hunter-gatherers.
Despite being innately human, empathy is declining sharply, especially since 2000. Studies of college students show decreasing empathy alongside rising narcissism, particularly in exploitativeness and entitlement. This generational shift reflects changing values-81% of young adults prioritize "getting rich" while only 30% prioritize helping others. Technology plays a significant role: social media and texting eliminate the facial expressions, body language and voices essential for empathetic connection.
We're designed to empathize, but modern environments have become hostile to this essential human trait. Programs like "Roots of Empathy" bring babies into classrooms to help children develop empathy by observing and discussing the infant's needs and feelings. Research shows this approach effectively builds empathy, decreases aggression, and increases prosocial behaviors with benefits lasting years.
Medical institutions have embraced empathy training with remarkable results. At Cleveland Clinic, staff bring emotionally challenging cases to training sessions where they learn the three-part process of relationship establishment, development, and engagement. The program teaches specific skills: letting patients tell their stories, listening reflectively, acknowledging emotions, using normal language, and framing discussions around patient concerns rather than delivering rehearsed monologues.
Genuine empathy involves two essential components: accurately discerning others' thoughts and feelings, and responding appropriately. Simply telling patients comforting lies isn't true empathy, even if it temporarily relieves distress. Real empathy requires building rapport, developing trust, acknowledging fears, and creating authentic partnership-all while maintaining honesty. While computers might theoretically deliver scripted "empathetic" responses, humans are hardwired to receive empathy only from other humans.
Chapter 6
Training for Human Excellence
During a bombing halt in Vietnam in 1968, the Navy conducted a revolutionary experiment in training that would transform military preparation forever. While the Air Force maintained conventional training, the Navy established its Fighter Weapons School (later known as "Top Gun") based on three principles: everything would be recorded to eliminate disputes about what happened; trainers would fly aircraft similar to enemy MiGs and follow North Vietnamese combat doctrine; and each exercise would conclude with brutally honest after-action reviews. When bombing resumed, the results were staggering-the Navy's kill ratio improved from 2.4:1 to an astonishing 12.5:1, while the Air Force's remained unchanged.
General Paul F. Gorman became the champion who revolutionized military training after Vietnam. Experiments showed that units trained using Top Gun principles of simulated engagements with after-action reviews performed "two to six times better" than conventionally trained units. The traditional military approach had been learning by doing-in actual combat-with devastating consequences. Data showed fighter pilots who somehow survived their first combat mission had dramatically better odds with each subsequent engagement, eventually achieving 95% survival rates after five missions.
The most revolutionary element-the after-action review (AAR)-transformed military culture. AARs brought brutally honest discussion where rank was temporarily suspended, allowing soldiers to critique officers' decisions. Unlike traditional training where officers simply told subordinates what they'd done wrong, AARs create open dialogue that yields multiple benefits: everyone gets more information (including leaders), participants learn and remember more through active discovery, and people become motivated to improve when they identify their own performance gaps.
The National Training Center opened at Fort Irwin in 1981, applying the Top Gun philosophy that combat is fundamentally person-versus-person, not equipment-versus-equipment. The results were spectacular-trained units improved their odds of winning by factors of 5 to 30 times. The true test came in Operation Desert Storm, America's first major conflict after implementing this training. Unlike America's historically disastrous first battles, Desert Storm ended in just 100 hours. Though America had superior technology, commanders believed their training advantage was even more decisive, claiming they "would have won even if they had traded equipment with the enemy."
When America invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, the military mission changed dramatically to counter-insurgency operations where success hinged on human interactions-conversations, negotiations, and reading subtle cultural cues. The National Training Center transformed accordingly, building realistic Iraqi villages across its terrain and hiring hundreds of Iraqi nationals to portray villagers and insurgents. Despite this shift from tank battles to "nonkinetic" operations, the principles remained identical: large-scale realism, comprehensive recording of interactions, trainers who outmatched trainees, and rigorous after-action reviews.
Chapter 7
The Science of Effective Teams
As information technology grows more powerful, the importance of human groups in creating knowledge has paradoxically increased enormously. Despite individuals having godlike computing power and access to unlimited information, the most important advances in virtually every field are increasingly achieved by clearly defined teams. A massive study of 20 million research papers across 252 fields over 50 years revealed that teams are producing more research in nearly all fields, with teams growing larger and their work being cited more frequently.
Researchers from MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and Union College discovered that groups possess a collective intelligence factor similar to individual IQ. This "c factor" strongly predicted a group's performance on new, unrelated tasks. Surprisingly, the average IQ of group members was nearly worthless in predicting group effectiveness, as was the IQ of the smartest member. Instead, what mattered most was social sensitivity-measured by members' ability to read emotions from photos of eyes-and conversational turn-taking. Groups dominated by a few talkers performed worse than those with equal participation.
Using MIT's innovative "sociometric badges" that measure tone of voice, body positioning, gesturing and conversational patterns (but not words themselves), researchers discovered that the most effective teams interact in three distinctive ways. First, members generate numerous ideas in brief contributions rather than lengthy monologues. Second, they engage in "dense interactions" with constant alternating between advancing ideas and responding to others with super-short comments signaling consensus. Third, everyone contributes ideas and reactions in roughly equal measure, ensuring diverse perspectives.
Human interaction is so powerful that even small increases dramatically improve group performance. When MIT researchers studied a Bank of America call center where employees worked in isolation at cubicles with staggered breaks, they discovered that simply giving twenty-person teams their coffee breaks at the same time increased interaction and engagement. The results were so impressive that the bank implemented team-based breaks at all call centers, estimating savings of $15 million annually.
Despite seeming like the ultimate tool for group collaboration, digital communication falls dramatically short of face-to-face interaction. We evolved our social abilities long before electronic communication, and many crucial signals simply don't translate online. After analyzing hundreds of groups and billions of data points, Pentland's team discovered they could predict group performance entirely from unspoken social signals without hearing a single word of content.
The behaviors that make teams successful appear economically irrational. Why would people take equal conversational turns or help others when there's no guarantee of personal reward? Yet research consistently shows that "giver" cultures dramatically outperform "taker" cultures. A meta-analysis of 51,000 employees found that giver behaviors correlated with higher productivity, efficiency, and profit; lower costs and turnover; and greater customer satisfaction.
Highly effective teams can't be assembled instantly because individuals aren't interchangeable parts. Building the social capital that makes teams work-earning trust and establishing helping behaviors-requires substantial time. The consequences of insufficient team cohesion can be dire. The National Transportation Safety Board found 73% of airline incidents occurred on crews' first day flying together. Similarly, high-volume surgeons lose their performance advantage when operating with unfamiliar teams at different hospitals.
Chapter 8
The Transformative Power of Storytelling
Stories are more powerful than mere facts, yet organizations often forget this truth. When Stephen Denning at the World Bank discovered that written stories and even videos had no impact, he realized the critical difference: storytelling requires human presence. Face-to-face storytelling allows listeners to judge authenticity, trustworthiness, and passion. We evaluate storytellers in a tenth of a second, forming reliable first impressions. The human connection creates a two-way relationship where the teller adjusts based on audience reactions.
We're hardwired to see stories and causality even where none exists. When Saddam Hussein was captured, Bloomberg wrote contradictory headlines attributing opposite market movements to the same event-revealing our compulsion to create narratives. Research by psychologists like Albert Michotte showed that we automatically perceive causation in simple animations. We don't just see stories-we see stories about people, attributing human motivations even to geometric shapes.
When we hear stories, we don't just perceive them-we experience them as if we were there. This explains why stories can make us sweat, laugh, cry or scream while sitting still. But something even more remarkable happens during in-person storytelling: the speaker's and listener's brains literally align. Princeton researchers discovered "widespread neural coupling" where the same brain regions activate in both teller and hearer, particularly in areas processing social information and empathy.
The most effective stories trigger oxytocin release-what Zak calls "the moral molecule"-making us more empathetic, trustworthy and generous. The classic story structure proven to "squeeze the pituitary" follows a predictable pattern: an ordinary person faces disruption, enters conflict, things worsen, and eventually they find inner resources to prevail in a climactic confrontation, emerging forever changed.
We remember information dramatically better when presented in classic story structure rather than as mere facts. Psychologists Schank and Abelson observe that storytelling isn't optional but essential for memory formation-"Telling is remembering." When we recount experiences, we instinctively reshape them into proper story structure, even adding or omitting details to fit the pattern.
Stories have become so central to national security that DARPA established its Narrative Networks program to understand how certain narratives motivate terrorists and insurgents. The program studies stories at both social and neurobiological levels, examining how narratives affect "hormones and neurotransmitters, reward processing, and emotion-cognition interaction." Nations now view storytelling as a strategic battlefield where influence depends on triggering the right neurochemical responses.
Chapter 9
Human Creativity in the Age of Algorithms
Computers are already demonstrating creativity across multiple domains. Watson creates novel food combinations like roasted pork belly chili with lemongrass and Austrian chocolate burritos that human chefs wouldn't conceive but festival-goers loved. David Cope's programs compose music indistinguishable from Bach or Mozart, while Sony's lab creates convincing jazz improvisations. Computers generate visual art, poetry, and even novels. Though not masterpieces, these creations meet innovation criteria: they're novel, nonobvious, and useful.
Despite computers' growing creative capabilities, high-value creativity will remain human for two key reasons. First, we value the human connection to creative works-as demonstrated when J.K. Rowling's detective novel suddenly received acclaim after her authorship was revealed, despite being the same book that previously sold poorly under a pseudonym. More importantly, the most valuable creativity solves real-world problems where the parameters constantly shift. Humans must solve these problems because we're rarely certain what the problem actually is, and only humans can redirect creative efforts as objectives evolve during the problem-solving process.
When Marissa Mayer became Yahoo's CEO, her most controversial move was ending work-from-home arrangements. Despite criticism, research supported her decision-innovation requires physical proximity. Google deliberately designs its workspaces to force "serendipitous interaction" through cafeteria lines, communal tables, and even slightly cramped seating that creates the "Google bump." While remote workers may be more productive, they're less innovative.
Research using sociometers reveals the deeply human nature of group creativity. Teams produced more creative output when members faced each other, maintained eye contact, and felt comfortable confiding in one another. These behaviors all build and reflect trust, which researchers found critical to the creative process. The most creative groups are often pairs-like Lennon and McCartney or Jobs and Wozniak-who develop such deep mutual trust it becomes faith in one another.
Despite predictions that technology would make physical proximity irrelevant, distance remains a critical factor in creativity and innovation. Communication between people decreases with the square of the distance between them-if they're twice as far apart, they communicate four times less. This explains why cities produce more innovation per capita than rural areas, why industry clusters form, and why even desk placement within the same office matters.
Creativity remains a high-value human activity because the most valuable creative ideas come from people who combine intrinsic motivation with being "other-focused"-having empathy and a desire to help others. Second, successful innovation requires human buzz and excitement; the best innovations are developed collaboratively, with creators involving others from the beginning and building expanding circles of enthusiastic collaborators.
Chapter 10
Navigating the Future of Work
As our economy increasingly values social interaction skills, women hold natural advantages. The differences between sexes are both innate and learned, with evidence showing gender distinctions present from birth. One-day-old baby boys look longer at mechanical mobiles than faces, while girls prefer faces. Prenatal testosterone levels can even predict how much eye contact a baby will make at age one.
Cambridge psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen argues men's brains are "systemizing" while women's are "empathizing." Systemizing means understanding rule-governed systems (engines, software, weather), while empathizing means discerning others' mental states and responding emotionally. In today's economy that values interpersonal skills, women hold clear advantages: they're better at reading nonverbal cues, value reciprocal relationships more highly, collaborate more effectively in conversation, and show greater concern for fairness.
Women leaders typically take broader views of their work, considering impacts on family, education, environment and society-precisely what businesses now need. Women literally have wider peripheral vision than men, who focus more narrowly and at greater distances. Brain imaging shows women simultaneously attend to many different things while men concentrate on fewer items. This scanning ability proves valuable in fast-changing environments where disruption can come from unexpected directions.
Most people's social abilities have historically been left to chance-determined by genetics, family structure, and upbringing rather than deliberate development. This is changing as institutions recognize the economic value of these skills. Top business schools like Stanford and Harvard have radically reformed their curricula, moving away from classroom teaching of commoditized knowledge toward experiential learning through team-based simulations, real-world projects with international companies, and even launching actual businesses.
Ironically, technology that threatens jobs can also help us develop the interpersonal skills needed to succeed in the new economy. Military training provides compelling evidence: software simulations dramatically accelerate team performance. In one example, teams that spent just ten minutes exploring a virtual room before a live "room-clearing" exercise outperformed teams with multiple runs of real-world practice.
Unlike previous economic transitions that rewarded what people know, today's economy increasingly values what people are like. Everyone can improve their interpersonal skills, but some will find it much harder than others. Organizations no longer have places for the socially inept in middle-class jobs that technology is rapidly taking over. Companies like Southwest Airlines and Cleveland Clinic have learned that disengaged employees are toxic and must be removed.
The current transformation in how we create value is historically sudden. While previous economic transitions took generations, today's shift to valuing empathy, collaboration, and relationship-building is happening at unprecedented speed. For the first time, we must look inward rather than outward for the skills we need. This isn't cause for worry but celebration-we're being asked to become more essentially human, to be the creatures we were always meant to be. After ten generations of learning to do machine work better than machines, that era is ending. Machines now do such work better than we ever could. By staking our futures on our most profound human traits, we have the opportunity to create better lives. What we need has been within us all along.
