Management Perspectives

For companies and their employees, the tide has turned. Proficiency in solving problems and analysing data are no longer the keys to success. Why? Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are moving tasks that involve analysing data and making calculations from humans to machines. Think of this as an evolution from a ‘Thinking Economy’ to a ‘Feeling Economy’. And, management will have to change.

This means you—managers and employees—had better get in touch with your emotions. The ability to listen, communicate, and empathise is increasingly valuable in the workplace.

The Global Business Policy Council recently stated, “[E]xecutives are putting renewed emphasis on the [human] dimension of their operations. In addition to preferring face-toface interactions for recruitment and training, executives tell us they need a workforce skilled in management, innovation and creativity— skills that no robot can (yet) provide.”

Consider how this trend is affecting the financial industry. Take the job of a financial analyst, for example. This role seems pretty quantitative and thinking-oriented. But our research reveals it has become much more feeling-oriented in the last 10 years. People are using more AI-powered tools that can do a lot more of their analytical work for them, and what is left in their job is to hold people’s hands and reassure them about things like stock market dips.

How have we arrived at this point? The first wave of AI has already replaced humans for physical, repetitive tasks like inspecting equipment, manufacturing goods, repairing things, and crunching numbers. That shift originated with the Industrial Revolution and gave rise to the current Thinking Economy. In this phase, employment and wages are more tied to workers’ abilities to process, analyse, and interpret information to make decisions and solve problems. And, just as the industrial revolution automated physical tasks by decreasing the value of human strength and increasing the value of human cognition, AI is now reshaping the landscape and ushering in this Feeling Economy.

There is another significant implication playing out. The Feeling Economy plays right into women’s strengths. Their ability to nourish people emotionally is somewhat greater relative to men. And recent studies from Cambridge University1 and the University of Pennsylvania2 affirmed gender differences in brain physiology that reinforce our assertion.

Women are poised to naturally rise in influence and authority in this Feeling Economy. But men can tap into this ‘female advantage’ with the right mindset to also excel in the Feeling Economy. It starts with not associating people-oriented strengths, such as empathy and emotional intelligence, with femininity. Men have stifled themselves in this regard in the Thinking Economy, with the rationale that it is a sign of weakness. In the Feeling Economy, it is a strength.

Such behaviour-shifting contributes to fertile new ground for companies to capitalise on. First, consider recruiting. Given AI can do more of the thinking tasks, firms should seek new hires who can perform well in feeling tasks and jobs. Skills such as people management, working with others, emotional intelligence, and negotiation are already in strong demand and will be even more important going forward. Second, consider updating existing job functions. Collaborating with thinking AI inevitably changes the nature of human jobs. Keeping pace can start with upgrading existing jobs to emphasise people skills. This means placing increasing emphasis on feeling, empathy, and emotional intelligence in positions such as immigration officer, bank teller, physician, and even the aforementioned financial analyst.

Regarding job design, do not lose sight of AI and human intelligence as complementary. Managers: avoid thinking of AI in terms of replacing or augmenting human workers. Think of the dynamic instead as a collaboration—that humans and AI are teammates who can collaborate to get work done. A good example is a customer service agent. AI, typically, will assume an increasing number of the thinking tasks for this role, allowing for more time for the employee to focus on feeling tasks and interactions with customers. Consumers, especially young ones, are already accustomed to ‘anywhere - anytime’ interaction through computers and smartphones on social media.

Likewise, as AI assumes more thinking tasks, managers will have more opportunity to focus on the emotional needs of employees.

Our research, The Feeling Economy: Managing in the Next Generation of AI3, in California Management Review with co-author Vojislav Maksimovic, shows that the Feeling Economy is already making an impact. There is greater compensation growth in feeling than there is in thinking. This is really across the board—you name a job and we can show a shift from thinking to feeling.

But conditioning companies and their employees to fully capitalise inevitably necessitates changes to the current educational system. Universities have a responsibility to lead these efforts and implement the development of soft skills or people skills within a curriculum. STEM will not go away, but it will be increasingly performed by AI. Humans will focus on the human intelligence part of this equation. So, education must place an increased emphasis on feeling and interpersonal skills. Subsequently, when AI begins reaching its full potential, humans will be ready.

And this means the most successful workers, from managers on down, will be those who can manage relationships in an empathetic and emotionally intelligent way. The ‘people’ person becomes much more valuable than the anti-social tech geek.