I italicized "foreseeable" because that's the big unknown. The misalignment between our education system (K-12 and higher ed) and the labor market has been a problem for decades. AI and robotics just make it more obvious and complex for anyone trying to address it.

Durable skills will sound a lot like "soft skills" or "essential skills" for anyone familiar with those terms. They're the ones most likely to still matter tomorrow.

My take starts with information literacy, in Effort and Atrophy. More coming. For now, this is the foundation I'll build on. (See also: Thinking With Machines, where cognitive offloading shows up in practice.)

Adaptability

Resilience and flexibility in action: A displaced retail worker transitions into a healthcare admin role by recognizing that her customer de-escalation skills transfer directly.

Collaboration

Teamwork under pressure: A cross-functional team with conflicting priorities negotiates a shared deadline instead of escalating to management.

Communication

A project manager translates a technical delay into plain language so a non-technical stakeholder understands the impact on their timeline.

Creative Problem-Solving

A teacher redesigns a lesson on the fly when the technology fails, using a whiteboard and group discussion to hit the same learning objective.

Critical Thinking

Analytical thinking in practice: A CNA notices a resident's behavior change and connects it to a recent medication switch instead of assuming noncompliance.

Emotional Intelligence

Empathy over procedure: A supervisor notices a usually reliable team member withdrawing and checks in privately instead of writing them up for missed deadlines.

Growth Mindset

Curiosity and lifelong learning: A 55-year-old office manager starts experimenting with AI tools on her own time because she wants to understand them before they're mandated.

Leadership

A frontline worker speaks up in a meeting to flag a process problem no one else is naming, without being asked.

Metacognition

Self-awareness applied: A learner pauses mid-task and realizes they've been following a flawed process for 20 minutes, then backs up and restarts instead of pushing through.

Consolidated from America Succeeds, WEF Future of Jobs 2025, and UVU Workforce Development. Other skills appearing in individual sources: fortitude, mindfulness, and character (America Succeeds); ethical judgment and integrity, digital literacy, and time management (UVU); talent management (WEF).

Note: all three sources are employer-driven. It reflects what companies say they want, not worker or educator perspectives.

Keep reading

October 2026 Automatic to Autonomous AI agents can now act on your behalf, and one Approve button might authorize more than you think. Your AI policy has to move with them. September 2026 Human in the Lead AI-powered tools can now clear your backlog. What are the implications, and how do we manage the higher-order effects? July 2026 Effort and Atrophy The cost of moving from a search engine to an answer bot, and what it does to the part of you that used to check.

Feed

The knowledge canyon Too much sci-fi has us stuck speaking in the wrong verb tense. The old digital divide was about access. This one is harder to see. → No pain no brain The risk of AI eroding our knowledge and skills is getting more attention lately. When we delegate too often, we atrophy. → Your feed needs a chief of staff Agentic AI offers a chance to move from TikTok-passive, where algorithms dictate our attention, to more of a chief-of-staff relationship. → See the full feed