Power Skills

For my first blog in 2026, I wanted to focus on Power Skills which are closely aligned to giving the best customer service. I am a huge advocate for developing these skills.

What are Power Skills?

Power Skills - formerly known as soft skills - are essential, transferable "soft skills" like communication, problem-solving, team-working, leadership, decision making skills and presentation skills crucial for workplace success, enabling effective teamwork, navigating change, and driving results, often seen as the "power" behind technical expertise.

They're vital for navigating modern work, boosting productivity, and include attributes such as critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and resilience, allowing individuals to collaborate and innovate effectively across any role or industry. 

Why are these important?

Well, in customer service, you need to have a number of these skills to be effective at it and as customer service and experience is the new marketing battleground with a large majority of companies focusing on this area over product and price (and I can testify from experience that a great customer experience can make these two areas obsolete) then we need these skills. Skills such as

• communication with the customer over the phone, in person and on email

• emotional intelligence to know what the customer wants

• problem solving, critical thinking and decision making skills if the product the customer wants is not available

• being creative and pro-active by offering another relevant option

• resilience when the sale does not happen

Why do we need to focus on this in the workplace?

More and more Gen Zers are entering the workplace and at two billion of them they are the biggest generation in history. Did you know that 37% of Gen Zers are worried that technology weakens their ability to develop people / power skills? We Boomers, Gen X workers may be a little down on Gen Z and Millennials but both want opportunities to develop interpersonal skills to prepare them for leaderships skills like resilience and relationship building. They won't ask about these skills but they need them. We need to encourage practising these skills more in the workplace such as

• encouraging face to face meetings with clients

• encouraging them to take the lead in meetings

• encouraging them to make phone calls over emails

• encouraging them to go and speak to a colleague in the office rather than send an email

• encouraging them to take on projects to solve problems, be proactive and apply good communication skills.

We - Boomers (who will have left the workplace by 2030 in the main) and Gen X - need to take the lead in supporting our newest work colleagues and offer them the development opportunities that they need. This will help with their customer service skills and these crucial power skills will be developed and honed over time allowing them transferable skills which will stand them in good stead for any role they take on whatever that may be, even those roles that have not happened yet.

And trust me, AI cannot replicate the emotional intelligence and listening skills and thus what that gives another person when you make time for true listening and therefore a great customer experience.

So power up for 2026 and get and support those colleagues to get those in demand skills!