Can empathy really be taught in a workshop?
Soft skills like empathy and adaptability get praised in every job posting, but I'm skeptical they can actually be trained in a workshop. I've managed teams for six years and seen people improve their technical skills dramatically, yet the ones who lack basic communication rarely change no matter how many courses they take. Maybe we're hiring for traits that are largely fixed by personality, and we should focus on selecting for them instead of trying to develop them.