Anthony Onesto
Chief People Officer
Suzy
Episode 345
Embrace AI or obsolescence: Human 'power skills' are the future of work
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleJanuary 16, 2025 · 14:55
Thesis
“AI represents a watershed moment that will fundamentally reshape organizational structures and HR, requiring companies to proactively embrace automation for efficiency while prioritizing the development of human 'power skills' to maintain a human-centric culture.”
Show notes
When Instagram was acquired by Facebook for $1 billion, it had 13 employees. Anthony Onesto, Chief People Officer at Suzy, uses that fact as a lens for what AI is about to do to organizational design — not as a cautionary tale, but as a preview. The acceleration we're experiencing now isn't new; it's the same pattern, compressed and intensified. And the organizations that treat it as a threat to manage rather than a capability to deploy will find themselves on the wrong side of a very fast-moving line.
Anthony's most provocative prediction concerns middle management. The conventional wisdom in HR has long been that 6-7 direct reports is the ideal span of control. AI augmentation, he argues, could push that to 30 or 40 — because AI handles the monitoring, task tracking, and information synthesis that currently makes wide spans unmanageable. That leaves human managers free to focus on the things AI genuinely cannot do: build relationships, develop talent, navigate complexity, and bring empathy to difficult moments.
That shift is where "power skills" become the defining career competency. What used to be called soft skills — communication, storytelling, empathy, creativity, the ability to navigate ambiguity — are becoming hard differentiators as technical tasks get absorbed by AI. The professionals who thrive won't be the ones who fought the transition. They'll be the ones who got very good at being irreplaceably human.
- AI's impact on organizational structure — how automation will reshape reporting structures, headcount models, and middle management
- Reframing AI as a business problem-solver — why the right starting question is "what problem are we solving?" not "what tool should we adopt?"
- AI in recruiting — how automated sourcing tools work 24/7 and free human recruiters for qualification, relationship, and negotiation
- Power skills as the new competitive advantage — why communication, empathy, and creativity matter more as technical tasks get automated
- The retraining imperative — the policy and ethical responsibilities organizations have when AI replaces roles, not just tasks
What you'll take away
- 1Companies must embrace AI and experimentation to avoid obsolescence, starting with clearly defined business problems rather than just adopting tools.
- 2AI will significantly augment middle management roles, potentially expanding reporting structures from 6-7 to 30-40, focusing human managers on relationships and development.
- 3The 'power skills' of communication, storytelling, relationships, and empathy will become increasingly critical as AI automates technical and tactical tasks.
- 4Organizations must balance AI-driven efficiency gains with human-centric policies, including retraining for employees whose tasks are automated.
- 5AI can automate labor-intensive functions like recruiting sourcing (e.g., finding candidates 24/7), freeing up human recruiters for qualification, connection, and negotiation.
What most organizations get wrong
- •The idea that 'knowledge and being able to calculate things or know something is going to be diminished because AI is going to be able to augment those things,' challenging the traditional value placed on rote knowledge.
- •A direct warning that traditional, risk-averse companies must 'start taking risks' with AI, or risk becoming obsolete like Kodak, despite their reasons for caution.
In Anthony's words
“Instagram sold for $1 billion to Facebook. They had 13 employees, right? So this idea of the acceleration of the internet and where we're going today with AI is nothing new, and it's just going to continue.”
This quote highlights the historical precedent for rapid scaling with few employees, setting the stage for AI's similar impact.
“middle management is gonna be augmented. So you, you might have middle managers that have traditionally in HR, we kind of say 6 to 7-ish, you know, reporting structures is ideal. That might be 30, it might be 40 if you have augmented AI next to that manager...”
This provides a concrete, impactful example of how AI could drastically change traditional organizational hierarchies and manager-to-report ratios.
“Brad Marcus wrote a book that I've been reading and he's been talking about just like, we have to also make sure that if we are replacing jobs or tasks that people are doing with AI, what are we doing with those folks? Like, are we retraining them? Do we have the right policies in place?”
This emphasizes the crucial human element and ethical responsibility in AI adoption beyond mere efficiency, touching on reskilling and policy.
“I can tell you what they shouldn't do, which is put their heads in the sand, right?”
A concise and direct piece of advice for traditional companies, underscoring the urgency and inevitability of AI adoption.
“I call 'em, they were traditionally called soft skills and I call 'em power skills 'cause I think they again are going to be more and more powerful for individuals to own where I think the technical skills... are going to be diminished because AI is going to be able to augment those things.”
This redefines the value of interpersonal skills in an AI-augmented world, predicting their increased importance over traditional technical expertise.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Companies struggle to scale efficiently due to limitations in human capacity for tasks like recruiting sourcing, leading to missed talent opportunities.
- •Traditional, risk-averse organizations face the challenge of adapting to rapid technological shifts like AI, risking obsolescence if they don't experiment.
- •Organizations need strategies to balance the pressure for AI-driven cost reduction and efficiency with the imperative to maintain a human-centric culture and address potential job displacement.
- •HR teams often lack the ability to effectively measure and develop 'power skills' (communication, empathy, storytelling) which will be critical for future workforce success.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
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Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
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