ACQUIRING a skill requires focus, concentration, diligence and perseverance. Whether it is setting the safety catches in a nuclear energy plant or sowing the seeds for next summer’s corn harvest, the skills required to do the job properly will need developing, testing, explaining, teaching, authorising and monitoring.

The expert who hones those skills will have as sensitive and delicate a touch as befits dangerous and weather-sensitive disciplines. Nobody would describe them as “soft”.

The skills of reading people, handling difficult situations, hiring, motivating and firing employees and negotiating tricky deals are not soft either. They are among the most difficult things humans have to do in order to live socially, harmoniously and economically viably together. But they are not working very successfully at present.