At a recent panel discussion, a talent management executive for a global technology company made a strong argument in favor of specific skills. But not technical skills. She called these “human factors.”

• Speaking up
• Empathy
• Executing faster
• Cooperation and collaboration
• Trust

I spoke to her later and pointed out that all of these skills could be improved through building creativity. By emphasizing design thinking, a creative process, organizations learn to gain empathy through observation of customer problems. They also learn to collaborate on project teams to create rapid prototypes that help them execute faster in iterative cycles. In order to increase creativity, you also need to build trust through a psychologically safe workplace. This increases individuals’ willingness to share ideas openly as they are willing to risk failure in a safe environment.

The technology executive agreed and mentioned she had heard creativity was essential for the workplace of the future, but hadn’t linked that with the human factors she was hoping to build in her organization.

Perhaps the key characteristics many leaders know are essential to the future of their companies are also tied to building a more creative workforce. As AI and robots supplement our talent, this puts greater emphasis on the characteristics that make us human. Creativity may be the most fundamental of them all.