Sometimes the best way to fix a working relationship isn’t another meeting, tool, or feedback round - it’s lunch. Here’s what I learned when I stopped trying to solve a conflict at work and simply sat down for a meal instead.

We spend so much time chasing productivity, frameworks, and efficiency that we forget what makes all of it possible: soft skills. They’re not ‘nice to have.’ They’re the core. Empathy, trust, communication, and the ability to work with people you may never be friends with—those are the skills that decide whether ideas take off or die in meetings. And they’ve never been more important.