Episode #186: No Robots For Our Leaders

Basically your job is toast. There is a machine or there will soon be a machine that can do it faster, better and cheaper than you. Our skill set didn’t change much from the start of agriculture 12,000 years ago until the industrial revolution in the mid-18th century. This last 150 years has been busy. We have created a weapon that can destroy our race. Who thought we would be that stupid? Fifty years ago we didn’t believe machine translation of our complex language skills would get very far.

Driving cars and trucks requires us, because it is such a delicate, detailed and difficult set of tasks. What a ridiculous idea to imagine replacing those cantankerous, aging Japanese taxi drivers and punch perm truckers here in Tokyo with a self-driving, self-navigating vehicles. Internet of Things Komatsu tractors ploughing rice fields by themselves, nah, never happen. Apocalypse Now style “death from the air” requires top gun pilots and gum chewing gunners, doesn’t it. Killing each other can’t be delegated to drones. Robot vacuum cleaners, programmable pets, hotty droid receptionists, nimble stair climbing machines, adult men (many with passports) waving light sticks at holograph vocalists (Hatsune Miku) – not possible right?

Don’t worry, moral and ethical judgments, “the buck stops here” business decisions, hiring and firing employment protocols, creative brainstorming – there is a long list of actions which will always require people to be involved.

We need the human interaction, to hear stories, to share experiences, to be motivated, to aspire together against the rival firm, to set and follow our organisation’s Vision and Mission. We want empathy, collaboration, a sense of ownership, relationships.

Geoff Colvin in his book “Humans Are Underrated” references a recent Oxford Economics study asking employers which staff skills they will need the most over the next five to ten years. The top priorities were all right brain - relationship building, teaming, co-creativity, brainstorming, cultural sensitivity and the ability to manage diverse employees.

Henry Ford complained that every time he wanted a pair of human hands on his assembly line, he got “a brain attached”. Today, we want that brain that can feel as well as think. We have to be good at being human and good in our interactions with other humans. Colvin noted, “being a great performer is becoming less about what you know and more about what you’re like.

Here is the challenge for typical male CEO driver types, who are assertive and task, not people, oriented: how to lead organisations where technical skill is being outsourced to bots and the value of human interaction has become more critical to the success of the organisation?. Do you ignore it or do you decide to change? How do you change?