Beware the new Lean!
Note: The following commentary will sit at the heart of Keynotes that I will be delivering in Colombia, the US and Kuwait over the coming three months. This blog is a thought piece, designed to stimulate conversation.
We are entering a period where development in the field of AI is accelerating (see the table below).
This acceleration is bringing with it new efficiency/effectiveness solutions for organisations. With these advances will come a new era of Lean, where the waste being sucked from the system will be human.
This might seem dramatic, but advancements with AI will enable organisations to improve efficiency/effectiveness by removing what are perceived to be “poor” decisions or mistakes from systems and processes. This in itself provides short-term wins, in terms of efficiency savings and customer satisfaction - given today’s volatile market conditions, it seems logical that organisations could be seduced by solutions that promise cost savings.
The problem is that such a short-term outlook could have a profound impact upon the resilience of organisations and even societal competitive advantage.
As AI creeps upon the scene, the first people to go will be lower order knowledge workers, the “technical workers,” “word processors and typists” and “machinists” listed in the research above. it isn’t just these professions though that are under threat. It is lower order positions, specifically those whose function resides within the simple and complicated knowledge domains. Such positions are valuable, for example, they serve as the testing ground, breeding experience for higher knowledge workers. Removing such experience for gains in the short term could have disastrous consequences. The impact upon an organisation’s human sensory network being just one example, as the following story will highlight.
I had a pint with a recently retired CEO from a pharmaceutical company. We were chatting about Knowledge Management of all things, his take on the concept being that it is all “poppycock,” but that is another story. We got around to talking about the biggest single cost saving he experienced as CEO and how it served as a warning for the way in which people “right-size” their workforce.
One morning he was approached by the firm’s front desk receptionist. She asked for a meeting, as she wanted to present a solution to a problem that could save the company £1 million over the next twelve months. Obviously, the CEO took the meeting. What the receptionist presented actually went on to save the company in excess of £3.5 million over a three year period and she was rewarded with with a significant amount of shares as a reward for her contribution. The CEO asked how she had come up with the idea. She explained that in her position on the front desk she got to hear a lot of conversations about the business. She noticed over a period of months that there was a particular efficiency problem with one of the production lines that people seemed to be talking about, but not actually taking action on. Her husband was a chemist in the same firm and she spoke with him about the problem over dinner one night. He said that people had been complaining about the problem for quite some time, but nobody seemed to have the time/inclination to do anything about it. The receptionist decided to research the problem herself. Her position, coupled with her outgoing “chatty” personality, allowed her to network extensively throughout the business and she set about solving the problem. She pulled (swarmed) people together, synthesising their ideas, tested out possible solutions and, over a period of three months, developed the solution that was presented to the CEO.
Now for the sad ending to this story. Two years later, in response to changing market conditions that occurred around 2007/8, a Lean consultant recommended, amongst other things, that there to be need for front desk receptionists and that such positions could be substituted via an interactive automated directory. The Board accepted the recommendations. The question is, at what cost?
The added value that people bring to a self organising system cannot be underestimated. Shorter gain will always be appealing, but lower order knowledge workers possess higher order skills - it is not the position, it is the capability of the person in the position to acquire, collate, shared, use and create knowledge. The knowledge/talent economy is more than just being a human resource, it is the contribution of the individual to the organisational community and the ability of that community to exceed the sum of its parts.
AI may seem tempting in the short term, I can see that, but at what cost to the future? AI has the potential to enrich our lives and assist in the creation of futures that are beyond our imagination today. However, we do not live in black and white (simple) world, nor is it one with a limited number of shades of grey. Our world is increasingly more complex and people need people to help negotiate this ever increasing complexity. People bring knowledge, skills and experience to situations that are more than a specific job role for a specific moment in time. People bring with them emotional intelligence. People have the gift of empathy, judgement and inference that is beyond the realms of the kindergarten that is AI development today - some might say it is a simple case of people having common-sense.
Be excited by the potential of AI to enhance organisational efficiency/effectiveness. Just don’t be seduced by it.
