gateway drug to AI<\/a><\/span>, how do you see this evolving? Do you see more business-centric people being pulled in to the design of technology equation here? Or do you think it’s going to be a fairly different scenario?<\/span><\/p>\nKate:<\/strong> I don’t see one pattern playing out. In the work I’ve been doing over the last year or two, speaking and advising with companies around this, and kind of how I see that playing out as a trajectory, there seem to be a few different ways that companies are embracing how to have this conversation. Some of it is in the boardrooms and it’s about getting behind strategy first and having a purpose-centric discussion before an organization can really meaningfully model itself in data, and deploy accelerating technologies. But I think there’s an equally valid approach, in some organizations, due to culture, and due to constraints, and whatever else, that’s more tech-driven, that comes from within the IT or operations departments. These departments look at what the capabilities and capacities are, and then accelerate around those to gain some momentum, and be able to talk about some wins before engaging the rest of the executive team, or the rest of the leadership. <\/p>\nWithin results-driven companies, however, when there is no immediate ROI from experimenting with RPA or AI are people going to walk away from it? If so, then it might be easiest to have it be just an experimentation house within the IT department. But if it’s something that the overall company leadership sees as a clear direction for the company, and knows that it needs to be embraced, no matter what, “We need to figure this out long-term,” then I think it can easily be driven at that central executive level.<\/p>\n
Phil: <\/strong>So, one of the things which we’ll be talking a bit about next month, in New York, is the fact that we’ve really come through three decades of companies pretty much doing things the same way for 30 years, but just faster, cheaper, better, moving data around the organization more aggressively, and digitizing processes. But the fundamental problem has been, companies, particularly in the Global 2000, not changing how they run processes and run departments. So, HR has always done things one way, procurement one way, finance one way, for example. Do you feel we’re going to get to a point where companies are going to fundamentally redesign roles and responsibilities, and how they operate? Or do you think that’s happening more at the small to medium business level, where these businesses have native automation, have native AI, and it’s a different rule, almost, for the kind of dinosaur, traditional organizations? How do you see that evolving?<\/span><\/p>\nKate:<\/strong> I think, Phil, there’s a sort of a compliment there, as well. You can certainly see where small to mid-sized companies have sort of an agility advantage, in being able to adapt their organization easily around emerging technologies, but obviously, on the larger enterprise side, you have scale, and you have, if you can get the alignment, organizationally, and operationally, to deploy kind of a roadmap approach, then I think you can really use those assets, and use your scale, to make that work. So, I think the key does seem to be, I come back to this idea of strategic purpose, and the advantage of purpose, I feel, in this context, is that purpose is what really helps people be motivated, and helps keep humans on the right track, and it’s also this way of distilling an idea, to concrete operational logistics that’s really suitable for machines.<\/p>\nSo, if you can get to a point where you’re articulating well what it is your business exists to do and is trying to do at scale, in that sense of a strategic purpose, I believe that that is one of the ways in which we actually get to aligning the culture, aligning the organization, aligning even things like operational facets, like meeting structures, and hierarchy, and operational roles, and things like that. So there’s just so many nuances to the reality of that, that I think it will play out in different ways, for the different sizes of organizations, but also the different “techcentricities” of the organization, how digital the organization was in its DNA to begin with, but I think it’s going to take not, maybe, a one-size-fits-all approach, to make that work.<\/p>\n
Phil: <\/span><\/strong>Finally, Kate, can you tell our readers where they can purchase your book, and give a taste of what they can expect to learn?<\/span><\/p>\nKate:<\/strong> Yes, sure. So, you can find Tech Humanist<\/em>, on Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. The subtitle of Tech Humanist<\/em> is How You Can Make Technology Better for Business and Better for Humans<\/em> and the idea there is about alignment, as we were just been talking about. It’s about the idea that, if technology is fundamentally built around improving on human experience, if it is using human data, if it is about constructing this environment that humans operate within, then it’s an opportunity for a business too. Businesses can utilise those hooks if you will, to create more meaningful, memorable experiences, that help scale the business in a successful way, and also create the most opportunity for humans to thrive, in an environment where it’s going to be increasingly machine-driven. So, I think we’re looking at a reality where a lot of our world is increasingly driven by machines and automation, and I think we just need to think about how that’s going to play out, what we want it to look and feel like, and how to make business successful within that context, while also helping humanity thrive.<\/p>\nPhil: Excellent Kate! We can’t wait to see you again next month and host you in front of a fantastic audience of people, in a truly unvarnished conversation<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nKate:<\/strong> Same here Phil – it’s going to be fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The final countdown is on for the end-of-year reality check leadership extravaganza, with HFS’ New York FORA Summit where we measure…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[852,833],"tags":[303],"organization":[],"ppma_author":[19],"class_list":["post-2382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-intelligent-automation","category-oneoffice","tag-enterprise-irregulars"],"yoast_head":"\n
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