A couple of days back there was a study released which said “70% of Indian CEOs are scared about automation and disruptors”
The emotion “scared” was something that I could not associate with any CEO, whether Indian or any other nationality. The CEO any which ways has to “explore new worlds and go where no man has ever gone before…”
Our world is confronted with “Cusps”
Our world today is at interesting cusps:-
– Those born in the 50s / 60s / 70s working with those born in the 90s
– People from different nationalities working with each other
– Colleagues in different time-zones trying to collaborate
– And a richer mix of gender diversity
Tech = Nimbus 2000
A large part of the CEOs time goes in bridging the organization across generational, national, time and gender centric islands . The concept of time too has undergone a huge change and tech has become the spine of everyday work. It’s quite literally “the Nimbus 2000” broom of Harry Potter.
CEO = Seeker
The CEO being the Seeker is trying to seek the Golden Snitch – call it the next blue ocean strategy mounted on an environment that is unpredictable and unruly. What one can see can make one restless, what one can’t can make one vulnerable.
Flip-Flop = Trajectory
It is this restlessness and vulnerability that the CEO are agonizing OR trying buffer against. Fear would simply startle them like a rabbit on the highway. That’s not the case, else you won’t find attempts like omni-retail, omni-channel, cash-less, build-operate-transfer and other such models surfacing. And flip-flop is the new trajectory.
Who sees it all?
The Seeker has a blip of time and so much to view, they are constrained to see only that which comes in their line of vision. As mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik says, “Within infinite myths lies the eternal truth. Who sees it all? Varuna has but a thousand eyes, Indra has a hundred, You and I, only two.”
Thin slicing of Time
Knowing how their Customers use their products and services can be done either first hand or by getting teams to come up and present. The need to keep up-to-date with new technologies, further thin slices the time at hand.
Can the kitchen teach?
Further more there is the challenge of intensely looking at everyday processes and cross-pollinating best practices across unrelated industries. Can a restaurant kitchen teach us a thing or two to us about process? For if the Customers do not get the dish in defined time, they just leave. How does one maintain this time after time in every instance, without letting quality suffer?
Magicians never tell
This will require automating the regular, predicting the preferences and directing the demand. The Customers need to be surprised and never know how it happens for “Magicians never tell”
Human mind > Technology
One does not lose pace because of a new technology. One loses pace because the relay does not happen in time. Even the fastest individual runner will fare poorly for the team if the baton is not handed over with absolute precision.
Harness Uniqueness.
It’s time organizations truly harness the most uniquely available, most spoken but most under-harnessed power in their companies – their people. Every employee is unique in the universe, so your best A team can’t be found anywhere.
Re-boot is a blast in the past
When a person leaves, it’s not an attrition number, along with that individual a whole body of work is gone for ever. Organizations die a million such deaths everyday and try to reboot from 2 steps backwards. It feels like an “awesome” effort but frankly we are stuck in activity.
A glue called – Nimbus
How about befriending the “Nimbus 2000” and getting tech to be the glue between the human minds across generations, nations, locations or genders. It has the power to immortalize our memories, our thoughts, our emotions are now emojis. How about immortalizing all work?
Future of Work = Sustained Collaboration
Building truly collaborative and globally sustainable business model is where the glue called WorkApps can help. It can change the Future of Work through a slick tech enabled work corridor. WorkApps democratizes, by providing access to updates and information to whoever and whenever one needs it.
Don’t show-up. Just put-up
Team members do not need “to show up to present” one just “puts-up” and it gets seen by the CEO. All work- Strategy, Process or Execution simply converges into a single screen, including
– an everyday task of updating a business number OR
– a chat with an immediate one down, about a new client
– a discussion with your A-Team and partner on an acquisition
– accessing a file which was 10 years old
– unified view of all projects – lets call it the “Seekers View “
– analyzing performance using data at one’s finger tips.
Technology v/s Technology
A large part of the CEO time is spent waiting / following-up / searching. Where is the time anticipate / create / evaluate. The only way to over come “fear“ ( if there is ) of automation and disruption is to pit technology against technology.
The people in your team will anyway outpace the uncertainty of “The Golden Snitch” with their sheer ingenuity and technology enabled work collaboration.
At WorkApps, our endeavor is to get more minds and more time together on the same platform, so you spend less time at work and doing more of what you love.
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
Hmmm… this post confused me… what are you trying to say, exactly?
Sorry… Just being honest
M V S Murthy
That CEOs are not afraid of disruptors, while they may have been late on the uptake. Their role has no room for fear. And the best way to get back is put tech enablers in everyday work to make up for the lost time and start seeing things across the company, faster. Thanks for the candid comment.