High-tech without high-touch is just cold, alienating efficiency. Sustainable advantage comes from blending digital precision with human understanding.
Computers have transformed business, but it’s been a double-edged sword. As more people learned to think like coders, businesses operated increasingly with a ‘processing unit’ view of people, with employees treated as resources and customers reduced to data points. I call it ‘Management by Algorithm’ (A bit cheeky of me if you consider the acronym…).
M.B.A. might deliver short-term efficiency, but it can destroy loyalty, creativity, and trust.
The winners in remote work, such as Zoom, haven’t been those who tried to automate collaboration away, but those who used tech to make human interaction feel natural across distance.
Compare your experience of airlines with kiosk-only check-in facilities – they offload labour onto customers and typically provide too little human support to resolve exceptions. That’s creating hostility, not loyalty.
In the rush to roll out new tech, there’s a way to avoid the blindspot, by simply asking: “Does this make it easier for people, whether employees or customers? Or are we just managing by algorithm, expecting them to become components in our machine?”
To read more about Management By Algorithm (and another, contrasting muddle, Organizational Development Delusion) download “The Suits & Geeks Trap” eBook for free.
All the best,
Andy