Source: forbes.com
Today, around the world, across most industry sectors, front-line, midlevel and, yes, even executive-level managers spend 54% of their workdays on administrative coordination and control. In contrast, just 7% of their time is spent developing people. So reports recent research from Accenture
It is my view that managers are doing many things that can be handled with artificial intelligence (AI) in a way that benefits them, their team members and the companies they work for. Further, I believe managers frightened by the alleged threat to their jobs that AI poses need to get a grip. My view on this is shaped by work done at my company on behalf of our customers — large, multinational enterprises — to leverage our AI-powered platform in ways that let managers have more time to manage their people, not merely clerical processes.
As Virginia Rometty, IBM’s CEO, suggests, “The reality is this technology will enhance us.” AI is a vital part of the future of work, regardless of the industry one is in or its size. The debate about whether it will take over is without merit. It’s here. Our obligation is to leverage it optimally.
AI is about identifying patterns or trends by crunching data. Computers can do that better than most of us. However, those machines can’t see beyond the data. We can. Actually, we can see far more than the data. We have intuition and are more creative than a machine. We can create new things, new thoughts. In addition, you’re able to take a more holistic view of a situation and, importantly, the employees you manage. You see, the real power of AI is realized when it is paired with human intelligence (HI).
HI + AI = A Powerful Collaboration
AI is an aide to a manager. It takes routine, transactional activities off managers’ plates and helps them to manage more effectively. It doesn’t take away your decision-making role. It helps determine if a decision you made was good or bad and then how to go forward from there. It gives insight into the performance of an employee that you can then use to coach that person to be their best. In addition, it coaches you to be a better coach to others.
Here’s one scenario of how HI+AI collaboration works. Steve is a team leader in a contact center. He uses AI to monitor the on-the-job performance of Geoff, a member of his team. Every aspect of his work is tracked and analyzed via AI. HI comes into play when Steve assesses the data associated with Geoff’s efforts. He uses his HI to devise an effective way to help Geoff step up his performance in a specific area of work. He has Geoff shadow Jane for a couple of days to witness how she initiates and manages conversations with sales prospects. While AI showed Jane was a top performer, it was Steve’s HI that determined Jane had the kind of temperament that would allow Geoff to close his skills gap without feeling inferior to her. While AI offered a fairly detailed picture of Geoff’s performance, it was Steve’s HI that made it complete and provided a path to improvement.
The pairing of HI and AI means managers have multiple ways to communicate with every member of their teams, individually and collectively. For “Keep up the good work” reinforcements, AI can produce and send the message. For ones that urge better focus or output, AI can also convey a more directive or instructional message.
So how can managers coexist and work alongside AI? First, it’s important that both collaborate with each other. Humans, who are able to see beyond the data, use intuition and be empathetic, need to realize their own strengths and rely on a machine’s superior capabilities (e.g., the power to aggregate, organize and analyze mounds of data in an instant) when necessary. Executives who grasp this yin-and-yang situation won’t see AI as a threat. More than coexist with AI, they’ll excel as people managers because they have more time to think about how best to interact with team members, drawing on the data produced with the aid of AI.
In addition, managers can use AI to send their teams routine messages, such as reminders that reports are due at week’s end. For the employees who are chronically late submitting those updates, AI identifies who they are. Then the manager can personally intervene.
It’s worth noting that Carl Benedikt Frey, an economist at Oxford University who specializes in technology and employment as well as having written some of the most quoted pieces on AI and managerial jobs, said it is “more likely to complement people in those jobs rather than replacing them.”
The HI+AI collaboration is very much a process that gets stronger as it proceeds. AI gives more time to managers, the ones with HI, to coach and communicate directly with employees. The outcomes of those conversations are fed into the machines to let them learn more and/or better. That makes the AI smarter, which can give managers more time to manage employees better with a smarter application of HI.
