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Technology

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ROUNDUP: The Rise of AI

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues. As we watch the rise of AI, here are some books and articles you may be interested in.

Ron’s Short Review: Great view of how our rapidly changing technology and expectations of the next generation of young people are going to change the structures of our corporations.  Written way back in 2009, you can see much of this playing out already.

Ron’s Short Review: The shift to technology-based work is pushing us beyond the information age. If you’ve been an “Information Worker” you should learn how to augment technology to keep yourself relevant.

 

24/7 Connection

We never get away from it. 24/7 we’re connected. Maybe it’s because I spent much of my career without all of this modern connectedness that I’m a little better at managing it rather than it managing me (my wife will laugh at that statement). But, different than many of my younger colleagues, I believe it is ok to shut it off, not answer that phone, don’t respond instantly to that incoming message. I believe it’s because we don’t shut off this connectedness in the evening when we should be focused on family, or weekends when we should be focused on R&R and getting that job-list done or on vacation when we should be re-creating that our work-life balance seems out of whack. Continue Reading >>>

The Need for Empathy

I have been emphasizing the need for strong face-to-face relationship building for years with my corporate clients. One line from Alvin Toffler’s book Future Shock from years ago has always stuck with me. That line was, “High tech, high touch.” His point was not to assume that the increase in technology was going to diminish the need for personal relationships, the need for personal relationships was going to increase right along with the technical capabilities. Continue Reading >>>

Information Overload

Toffler defined “Future Shock” as “A personal perception of too much change in too short of time.” He also coined the term “Information overload.”

His term “high tech, high touch” lead into his discussion of one of the antidotes to dealing with future shock and information overload. His point was that as we deal more and more with this intrusion of the globally connected, instant on, information overload, we must also make sure we increase the “high touch” right along with it. This high tech world will not work without high touch, trusting, and personal relationships. Continue Reading >>>

More Information Isn’t Always Better

Forecasting is another place where I see the siren song of technology creating unintended consequences.  The belief seems to be that if we just have more information (often striving for “all” the information) it will help us become better forecasters.  Brain science debunks that theory right off the bat.  The human mind is just terrible at forecasting.  If you want to debate me on that statement, I’ll start with political polls and forecasts.  End of argument!  And other research done by the people who actually study forecasting for a living tells us that the companies who seem to be best at forecasting do it with a minimum amount of data.  More data doesn’t make better forecasting. Continue Reading >>>

Afraid of AI

So, I’m afraid.  For the first time in my life, I’m worried about technology running our lives rather than us using technology to enhance our lives.  Is ChatGPT the start of it?  Timnit Gebru spends her days looking at and learning about what is going on with AI.  She expected AI to one day power much of our lives.  But she didn’t believe it would happen this quickly. Continue Reading >>>

AI’s Untrustworthiness

While we’ve seemed to hold AI in high regard, let’s keep in mind that it’s unreal, counterfeit, fake, and false. Artificial intelligence is not to be admired, it’s to be looked at cautiously. I was talking with my daughter and son-in-law the other day and saying that I was concerned about kids today believing everything they see and read on their phones as if it were reality. Continue Reading >>>

The reviews were originally posted here and here on March 31, 2016 and February 1, 2018.
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ROUNDUP: Deep Work

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues. A few years on, we’re looking back at some posts Ron wrote at the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Ron’s Short Review: This book changed my habit of getting meaningful work done. I have carved out time every month to isolate myself and my thinking on particular projects. The productivity improvement has been astounding.

Deep Work

The COVID-19 virus may be offering the opportunity that you’ve been looking for to stand-out in a crowded world.  In his book Deep Work by Cal Newton he makes some great points about Deep Work and the lack of it.

One of the things that Cal says is:

To remain valuable in our economy you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things. This task requires deep work. If you don’t cultivate this ability, you’re likely to fall behind as technology advances.”

“A McKinsey study found that the average knowledge worker now spends more than 60 percent of the workweek engaged in electronic communication and Internet searching, with close to 30 percent of a worker’s time dedicated to reading and answering e-mail alone.

This state of fragmented attention cannot accommodate deep work, which requires long periods of uninterrupted thinking. At the same time, however, modern knowledge workers are not loafing. In fact, they report that they are as busy as ever. What explains the discrepancy? A lot can be explained by another type of effort, which provides a counterpart to the idea of deep work:
Shallow Work: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.”

How not to be replaced by a computer

The “easy to replicate” emphasis is my note.  Why did I highlight that particular statement?  Because when something is easy to replicate it means that a person who makes less wages can easily to the same work.  More importantly, a computer can be taught to do easily replicable work.  Your job is in danger of becoming computerized if you don’t shift from shallow work to deep work!

How do you counter this danger of being replaced by either cheaper labor or a computer?  You learn, practice, and become good at and known for your deep work and deep thinking.

Cultivate Deep Work (Thinking)

You can pick up almost any article, magazine, podcast or post that will tell you how to survive working from home.  These sources talk about

  • Get started early (don’t let your day get away from you before it starts)
  • Act like you’re going to the office (wrong, take advantage of doing things differently)
  • Have a dedicated workspace (good idea, but focus on making it a non-interruptable workspace)
  • Go to coffee shops, libraries, public lounges (may not be a bad idea but discipline must tag along as well.  You can’t go to a coffee shop just so you can enjoy your favorite drink)  And during the pandemic, many of these public places are not even available to us.
  • Stay off the public media! (Great suggestion.)  Regardless of where you’re working from, stay off public media.

What you really need is the discipline and focus for deep work.

Living a life of Deep Work and Thought

As Cal Newton closes his book he says

Deep work is way more powerful than most people understand. To leave the distracted masses to join the focused few, I’m arguing, is a transformative experience.
The deep life requires hard work and drastic changes to your habits. For many, there’s a comfort in the artificial busyness of rapid e-mail messaging and social media posturing, while the deep life demands that you leave much of that behind.”

Isolation Advice

Then I was reading a Wall Street Journal article titled “Coronavirus Lockdown Lessons from Antarctica.”  The article looks at many of the scientific teams that populate Antarctica during the wintertime and are completely isolated.  They focus on one team in particular from Norway that works at the Troll station.

“On a recent evening, Troll’s six-person team put together a list of advice for those struggling with extended lockdowns.

    • Give people space…folks have to be allowed time on their own to read books, listen to music, watch television.
    • Don’t let problems linger and get bigger—talk about it from the start.
    • Stay active, and even if you are in a small place, move furniture and get fit.
    • Take a deep breath, this is a time to be curious”

Curiosity

I think curiosity is the foundation piece to deep work.  Wikipedia says

Curiosity is a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning, evident by observation in humans and other animals. Curiosity is heavily associated with all aspects of human development, in which derives the process of learning and desire to acquire knowledge and skill.”

Development and Learning

Notice that curiosity is heavily associated with development and learning.  I once had a friend who was fond of saying “as long as you’re like the little kid pulling his wagon up the hill, you’re doing fine.  But as soon as you stop exerting the effort to get up that hill and you sit down in your wagon to rest, you’ll find yourself at the bottom of the hill”

Reflection

I think the first thing to be curious about is yourself.  Socrates is quoted as saying “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.”  I’ll give Socrates a pass because he was alive about 400 years before Jesus but the Bible says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Even if you don’t hold to the Christian faith, let’s put those two concepts together.  What they are really saying is that you must know who you are and how you fit into this life and humanity as a whole.  That doesn’t come easily.  A complete lack of this reflection is a sign of Psychopathy.  Just a few of the symptoms of Psychopathy include: Grandiose sense of self-worth, lack of remorse, guilt, or empathy.  Lack of long-term goals.  None of these symptoms show signs of self-reflection.  Start with yourself.

Notice that not having long-term goals is one of the signs associated with lack of self-reflection.  Where are you going?  What does the end of your journey look like?  What do you want to be remembered for?  These issues and others are not part of our busy lives, they are reached only by deep, reflective thought.

Opportunity

You’ve been handed an opportunity.  Don’t waste it!

  • What kind of person do you want to be?
  • How will you become a great leader?
  • What will make you an outstanding team member?
  • What is that thing inside you that you always wanted to learn or explore?

Build it into your routine.  Find a quiet place and a quiet time at least several times per week.  Force yourself to go quiet and think about these things.  You’ll come out the other end a better person.

This post was originally posted here and here on March 26 and April 23, 2020. This review was originally posted here on December 1, 2017.
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BlogPersonal

Fake Smarts

by Ron Potter

I’ve talked about my concerns with ChatGPT. A word that is heavily used in articles related to ChatGPT is Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Let’s start with the word artificial. Synonyms for the word include:
• Unreal
• Bogus
• Counterfeit
• Fabricated
• Faked
• False
Now let’s take a look at some of the synonyms for the word intelligence:
• Brainpower
• Reason
• Sense
• Smarts
So if we put a few of those words together we get Bogus Brainpower, Counterfeit Reason, Fabricated Sense, False Smarts, etc. There are endless combinations, none of them very flattering.

While we’ve seemed to hold AI in high regard, let’s keep in mind that it’s unreal, counterfeit, fake, and false. Artificial intelligence is not to be admired, it’s to be looked at cautiously.

I was talking with my daughter and son-in-law the other day and saying that I was concerned about kids today believing everything they see and read on their phones as if it were reality. They pointed out that their kids seem to be more discerning about what they see and read but made the point that it’s not just my grandkids’ generation but my kids’ generation as well.

I can think of a few AI machines in the movies that were both humorous and scary. The first one was HAL from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

HAL

HAL stood for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer. HAL scared the bejeebies out of me. Why? Because he began to take over without human control.

This was HAL speaking to the captain of the spaceship where HAL was the onboard computer: “When the crew are dead or incapacitated, the computer must assume control. I must, therefore, override your authority now since you are not in any condition to intelligently exercise it.”

HAL had become the AI computer that no longer needed human control.

R2-D2

R2-D2 and C-3PO are from the Star Wars movie series. George Lucas, the creator and producer of Star Wars, calls R2-D2 his favorite character. R2-D2 was friends with C-3PO (standing next to him) and he never had his memory wiped by Darth Vader, the evil character of the film series. But he never used it for bad and he never shied away from listening to others. He was a good and funny character.

It is my impression that throughout history, everything invented by man has at some point been used for evil and good. HAL and R2-D2 seem to be opposite sides of the same coin.

AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is just another one of those human inventions. It has and will be used for both good and evil. I don’t think we’ll avoid it but I do believe we can be very cautious and questioning. Don’t just take the things created by AI as reliable. Be discerning! Question everything it’s saying or writing! This all implies that you have the willpower and character to do so. Know who you are first then look at the world around you through those eyes.

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BlogPersonal

Am I a Luddite?

by Ron Potter

I’m really sure I’m not a Troglodyte.  For one, I can’t grow a beard.  For two, my forehead is too big.  But more importantly, our current definition of a Troglodyte is: a person who is regarded as being deliberately ignorant or old-fashioned.  I may be old-fashioned but I really try not to be ignorant.

I also don’t think I’m a Luddite.  Unfortunately, Luddites don’t know that they are Luddites.

I haven’t been afraid of too many things in my life.  I’ve shared in previous blogs how my first job out of engineering school had me walking structural steel up to 160′ in the air with no safety equipment.  I was terrified my first day and told the chief engineer that I couldn’t do it.  He said, “Give it two weeks and if you’re still struggling, I’ll find another job for you.”  Two weeks later I could do it.  I had overcome my fear (although I was still very cautious).

Computer Fear

A lot of people were very fearful of computers taking over our lives when they first appeared.  I remember seeing my first Osborne “portable” computer in about 1981.

It had two floppy drives and a 5” blue screen. I was watching it run Visicalc, a precursor to Microsoft Excel. I saw this first microcomputer at a Las Vegas exhibit. I flew home and went to my boss and told him I was leaving the construction industry and going into microcomputers. He said, “What’s a microcomputer?” I said, hang on, you’ll find out.

While microcomputers frightened a lot of people, I was not worried.  It still took a human to control them.

Technology Adapter

I was an early adaptor in a lot of technology.  I recently showed you my Curta Computer.  When I show people even today, many of them have never seen one.

I was an early adapter of Blackberry phones. The first one I owned came out about three months after Research in Motion introduced them.

I was really quite comfortable with technology and its advances until last week.

ChatGPT and the Printing Press

I meet with a small group of guys about every week and we discuss whatever is on our minds.  One of the guys asked if we were familiar with “ChatGPT.”  I, like most of the group, said no.  However, I said no because the technology scared me and I had simply avoided it.  For the first time, I was afraid of technology because it seems like it has crossed that barrier of requiring human control.

There is a Wall Street Journal article with the title “ChatPGT Hearlds an Intellectual Revolution.”  The opening paragraph of the article says, “A new technology bids to transform cognitive process as it has not been shaken since the invention of printing.”  The article talks about the technology revolution that was introduced when Gutenberg printed the Bible on his press in 1455.

When I was in Germany years ago, I went to see the Gutenberg press and some of the documents it printed.  Those documents were beautifully illustrated pages from the Bible.  To me, it seemed like a wonderful invention in history.  But I know that at the time it frightened many people.  There was no instrument that could reproduce the written word and the fact you could now do it seemed almost evil.  I hope I’m not reacting the same way to ChatPGT, so I’ve tried to educate myself about the technology.

GPT

GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer.  The WSJ makes several interesting observations.

  • ChatGPT statements and observations appear without an explanation of where they came from and without an identifiable author.
  • Answers are not simply copied from the text in the computer’s memory.  They are generated anew by a process that humans are unable to replicate.
  • Within a few days of ChatGPT’s launch, more than a million people signed up to ask questions.
  • The WSJ asked ChatGPT to give “six references on Henry Kissinger’s thoughts on technology.”  All were plausible: one was a real title and the rest were convincing fabrications!
  • As models turn from human-generated text to more inclusive inputs, machines are likely to alter the fabric of reality.
  • What happens if this technology cannot be completely controlled?  What if there will always be ways to generate falsehoods, false pictures, and fake videos, and people will never learn to disbelieve what they see and hear?

Timnit Gebru

One ray of hope for me is a woman by the name of Timnit Gebru.  Ms. Gebru is the founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR).  Much of her work involves the ways AI (Artificial Intelligence) programs can reinforce existing prejudices.  She says, “We talk about algorithms, but we don’t talk about who’s constructing the data set or who’s in the data set.”  Go Timnit, I’m pulling for you!

So, I’m afraid.  For the first time in my life, I’m worried about technology running our lives rather than us using technology to enhance our lives.  Is ChatGPT the start of it?  Timnit Gebru spends her days looking at and learning about what is going on with AI.  She expected AI to one day power much of our lives.  But she didn’t believe it would happen this quickly.

Luddites

Who were the Luddites?  Many people think they were small-brained and stupid.  They were not.  Many people get them confused with the Troglodyte.  I spoke above about the Troglodytes being deliberately ignorant or old-fashioned.  Luddites were the craftsmen of the day.

The Luddites protested against manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices. Luddites feared that the time spent learning the skills of their craft would go to waste, as machines would replace their role in the industry.  Ned Ludd was an apprentice who allegedly smashed two stocking frames in 1779 and whose name had become emblematic of machine destroyers.

I don’t believe I’m a Luddite.  Although I’ve learned and used technology from the time it was invented, I don’t want to destroy it.  I do however want it to remain under human control rather than humans being under the control of technology.  The good news is that God is the one who is really in control of Troglodytes, Luddites, humans, and machines.  He’s the one in control and that comforts me even when I’m worried about the machines taking over.

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BlogCulture

High Tech – High Touch

by Ron Potter

Those words keep haunting me.  They are the four words I remember from the book Future Shock.  The book was written by Alvin Toffler in 1970.  That’s 50 years ago!

Description

Wikipedia says that

Alvin Toffler argued that society is undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to a “super-industrial society”. This change overwhelms people. He argues that the accelerated rate of technological and social change leaves people disconnected and suffering from “shattering stress and disorientation”—future shocked.

Stress and Disorientation

I am familiar with these feelings.  I wrote about them recently in my blog titled “Divided” where I talked about being confused, hurting, and even angry.  I love this country and love the people in this country.  But I am feeling stress and I’m definitely disoriented.

Virtual World

Covid-19 is contributing to this stress and disorientation.  By all predictions, more than half of employees indicate that they would like to stay in the virtually connected world, rather than go back to the office.  I believe that many corporate leaders are salivating at the cost savings of shedding their physical office space by allowing everyone to continue in the virtual world of video connection, they just don’t know the real costs.

High Tech, High Touch

Toffler was emphasizing one point with these words.  You can have all the high tech you want, but without high touch, it won’t work well.  In this day of division, with many taking “sides”, what can we do to help this situation?   The answer is also in the four words: High Tech, High Touch.

Without building personal, “high touch” relationships, we don’t have a chance of solving this issue.

Virtual World Better

So, if we’re going to be in this virtual world for some time to come, how do we solve the “High Touch” issue.  Unfortunately, I don’t think we do completely.   But with some additional High Tech we can at least get focused on the issue and help people connect and build relationships if they’re willing.

I’ve been working with a group of consultants (High Touch) and technical people (High Tech) over the last couple of years in anticipation of this virtual world happening.  Even without Covid-19 impacting the world, I was seeing more and more geographically separated people working together on teams.  Through this effort, we have created a platform we call GPS4Leaders.  It’s made up of four modules:  Interact, GPS4Teams, GPS4Leaders and GPS4Culture.  We might refer to it as iTLC.

Here is a short video about the iT of iTLC.

We have designed the GPS4 modules to help virtual teams.  It can help in the following ways:

  • Identify the makeup of the team from a personality type.  Built into the system are three assessments based on Social Styles, Competing Values, and a partial Myers-Briggs.  If there is discord on the team or the teams lack the ability to make decisions, the Interact Module can help.
  • GPS4Teams will also help the team to determine where they are now and how they get to the needed future state of a highly functioning team.  This happens through team assessment and pulse surveys.
  • GPS4Teams also identifies disagreements.  While protecting individual member scores, it will show if there is Diffusion, Polarization, or an Outlier.

The best that can happen in this virtual world is to help teams focus and spend time developing understanding and relationships between members.

Reach for the Best

It’s going to be difficult to create the relationships that are required for high functioning teams.  Using the tools available can help focus the need for building these relationships.  But, it’s going to be up to the team leaders and team members to use technology to help build high functioning teams.  It looks like the only thing we’re going to have as the world changes.

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BlogTeam

Are you headed back to the office?

by Ron Potter

Years ago, I named my company Team Leadership Culture. To me, that described exactly what needs to happen in corporations to get things humming.

  • Building great teams is the foundation to success
  • Developing Leaders to grow and direct the teams and create more great leaders
  • Both lead to a culture that will sustain the success over the ups and downs of daily business

Without the trust and respect that it takes to build teams, you never develop great leaders and have no hope of creating a positive culture.

Decades ago, Alvin Toffler wrote an amazing book titled Future Shock. Wikipedia describes the context of the book like this. “He believed the accelerated rate of technological and social change left people disconnected and suffering from “shattering stress and disorientation”—future shocked.

I’m not technology averse. In fact, quite the opposite. My grandson was laughing at me the other day as I explained how I carried my 35 pound Osborne portable computer through airports in the 80’s. I purchased my first Blackberry “smartphone” three months after they hit the market in 1999. I’ve been riding the wave of technology advancement since the day Toffler published his book.

But, with this advancement of connected technology, I’ve also seen the deterioration of teams.

Every year teams seem to become more remote and global. Without the technology available to them today they couldn’t function at all. But, the one sentence that remains stuck in my head from Toffler’s book is “High Tech. High Touch.” His point was that as technology took over, it would require even greater human connection to make it all work.

From a very practical standpoint, I have observed remote and global teams that get together face-to-face at least twice a year to talk about the human side of their team work seem to advance faster and farther than any other team.

Some teams try for more times a year and few of them make it but scheduling often makes that difficult.

Other teams either commit to twice a year and don’t make it or are so deceived by the need to accomplish “real” work while they’re together that they give insufficient time to building team. These teams never advance and often deteriorate.

A recent Wall Street Journal article really caught my attention because of this experience. “IBM, a Pioneer of Remote work, Calls Workers back to the Office.” Even though IBM has been a leader in remote work throughout this century, workers were given 30 days to decide. Move to a company-maintained office or seek employment elsewhere.

Why would the leader of remote work decide to lay down such a stark edict? High Tech. High Touch.

They had accomplished the High Tech portion of the formula. They even marketed their services as “the anytime, anywhere workforce.” But they missed the High Touch portion.

Teams simply don’t work if there is low trust. Trust makes it all work. You can’t develop trust electronically. You need to:

  • Look people in the eye
  • Shake their hand
  • Put an arm around their shoulder
  • Laugh some
  • Cry some

Without High Touch, it just doesn’t work.

Are you going back to the office? IBM workers are. You should be also. At least on a regular enough basis to build Trust. It’s the foundation for all collaborative efforts.

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Absurd!BlogIn-Depth Book Reviews

Absurd!: Technology Creates the Opposite of its Intended Purpose

by Ron Potter

photo-1434494343833-76b479733705I’m continuing my series on an in-depth look at a wonderful little book that’s twenty years old this year.  The title is Management of the Absurd by Richard Farson.  You may want to consider dropping back and reading the previous blogs about ABSURD!  I think it will put each new one in great context.

Chapter 7 is titled: Technology Creates the Opposite of its Intended Purpose

Our author anchors this chapter with the statement “Technology helps us in countless ways, but it always backfires.  The term for this phenomenon in medicine is iatrogenic, meaning “physician-induced.”  There are more than a thousand different diseases that would not exist if not for the practice of medicine and the existence of hospitals.”

A couple of years ago I personally experienced one of these iatrogenic hospital infections.  The heart operation I went if for went well and I would have recovered quickly except that I contracted one of the hospital infections that made my daily life miserable and actually caused more life threatening risk than the heart operation.  Now, had my father and the kind of heart operation available to him years ago like I do today, he may have lived long enough to know his grandchildren.  So the intended consequence of better heart care was indeed met.  But the unintended consequences of difficult to contain and kill hospital infections was itself more life threatening.

Two major consequences that I see playing out in the corporate world today that fit into this category are email and forecasting.

Email and Forecasting

I’ve written about email in other posts and probably will again but let me summarize quickly here.

I couldn’t run my business today (nor could any other enterprise) without email.  And in fact as I was cleaning out some cupboards this week I came across my original Blackberry.  The Blackberry was introduced in January 1999.  I believe I purchased mine in March of 1999.  I’m not opposed to email or the devices we use to send and receive.

The problem I have is that emails are not well suited for many reasons other than exchange of information (iatrogenic).  Because of the proliferation and 24/7 availability of email we tend to use it for project management, decision making, arguments, disciplining, developing and a whole bunch of other reasons where it just doesn’t work very well.  Use it for information sharing but put it down and call or meet with the person or team to solve, improve or advance all of the other issues.

Forecasting is another place where I see the siren song of technology creating unintended consequences.  The belief seems to be that if we just have more information (often striving for “all” the information) it will help us become better forecasters.  Brain science debunks that theory right off the bat.  The human mind is just terrible at forecasting.  If you want to debate me on that statement, I’ll start with political polls and forecasts.  End of argument!  And other research done by the people who actually study forecasting for a living tells us that the companies who seem to be best at forecasting do it with a minimum amount of data.  More data doesn’t make better forecasting.

And of course to end on a personal note that all of us have either experienced or participated in, just watch the family out for dinner sitting at the same table together, each on their device “communicating” with someone else.  It’s an astounding and sad example of technology creating the opposite of its intended purpose.

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BlogCulture

High Tech, High Touch

by Ron Potter
Image source: Mathew Bedworth, Creative Commons

Image source: Mathew Bedworth, Creative Commons

I’ve referred to that line, “High tech, high touch,” from Alvin Tofflers book Future Shock often. Toffler defined “Future Shock” as “A personal perception of too much change in too short of time.” He also coined the term “Information overload.”

His term “high tech, high touch” lead into his discussion of one of the antidotes to dealing with future shock and information overload. His point was that as we deal more and more with this intrusion of the globally connected, instant on, information overload, we must also make sure we increase the “high touch” right along with it. This high tech world will not work without high touch, trusting, and personal relationships.

Now another influential voice from the past is adding to the chorus. Ray Ozzie is the inventor of Lotus Notes. Lotus Notes was the first successful and commercially viable email system that Ray and Mitch Kapor brought to the marketplace in the mid to late 1980’s. Ray is the grandfather of email.

One of Ray’s latest ventures is “Talko” that is described as an app that combines text messaging, phone calls, voicemails, videos, and picture messaging.

Why does Ray want to combine all of this text, sound, and pictures? The stated goal is richer communication whether the team is around the world or next door. But one statement of Ray’s really strikes me:

“one of the things I’ve learned over the years about collaboration is that one of the most important elements is empathy.” (Emphasis added.)

Now I’m not going to discount Mr. Ozzie’s ability to come up with a technical solution to empathy. And quite honestly, I hope he makes a good run at it. But my guess is that it will take years of refinements (if at all) to be able to “understand and share the feelings of another” as one definition puts it.

I agree with Ray that empathy is one of the most important elements of collaboration and team building. I just don’t believe you can develop empathy while you’re working remotely on a project regardless of the technical capabilities. Even if “remotely” means you’re in the same building but conduct all of your communication electronically.  I believe you have to spend time face-to-face being human beings, not human doings. Establish trust and understanding, then you can function remotely and or electronically and collaborate well. But like any muscle, trust and empathy atrophy over time and must be renewed on a regular basis.

Build trust—then collaborate well.

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BlogLeadership

Three Things Born in 1948

by Ron Potter
Image Source: April, Creative Commons

Image Source: April, Creative Commons

Three things were born in 1948.

Two of them have dramatically changed the world. The third has been a very interested observer.

One—the transistor. It came out of bell labs and Wikipedia describes it as, “The fundamental building block of modern electronic devices.”

Two—the bit. Short for binary digit is the basic unit of information in computer and digital communication.

Three—Ron Potter. Substantially less impactful than the first two.

For whatever reason, I have long felt to be a part of and intertwined with this growing digital world. The programmable microprocessor (which made the PC possible) was born the year I graduated from engineering school.

But in spite of this fascination and enjoyment of this gadget world, I have been more interested by the human mind, spirit and soul. Who we are and how all things human work together is much more fascinating and complex than anything man made.

Alvin Toffler wrote the book Future Shock at about the time I graduated from engineering school. One sentence, made up of four words, struck me very deeply and I still see its impact every day. That sentence was, “High tech, high touch.” Toffler, in his amazing vision of this coming technological revolution, seemed to understand that it wouldn’t work if we lose touch as human beings.

The advantage provided by the instantaneous, world-wide communication that these technologies have brought won’t work if we don’t build trust and stay connected as human beings.

In fact, without building the human connected trust required, these high-tech solutions can actually turn destructive. We’ve all seen reputations and relationships damaged or even destroyed through electronic communication.
Be careful. Get to know and understand people. Build trust. We’ve been identified as human “beings,” not human “doings.”

If you’ll build the relationships, trust, understanding, and respect needed for a great team to work, the high technology can greatly enhance everything. Without trust it can quickly become destructive.

Build trust!

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