“Hybrid Thinking” Leaders Will Prosper: Part 1 — Automation Is Changing the Game for Successful Careers
“Hybrid Thinking” job skills will require us to hone the capabilities of our entire brain through continuous learning in order to successfully evolve with the proliferation of automation.
If you do an online search for “the proliferation of automation”, there are over 5.8 million results including over 100,000 scholarly articles. The headlines comprise subjects such as “The Proliferation of AI and Automation in Banking”, “The Automation and Proliferation of Military Drones and the Protection of Civilians” and “Automation to Hit Poorer Workers Hardest”. The industries and human roles that are being impacted are all encompassing.
Over the decades, General Electric has been a global driving force of automation in industries such as Transportation, Aviation and Healthcare to name only a few. The company has seen first-hand both the positive and negative impact that automation can have on jobs in every single industry. The good news is that this doesn’t need to be a doomsday prediction. Human beings have the advantage as long as we do not ignore the implications of this shift. The responsibility will be up to each of us to be more intentional about the skillsets required in the “Hybrid Thinking” world of work within this new reality.
The Harvard Business Review has researched this topic extensively and has clear and concise insights that we can leverage as the nature of work evolves. They have made the case that human beings are more strategic and machines are more tactical with statistics from a study by McKinsey.
“Their findings so far seem to conclude that the more technical the work, the more technology can accomplish it. In other words, machines skew toward tactical applications. On the other hand, work that requires a high degree of imagination, creative analysis, and strategic thinking is harder to automate. The hardest activities to automate with currently available technologies are those that involve managing and developing people (9 percent automation potential) or that apply expertise to decision making, planning, or creative work (18 percent). Computers are great at optimizing, but not so great at goal-setting. Or even using common sense.”
These findings indicate that humanity has the innate ability to lead in an age of automation for unambiguous tasks. The imperative for us is to understand what the workforce should do when enhanced by machine-led optimizations.
“Technology will replace some work, but it doesn’t have to replace the people who have done that work. Economist James Bessen notes, the problem is people are losing jobs and we’re not doing a good job of getting them the skills and knowledge they need to work for the new jobs.”
The key insight here is that we possess the aptitude to learn new skills which will amplify our influence over intelligent machines, but that we will need to prioritize continuous education of “Hybrid Thinking” abilities.
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article that captures the job skill combinations that will be most likely to resist the negative implications of automation. The research suggested jobs that “tap both the technical and creative thinking” capabilities will prosper. This type of expertise requires a “whole brain” approach to leadership. It is widely accepted that the human brain is divided into two hemispheres. The left side of the brain is historically known to be associated with logic and analytical thought while the right side of the brain is historically known for intuition and creativity.
“In many cases, the premium comes to those in right-brain jobs that develop technical skills to supplement creative or social skills.”
The studies showed that employers are already searching for workers with advanced technology expertise coupled with familiarity of creative approaches that make the best use of a given solution. In new marketing roles for example, “you have to think as a customer in a qualitative way and then apply the quantitative part by looking at data and finding patterns”. These roles that once commandeered an hourly rate of $30 alone, now earn between $75 to $125 an hour when skills are combined.
“While the competencies required for hybrid jobs aren’t necessarily new, Mr. Sigelman says, what is new is the marriage of skill sets that previously weren’t learned in tandem.”
Even universities are adapting to this new way of “Hybrid Thinking” when creating curriculum that breaks traditional educational boundaries. Along with many programs, the California College of the Arts has structured a new innovative program designated as a Design MBA coined the “DMBA” to train experienced students with this type of dynamic skillset for the future of work as we have known it. The imperative will be to couple two or more in-depth skills sets together for both a qualitative and quantitative approaches to innovation. One thing that remains constant in research is that we must continuously learn at a pace that keeps with the pervasiveness of automation.
“Lifelong learning is essential,” says the report.
The takeaway is if we all individually take the approach of continuous improvement across strategic disciplines it will increase the likelihood of eliminating our demise from the negative impacts of automation. In part 2, I’ll discuss how humans are uniquely positioned for this type of hybrid thinking.
