Don’t confuse movement with progress.
—DR. MEHMET OZ1
As technology emerges, advances, and revolutionizes every industry, profession, and culture, we’ve barely scratched the surface of how devices, networks, and artificial intelligence will change human behavior; displace jobs; and impact our organizations, communities, and lives. We thought that technology would bring us closer together, yet it has made our work lives more challenging and less meaningful. In the not-too-distant future, robots may bring you your morning coffee and brush your teeth for you, but you’ll still have a heart, a soul, and a mind—and so will the people who work for, and with, you. The essential qualities that you’ll need to be an effective leader, such as empathy, openness, and vision, can’t be outsourced to machines. For that reason, as leaders we need to get back to human and become the masters of technology instead of the other way around.
A Warning About Technology from Prominent Technology Leaders
There’s no stopping the changes brought on by the technology revolution, but we must embrace them with caution. That’s a view I share with many of the most respected experts in technology and artificial intelligence. And when they warn us, we really should take heed. Steve Wozniak, Stephen Hawking, and Elon Musk, for example, signed an open letter on the societal impacts of artificial intelligence (AI).2 And Microsoft’s research director, Eric Horvitz, believes that someday AI could turn against us and become a threat to our very existence.
Two other tech luminaries, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, gave commencement speeches warning of the pitfalls of the tools and systems they themselves are promoting. At MIT, Cook said, “Sometimes the very technology that is meant to connect us, divides us. Technology is capable of doing great things. But it doesn’t want to do great things.”3 At Harvard, Zuckerberg said, “When our parents graduated, purpose reliably came from your job, your church, your community. But today, technology and automation are eliminating many jobs. Membership in communities is declining. Many people feel disconnected and depressed, and are trying to fill a void.”4
Being a young leader in the tech-saturated world we live in is a challenge. And we’ll be successful only if we’re able to create emotional connections to others—the type of connections that enable us to empathize, perform acts of kindness, and avoid hurting others.
Workplaces Are Increasingly More Robotic
In the Virgin Pulse study, we asked employees and managers which trends they believe will most impact their work experience.5 They said they are paying most attention to the Internet of Things, AI, advancements in smartphones, virtual reality, and wearable tech—in other words, automation. How big an impact will automation have? We surveyed hundreds of organizations and found that on average they expect to reduce their workforce by at least 10 percent over the next few years.6
A lot of people think of robots as something futuristic, but we’re already a lot closer than you might imagine. McDonalds is replacing cashiers with kiosks,7 Domino’s Pizza is replacing its delivery teams with self-driving robots,8 Lowe’s has replaced human greeters with robo-greeters,9 and Aloft Hotel is experimenting with robotic bellhops.10 No job is safe. In China, legal robots have been deployed to decide sentencing in certain court cases; it doesn’t get scarier than that.11 Bottom line: automation will completely eliminate a swarm of jobs from our global economy as well as a variety of tasks within jobs that it doesn’t kill.
From the company perspective, robots are a way to lower labor costs and increase profitability. Think about it. If a company can purchase a robot for a one time investment of $30,000 instead of hiring a full-time employee to do the same dozen tasks for $75,000—plus health care, paid vacation, and the potential for raises and bonuses—it’ll choose the robot. The robot can work twenty-four-hour days, whereas the human might max out at eight. The robot won’t argue with you about your process or complain that it’s burned out or stressed; it’ll do what you tell it to with no complaint. As the cost of these machines inevitably declines, they’ll become even more attractive to employers, which is exactly what’s going on in the minds of many CEOs around the world.
There’s no doubt in my mind that technology continues to disconnect us from other humans—even as it becomes more personal, whether it’s virtual reality, chatbots, or microchip injections, which sound like something from the latest sci-fi movie but are already happening. Epicenter, a Swedish firm, has offered to inject employees with microchips at no cost and already has 150 takers. Although employees with the implanted chip can easily access doors and office utilities like photocopiers without having to take out their wallets, they’re constantly being tracked, which sounds extremely invasive to me. Imagine having to get that chip surgically removed if you want to switch employers!
It’s Time to Be More Human and Less Machine
I have not only witnessed, but also participated in, the back-to-human renaissance. When technology makes me feel isolated from others, I naturally feel the need to connect more. Whether it’s meeting someone for coffee, walking to the office, or even calling my parents, I try not to let technology get the best of me. Instead, I use it to create more in-person situations and deeper conversations with others. In the workplace, our teams can’t function if we aren’t there to support them, and without a sense of connection, they won’t be as committed or productive. While machines become adept at hard skills and perform many tasks more quickly than humans will ever be able to, humans will always have the upper hand when it comes to the soft skills that make great leaders.
In an interview with CNBC, Sinovation Ventures founder Kai-Fu Lee was asked whether humans still have a place in a world where machines are growing more intelligent. Even though he invests in technology, Lee admitted, “Touching one’s heart with your heart is something that machines, I believe, will never be good at.”12 Today’s jobs emphasize the ability to work with or for other people much more than they did in the 1980s or 1990s.13 As jobs are lost, new ones are created, and those will continue to require leadership, teamwork, time management, and social skills. Your ability to develop strong work relationships will be your most important asset as you become the leader you aspire to be. Despite our technological future, our social skills will be the fabric out of which we’ll continue to weave our careers and lives. As Fortune Magazine senior editor Geoff Colvin told me, “We’re hardwired by 100,000 years of evolution to value deep interaction with other humans and not with computers.”14
We must start by acknowledging that we need to use technology to foster deeper connection and stronger relationships. And we must continue by admitting that we need not just more friends, but deeper conversations with our current friends. And I don’t mean those superficial “friendships” you have online, where you look at updates, likes, and comments but rarely if ever get on the phone with them or even wish them a happy birthday. I mean the friends that you invest your time in, the ones you genuinely care about, and the relationships you have with the coworkers you see or don’t see every day.
Everything we need to succeed, from learning to emotional support, can be improved through having friendships. There’s a reason that phrases like “Your network is your net worth” and “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” get passed down from one generation to the next. They’re true! People, not machines, are going to lead you to knowledge, jobs, and fulfillment. Over the years I’ve made it a point to ask older adults about their friendships, and every one of them has told me what researchers have been saying for years: as you get older, you have fewer close friends. Several studies have also concluded that people regret relationship mistakes more intensely than any career decisions.15 Knowing this can help you decide whom you hold close and whom you let go. As we get older, we have more responsibilities, from bearing children to overscheduling, and our friends get shortchanged as a result. You can do something about this and create a more fulfilling work experience for your employees in the process.
The Future Is Now
In the age of isolation, there is light. Today, I challenge you to put your phone down, turn off your notifications, and get offline. I know you can do it! There’s no going back in time, but there is going back to human. So, make every interaction count every day, every hour, and every minute. I trust you to lead the way—and I’ll be right there beside you to lend a hand.