Finding something that machines can’t do
by Lesley Crane

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One of the pervasive and persuasive myths associated with burgeoning technology in the workplace is that it would create thousands of new and liberating jobs: the truth is more like a wholesale stripping of human employment (see Liviu Nedelsecu). Another preaches that technologies will afford workers more time: more time to think, reflect, to be creative, to learn and innovate, to work from home. Recent visits to several private and public sector organizations told a different story. I was left with a strong impression of people running hard to keep up – grateful for the business, but perhaps at a loss as to how to increase the hours in a day. This is arguably indicative […]

What do Smart Machines Think of Us?
by J C Spender

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 7th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Alan Turing, the British mathematician who did crucial work on WW2 German Naval codes and on computing, has been much in the news. One reason being his theorizing about mathematical biology, morphology, and chaos theory; why, for instance, a zebra’s stripes are as they are. Another being his field-shaping thinking about artificial intelligence (AI) and to its increasing impact on human affairs. Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk, for example, have sounded warnings that AI might ‘escape our control’ and ‘take over’. Ray Kurzweil has claimed the ‘singularity’ (moment of takeover) is at hand. Given our total surveillance society, deepening embrace of ‘technology’, and the coming ‘Internet of things’ these concerns alarm us as […]

Claiming Our Humanity: Pope Francis and the 7th Global Drucker Forum
by David Hurst

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Claiming Our Humanity: What the Pope Francis’ Encyclical on the Environment Brings To The 7th Global Drucker Forum   To students of management Pope Francis is a fascinating study in leadership and organizational change. From his surprise election as an outsider, the first Jesuit and non-European Pope in history, to his well-publicized efforts to shake up an aging institution by revisiting its mission and purpose, he exemplifies the behavior of a charismatic, transformational leader. His many actions to distance himself from the trappings of power that he believes separate him from the reality of the situation on the ground have been well documented. Now he has written a powerful, brilliantly-crafted papal letter (encyclical) on the […]

Managing in the Digital Age: Over the Edge?
by Henry Mintzberg

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Managing does not change, not fundamentally. It is a practice, rooted in art and craft, not a science or a profession, focused on analysis. The subject matter of managing certainly changes, all the time, as do the styles that some managers favor, but not the basic practice.   There is, however, one evident change in recent times that is influencing the practice of managing: the new digital technologies, which have dramatically increased speed and volume in the transmission of information. Have their impacts on managing been likewise dramatic?   My answer is yes and no. No, because these technologies mainly reinforce the very characteristics that have long prevailed in managerial work. But yes, because this […]

Person or Machine of the Year
by Dan Pontefract

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In 1982, Time magazine declared the personal computer its “Machine of the Year.” Up until then, humans usually had won a “Person of the Year” distinction.   Time publisher John A. Meyers wrote, “Several human candidates might have represented 1982, but none symbolized the past year more richly, or will be viewed by history as more significant, than a machine: the computer.”  Pity those worthy humans who might have been in contention. The year 1982 was the point in history when humans became mere mortals, suffering the ignominy of garnering second place to a machine.   It hasn’t got much better. Some 33 years later, we might suggest 1982’s “Machine of the Year” has now morphed into an omnipresence of […]

Why Your Brain Needs People
by Paul Zak

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Ah the digital world!  Email, video conferencing, and e-documents mean less travel and higher productivity.   Electronic communication has allowed for a nearly seamless work-life integration (it’s 6am Sunday as I write this).   These modern conveniences have certainly empowered employees to be, as Peter Drucker wrote, “their own chief executive officers.”   Yet Drucker also recognized that work was a social enterprise.  People had to be together to effectively meet the organization’s objectives.  This is where the tension of being physically-present versus digitally-present binds: Can the social enterprise of work actually work if no one is in the office?  As described in Nancy Dixon’s blog, 63 percent of companies now permit telecommuting, but one-third of supervisors […]

Leadership in the age of immediacy
by Marten Mickos

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We live in a digital age where our humanity is challenged. What humans were mechanically doing is now being automated by software. Tasks that used to require advance planning and a long execution time can now be done immediately with the help of online resources. Orchestration of larger events that required costly and cumbersome intermediaries can now be done directly. The units of resources are becoming more granular, available online through automated interfaces in large liquid marketplaces. Friction is being removed. Access to resources is broader; the industrial world is being democratized. A small startup can disrupt a giant corporation.   Homo Sapiens spent the past tens of thousands of years building societies where we […]

Let’s get the future right this time
by Vlatka Hlupic

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Those who like to make projections about the future tend to be those with the deepest knowledge of fledgling technology. In the current context, this means projecting how Artificial Intelligence, Big Data – gathering systematic intelligence of habits and preferences as employees and customers – and 3D Printing are set to transform many industries and lifestyles. Such futurists like to project a geek’s paradise of an information-rich, automated world of smart cars, smart buildings and bespoke manufacturing.   But has futurism been here before? In the 1950s and 1960s in western Europe, there were projections of what the world would look like by the Year 2000 (remember that?), and plans based on such projections were […]