by Steve Gordon
I wrote this 5 years ago and it’s as pertinent now as it was then.
In today’s business world, there is a constant reminder that technology is available to make our lives easier. The larger the corporation, the larger the investment in modernizing with technology. Whether it is the latest & greatest database for decision making or some new and improved automated support flow, we are constantly being reminded that technology is here to improve our lives and give us back more time. But what we forget is that while we continue to scale our operations toward lightning-fast efficiency (at least in theory), all this technology is automating away something that has been with us for thousands of years: the human decision element. And is this helping us? Let’s explore.
No matter how much companies claim to embrace creative thinking and ideas, this process is repeatedly undermined by their more dominant core emphasis (though they’d rarely admit this) on consensus building. We are repeatedly encouraged and praised for our “entrepreneurial spirit” while simultaneously having that spirit stifled by the constant need for collective “buy in”. We become so focused on making sure that every nook and cranny is covered that we lose track of the actual creative idea. We have made decision making cumbersome in so many ways.
Let me explain further. I’ve seen automated processes turn what used to be a rapid human task into something far more complex. Take for example:
- What began as a 2–3 person approval becomes a 9–10 person automated workflow. Although participation only triples, coordination complexity increases quadratically (a term I was hoping to never see again after college); meaning complexity increases tenfold. To avoid predictable questions, the process demands ever-growing background documentation, leading to additional meetings, calls, and paperwork in service of consensus. Decision-making slows.
- A legal review process that used to take one week became a 4-5 week process because so many individuals and legal analysts had to comment or provide input. Net result? Clients move on.
- A process that asked for a 1-2 page document for new business ideas turning into a 15-20 page detailed step-by-step document so exhaustively detailed that it attempts to anticipate every possible reader, regardless of background. Net result? Slowdown in bringing it to market.
Examining the world of data analytics and the ability to run a large business based on the deluge of data flowing into the company non-stop, we see that a ton of time and effort has been lost to make the ability to track and make decisions easier and faster.
Gone are the days of the green sheets sitting on your desk Monday morning from an overnight or weekend run, quantifying sales by geography, SKU or whatever business you are in, all replaced by an interactive, easy to use and powerful computer application. However, the decision still must be made regarding what is presented and then acted upon. What happens in today’s corporate world is that those decisions now require a hierarchy of approvers or bosses to enact. We’ve made the decision capability easier and more powerful and yet we’ve added so many layers of process on top of it that the ease of decision making is buried. The more technology we add, the slower the business goes.
Imagine – you own your own widget business and outsource production of said widgets to a third party who ships your creatively designed widget to your customers. The only interaction you have with the third party is to tell them where to ship and when. You are in control of the widget company, and you make all the decisions. You create the web site, buy/rent the software to manage inventory and basically do everything on your own, after all, you are the creator and decision maker. You are in control and it feels great – but then you decide you want to expand. You add people, more technology, more widget ideas and basically start to complicate your business.
Suddenly you might have:
- investors,
- marketing,
- sales,
- HR,
- operations
… and each one of those departments wants to be part of the decision-making process and criteria. As a bright, creative individual, you design automated processes to speed decision making along, or so you think.
Suddenly, things don’t happen as fast as they used to. You spend money on an ERP system; you hire a finance and accounting system and invest in a new CRM system to manage relationships. From a technology perspective, you have embraced all that is out there to make your business more efficient, yet … why does it feel like it moves slower and slower each day?
More and more cats come to play, and they all need to be managed.
Eventually, you realize this is not what you signed up for and you either a) get out or b) you hire someone new to run the show. You pine for the days when you could make choices you felt good about because you were the process maker, no one else. You examine when the business changed and you realize that with all the investments made to speed decision-making along and to make the work environment more productive, it was technology that became the largest investment and because of that, process entered the picture and broke the spirit of the company.
Two contrasting stories:
I can remember working at IBM in their global services division, responsible for retail business intelligence software and services. I had a prospective client that asked for a large services proposal that took a couple of weeks on-site to adequately scope, understand and finally draft the statement of work. After approximately three weeks, I was ready to provide the document to the client. If only I had been able to simply give him the document. Instead, there was a process at IBM requiring a host of legal and risk reviews to ensure nothing was put in front of the client that could put IBM at risk (understandable, of course). Yet there was a technology process required for each step of approvals despite the management chain on my side. Because of this, it took an additional six weeks of going to each of the required approvers (the cats with their quadratic complexity again) and by the time the SOW was finally ready, the client had long lost interest and moved on.
What happened next surprised me. I left IBM and went to Teradata where in my first week on the job, I prepared a SOW for a client in Chicago that wanted to implement a data analytics strategy with a supply chain forecasting database, tied into their sales systems. It took me a few days to write the SOW, and I went to my boss and asked him what I needed to do to get the SOW into the process approval system and who I should set up calls with to answer any potential questions. He looked at me with a deer in the headlights look and calmly said “if you think you have everything they want in the SOW, then I’m good. That’s why we hired you.” End of discussion. I was floored. No system, no long-drawn-out review process and most of all, a quick decision based on trust and experience. The goal and the net result was total client satisfaction and development of a long-term relationship.
This contrast stuck with me. Not because one company had better technology, but because one company trusted people to use it while the other was buried in the process. This philosophy shapes how we work at AlignBiz today. Our focus isn’t on adding more systems or more processes — it’s on reducing the friction that stifles creativity and derails the human decision element.
Because technology doesn’t mean a thing if you’re always herding cats.
About the author:
Steve Gordon is Managing Director of AlignBiz Consulting. He holds a B.S. in Geography and an
M.S. in Planning — disciplines that inform his belief that the most powerful thing you can do with a
complex system is map it accurately. With 35+ years of technology leadership experience spanning
IBM, Teradata, and AWS, he brings deep fluency in the enterprise analytics ecosystem and the
vendor, tool, and buyer dynamics that shape mid-market and enterprise technology decisions. He is
a TDWI speaker and the creator of Technology Cartography™.
www.align-biz.com
