Are You Automating The Wrong Things?

Automation is great. Sometimes.

Others, you’ll try to automate something and the reaction will be painful:

• “That wasn’t for me”: A great marketing message should never hear a response like this. If you run an ad and someone thinks this then your targeting was off, but if you email someone and they think this, then you messed up. Email is a personal space – “spam” can be quantified as “that wasn’t for me”.

• “That wasn’t you”: There are some things that you bring to the table that people find really special. When you don’t do them, people will take notice. Virgin isn’t Virgin without Richard. What are you trying to let go of that you should instead be leaning more intimately into?

• “That wasn’t worth it”: The ultimate punishment for the sins above is this statement. Automation should equate to an enhanced experience, not a diluted experience. If people thank you for your automation efforts, you succeeded. If they leave or feel disappointed in you, add back what was lost immediately, before you lose that which makes you, you.

Automation and delegation are important for meaningful work’s pursuit to touch more lives of those it can help transform. But only if it remains meaningful work, and the lives it touches are still experience just (if not more) transformation as a result.