The Skeptic, The Believer, The Indifferent
If you were alive in 1908 when Henry Ford first announced his Model T, what kind of person would you have been?
The skeptic? The believer? The indifferent?
If I’m honest, I couldn’t tell you who I would’ve been back then, but I get to answer that question today.
Henry Ford isn’t re-unveiling the car, but we do have OpenAI challenging us with AI, and tons of companies building solutions for automation.
Skeptics will claim — “Automation will be the end of authentic relationships.”
Believers might speculate — “Automation will enable us to have deeper authentic relationships.”
And the Indifferent will declare — “Automation doesn’t affect me.”
These days, I consider myself a believer with a modicum of healthy skepticism.
For example, I think automation offers partner managers an amazing opportunity to focus on non-scalable things like building trust...if they automate purposefully.
I believe our technologies are tools that fulfill the purposes we give them.
If you’re trying to decide what’s a proper response to technological change, here’s a good 4-question framework:
- What am I really trying to do?
- How might this tool help me do that?
- How might this tool negatively impact that?
- What should my next steps be?
Here’s an example of how I’d use the 4-question framework to approach the question of automation in partnerships:
- What am I really trying to do? – I’m trying to build revenue-generating partnerships (relationships).
- How might this tool help me do that? – There’s a lot of repetitive, manual work involved in partnerships that I can offload.
- How might this tool negatively impact that? – If I over-automate, I could make my partners feel unimportant. That would put the trust I’ve already built in jeopardy.
- What should my next steps be? – I should automate specific, humdrum parts of my job and use all of the excess time to invest in the highest-value areas.
You don’t have to be completely bought-in to every change or technology.
Openness is enough.
-Sam and Jason Yarborough
P.S. If you haven't listened to today's episode with Rob Rebholz, here's what you can expect:
- Rob's take on automation in partnerships.
- What it means to be a good partner.
- How to add value before making an ask.
Connect with us on LinkedIn (Sam and Jason).
Watch or listen to today’s FWB episode with Rob Rebholz here:
Youtube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts
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