As the world of work and the world at large are increasingly digitized and broad in scope, we must remain people-first in our philosophy of innovation.

Technology has brought about incredible human innovation that has led to near-miraculous discoveries, aided in human achievement and provided us with a wealth of enjoyment and curiosity. But as the world becomes increasingly automated and technologized, how do we account for the human element?

Cogs in the machine

The friction between technological innovation and its impact on the human condition isn’t new. In the industrial age, this manifested itself as acute anxiety that factory machines would replace humans because their role in work and labor would become obsolete. Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” highlights the disjointedness between the individual and the rapidly technologizing world through his character, the Tramp.

In the film, the Tramp struggles to keep up with production on an assembly line that moves increasingly faster; he is eventually sucked into the machine, which pushes him through its inner workings and spits him back out as he flails and resists. The Tramp suffers a breakdown of sorts, becomes unemployed and finds himself in a series of somewhat accidental crimes, which he seems to take pleasure in.

It’s hard to miss the metaphor and the critique leveled by Chaplin: that people must either succumb to being cogs in the machine or they quickly find themselves out of sync with the world around them. The solution? Resistance and insubordination.

Our modern times

Recently, with the boon of artificial intelligence and tools like ChatGPT, we’ve seen these anxieties surface in similar ways. While technology races ahead, our minds, bodies and policies struggle to keep pace, and the result is that we sometimes have technology with capabilities that we don’t yet know how to regulate or use without the potential for harm.

Geoffrey Hinton, often referred to as the “Godfather of AI,” recently resigned from Google over his ethical concerns about the technology that he helped pioneer. He spoke out about how the tech might be used by “bad actors” who could cause egregious damage with it.

Another recent news story was over the fallout at Vanderbilt, where ChatGPT was used to generate an email to comfort students after the mass shooting at Michigan State University. Students argued that the topic necessitated care and a human touch rather than a cold and automated ChatGPT response.

What both examples above gesture toward is the tricky line between what technology can do and what, perhaps, it should do — at least at a particular moment in time. Misalignment and resistance often happen in the gap between what a given population knows or is prepared for, and what something can do for them. It takes time for us to narrow the gap. Being early adopters as individuals is great and welcome, but we have to proceed with sensitivity when leveraging new tools, tech or practices without having laid the groundwork.

Innovation’s uncomfortable underbelly

The promise of innovation is progress and discovery, but the uncomfortable underbelly of innovation is that it usually means the end of something else or at least the end of something in that form. This is where so much of that human anxiety and discomfort stems from. Most of the time, innovation means the end of something small — like monospace typesetting or that double space after the period, which we deployed on typewriters — and not usually the end of the world as we know it.

But even the small things can produce resistance and concern. I know an individual who refuses to use a single space after periods in their writing, even though most authorities on the topic, grammarians and style guides now consider double spacing incorrect. The kind of resistance we so often encounter during change or during rapid innovation is less about the thing itself and more about the instability, not-knowing and unlearning that innovation produces. “What’s next?” we ask.

Will we just do away with the spaces altogether? Throw out the period? Eradicate grammar? The fears that arise don’t have to be rational or logical. Because we often don’t know where the road to innovation leads, we tend to extrapolate and imagine both the best-case and worst-case scenarios. Though, newsflash: The full-stop/period has a different reputation for some Gen-Zers and the use of texting abbreviations and emojis have found their way into even professional email life.

In another five to 10 years, I imagine we will be using AI and other technology without a second thought to write more than our condolence emails. People will have had time to acclimate to the tech. They’ll encounter it everywhere: at work, at home, while shopping. And they’ll begin using it in increasing increments until it’s embedded in their day-to-day functions. AI will write our meal plans and grocery lists, our emails, our end-of-life documents and all sorts of other things.

Just like that, new tech will be on the horizon, and AI, or this version of it, will be passé, just like the flip phone, the BlackBerry, paper checks and the double space. So, how do we empower our people to embrace innovation and support them in the gap?

Innovative Environments that Flourish

More than ever, leaders will be most successful when they are empathetic, trauma-informed, and inclusive in their practices. Soft skills are highly transferable and in high demand these days. For example, a 2020 McKinsey report notes that the number of companies addressing interpersonal skills and empathy skills has nearly doubled in the space of a year. And according to LinkedIn’s 2019 Global Talent Trends report, 89 percent of recruiters say that when a new hire doesn’t work out, it usually comes down to a lack of soft skills.

Sometimes we have to pivot quickly; the years since COVID emerged have been a lesson in agility for all of us. But building a truly innovative organization that is diverse, agile and teeming with a lively exchange of knowledge, ideas and prospects takes time and sensitivity. Here are some tips to help you get there:

• Invest in people who have high emotional intelligence or a high emotional quotient at all levels of the organization because empathy and interpersonal skills follow. And bump it up on the list of skills to teach. Innovation requires, foremost, people who understand people, rather than platforms, technology or data. After all, individuals are typically the end users or targets of most innovations. We have to understand where the points of friction and resistance lie, where efficiencies might be created, and where we might have to forgo efficiency temporarily for the sake of connection and education first. Historically, the work of doling out empathy or redirecting resisters has been relegated to HR departments. But to create truly innovative and thriving organizations, everyone needs to play their part.
• Make space for failure. Count on it, in fact. Where people are afraid to fail, they’re afraid to innovate. If organizations or managers have created an environment of fear, even inadvertently, with unrealistic quotas, unbalanced billable ratios or overly stringent performance expectations, innovation cannot flourish. Factor some wiggle room into your bottom line, build it into your employee work week or calendar. How, you ask? Isn’t that a losing strategy? Remember that innovation takes time; it needs space to breathe. Ideation, exploration and iteration are essential to innovation. Employees who are overwhelmed, overworked and burned out are unlikely to have the brain space for any of these things. As a result, you’ll see more resistance and longer adoption times.

As the world of work and the world at large are increasingly digitized and broad in scope, we must remain people-first in our philosophy of innovation.

Whether it’s the new space race, a new LMS or the new ChatGPT, the common denominator is the individual and the very basic human quest so aptly voiced at the start of every Star Trek episode, “To boldly go where no one has gone before.” All these innovations serve as new ways to expand our capabilities, our knowledge and our impact. Let’s make sure we don’t leave each other behind in the process.

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