Did you know that some of the most successful WW1 and WW2 pilots were amputees?
Douglas Bader.
Alexey Maresyev.
Hans-Ulrich Rudel.
Gheorghe Banciulescu.
This was, in part, beacuse the largest weakness in an aircraft is the squishy bit in the cockpit: the pilot.
Turning at high G-forces, pushes blood around the body, causing nausea and the pilot to pass out.
With their extremeties missing, these pilots were able to perform maneuvers that their able-bodied counterparts could not, giving them a unique advantage.
Once technology reached a point where the human could be removed completely, military flight became the domain of drones.
And herein lies the point.
Where the perceived weakness in the process is a person, we have a natural drive to remove that weakness for the betterment of the process.
Case in point:
Klarna recently announced that it had introduced an AI process that completed the work of 700 advisers in their customer service function.
This AI assistant handles 2/3rds of customer interactions, provides a more-highly perceived level of service and customers were largely unable to identify that it was not a human providing the service.
The day this was announced, Teleperformance and Concentrix+ WebHelp both lost between 11-14% of their share price.
There is some discussion around whether Klarna’s claims are accurate.
However, the point remains that where it’s possible to remove the squishy bit in the cockpit to improve the process, it’s what we tend to do.
This will change the way that we view talent, and change what that human talent does within our organisations.
For that talent to thrive purposefully, we also need to change the way our cultures are designed purposefully.
