Succeeding in the cognitive industrial revolution will require rethinking an organization’s vision and setting a new course for the future.
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If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. It’s a popular saying attributed to Benjamin Franklin from the 1700s. His words are as relevant today as they were back then and for the 21st century organization, it’s a matter of survival. With the cognitive industrial revolution already creating significant strategic, technical, and societal change, it’s essential for leaders to respond to AI and automation with a bold and progressive plan.
Leadership often comes down to having the wisdom to make the most difficult business choices. As the cognitive industrial revolution unfolds, doing nothing to reposition your organization may be a risky option. But choosing the areas to prioritize isn’t easy either.
What should a leader do right now when it comes to planning for a future of thinking machines?
Here Comes The Cognitive Industrial Revolution
The cognitive industrial revolution builds on several centuries of remarkable innovation and invention that have created the modern world. Sometimes referred to as the fifth industrial revolution, industry 5.0, or the intelligence age, it is centered around the technologies of artificial intelligence, robotics, and advanced automation.
Planning for the cognitive industrial revolution, like all previous revolutions, involves making assumptions about the future, while accounting for significant uncertainties.
Many things that leaders believe are going to happen won’t, and many more things will happen that few will see coming. Management will need to throw many darts and hope to get a few close to the center of the board. Throwing none shouldn’t be your choice.
Fortunately, trends and experiences from the on-going fourth industrial revolution can be informative. For example, a more digital and connected world means more opportunities for cyberattacks. Cybersecurity and privacy protections should get appropriate prioritization.
There’s a possibility you’re only learning about the cognitive industrial revolution now or perhaps you’ve already been thinking about the steps you can take to prepare. Either way, the question becomes what should you do? Recognizing that the list of possibilities is long and it will often be organization and industry-specific, here are 5 easy ways any leader can start thinking about and preparing for the significant changes ahead.
1. Create A Vision For A New Future
How will your enterprise operate and thrive in a world of thinking machines? Do you imagine doing mostly the same things, making small tweaks, or has it become obvious that new approaches will be necessary?
Let’s be honest, it’s unlikely your organization is going to remain the same. In unprecedented degrees, your products and services are going to evolve, your customer behaviors and expectations will dramatically change, and the means of production will be transformed.
You’re going to need a new plan for the future and that means taking a fresh look at your vision and strategy.
What will inform this new vision and strategy is understanding what the emerging cognitive technologies are capable of and explore scenarios in which they may impact your industry.
Don’t think of this as a one and done situation. You’ll need expertise to continually monitor the emerging technologies space, and changing conditions may mean evolving your strategy more often than you’re accustomed to.
2. Foster A Learning Culture
Years ago, a young person would get educated in a skill, whether through formal schooling, apprenticeship, on-the-job experience or similar. They’d then apply that skill for the rest of their working lives. They were simpler times.
Now, a rapidly changing world has little patience for those whose skills don’t swiftly evolve or adapt. Individuals must commit to lifelong learning and organizations must foster a learning culture that helps leaders and staff acquire new skills more rapidly than before.
Relying on outdated tools and processes and not providing timely education will be a showstopper. Everyone will need to get comfortable with quickly—even suddenly–learning new skills and technologies, and even moving into different roles.
3. Commit To Experimentation
Plan for on-going and bold experimentation. You’ll need to innovate and try new things at a fairly regular frequency in order to test idea feasibility, identify potential risks, and gather feedback before full-scale implementations.
Get comfortable with failure in experimentation. Lack of failure may actually mean the ideas being generated are not bold enough.
This is also an opportunity to partner with startups, universities, and external innovation labs. For example, anticipated leaps in quantum computing will create complexities and opportunities, for instance through quantum machine learning. You might have the capacity and resources to explore this area yourself, but a partnership approach may make more sense.
4. Develop A Talent Strategy
A plan is worthless if it can’t be executed, so you’ll need to develop a talent strategy. It will likely mean retraining interested and capable existing staff and also looking for new types of expertise from the outside.
As wild as it sounds now, it’s likely humanoid robots will join and be regular members of your teams. How are you preparing for that eventuality?
Humanoid robots will be commonplace in the workforce and will require new management and team skills.
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With major roles and priorities changing as a result of AI, a review of your entire organizational structure is warranted. Now is a good time to start and it must align with your new vision and strategy.
5. Deploy Data And AI Governance
As you plan for greater AI adoption, you’ll need to make sure your data environment is ready. This includes evaluating data quality, ensuring appropriate access rights, having a data catalog that lists and describes all datasets, and prioritizing data security and privacy. In other words, you have to get your data governance house in order.
It’s time too, to ask yourself, does my organization have a data-driven culture?
In addition, you’ll want to put in place AI governance—policies and practices to help support the development and use of AI in a responsible, ethical, and safe manner.
Create A Plan For A World That Doesn’t Yet Exist
Innovation is difficult because it requires an organization to imagine a world that doesn’t yet exist. We innovate for tomorrow, not yesterday.
In the opening years of the cognitive industrial revolution, uncertainty about the future well exceeds any sense of the known. This makes the choices for leaders exceedingly difficult. Doing something, even if it doesn’t hit the mark directly, is a better choice than doing nothing right now.
In summary, being better prepared includes developing a refreshed vision and strategy that will be modified often; getting continuously educated on the emerging technological and business environment; crafting a flexible talent approach; maturing your data and AI governance programs; and fostering a culture of experimentation.
At a minimum, focusing on these areas can provide a notion of direction in the unpredictability of the cognitive industrial revolution. Even an imperfect north star is better than drifting rudderless.
As Yogi Berra, the American baseball legend once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”