Like the steam engine crushed the labor cost center, AI crushes the white collar cost center.
Here’s what that meant for the labor world: The need for labor didn’t go to zero, it just went down a lot. We still have construction workers and farm laborers, just fewer of them.
Likewise, in the white collar world, your organization will still have newbies, just fewer of them.
Your organization will go from a fat pyramid to a skinny one:
What does that mean for your succession plans?
It means you will have to be more careful about grooming your newbies, because you are pulling from a much smaller pool.
Because of AI, instead of the top coming from 10% of your newbies, the top is going to come from 50% of your newbies.
In our world (the world of you and me) this is what that’ll mean:
It’s going to be more important that your lower-level people have the five skills I teach (the skills of customer communication). In the old days, 10% of your newbies needed to pick them up, and you could just depend on good old ambition (the desire to rise to the top) to ensure that the 10% who randomly percolated to the top would have what you needed.
Now, however, because of AI, you’re going to need 50% of them to have those skills. Counting on ambition and percolation isn’t going to be good enough. You’re going to have to be more intentional about training those customer communication skills into your workforce, because the people who take over when you are gone will be coming from a smaller pool.
AI means you can’t leave it to chance anymore.
By the way, some of you are dyed-in-the-wool DIYers, so here are those 5 skills: