The future of work demands for automation. For some, it may sound scary as it might mean losing job, or being obsolete. For the few chosen ones, automation is like a dream coming true. It is like having additional power to do something else while the machine works hard for your other tasks.

Whichever side you are, take hope. Every coin has another side. Most of the time we always leave that side unflipped.  Fact is, if you are too focused on your technical skills, you might actually end up losing, and obsolete. 

While the future of work talks a lot about technology and automation, there is an important part of work that is not getting attention. Your power to connect to your fellow human being! It definitely can’t be ignored! After all, human beings are almost every company’s customers. 

We are all busy working, automating, and upgrading our technical capabilities that we forget we have customers who needed attention and longing for different experience.  Customers who need to know they are being heard, and not being prompted with flashy fireworks like kind of interface. 

I once worked with someone who was technologically gifted. Tell her what you need, and she can create it for you right away. Sometimes right before your eyes! But I noticed that she is not interacting a lot. Worse, she dismisses anyone who tries to ask her questions while in a middle of a task. So that our colleagues got afraid of her. With her superb technical skills, she started creating tools. These tools were great, but no one in our team is using it. Because we don’t need those tools.  I have to make her realize how important to connect and to welcome her users (a.k.a. customers) to know what they need, and turn her technical skills into better use. 

When data is presented, real human intelligence comes in to interpret and translate those into new services and products. Definitely, you have the power to innovate and create that machines can’t.  You can’t innovate if you don’t interact with your customers. Precisely because you don’t know what their needs are. 

Mere bunch of data do not solve all the problems in the world.  Most often, your experience, and your story creates the most impact. The impact we create into our community will eventually attract customers. A great service, making them feel important, is what a most customers need. If you’re not on the technical side of the equation, you still have your gift engrained into you. Something machines can’t. 

So while our machines are doing all the repetitive work for us, we as human beings have ample time to connect to our customers, and see how we can help them.  Remember, you are smarter than a machine. You have the power to go beyond what a machine can do. 

Automation is good. We save ourselves from doing things over and over again. The future of work is designed not to make us obsolete, but to give us more time to pursue what matters most.