If I had to sum up my philosophy on how any person, organization, corporation or country could grow, it would be ‘focus on making everyone’s job obsolete’. It may seem too simplistically obvious while being difficult to implement in practice due to basic human nature. It is obvious that by increasing productivity to the point of making one’s job obsolete, you can reap the benefits of efficiency and resulting growth in wealth. However, as human animals, we all seek a certain amount of predictability, if not absolute stability. Our nervous system is wired to make us nervous at any change since this is how we respond to dangers. Our mechanism for detecting danger is noticing any change in our surroundings. Hence we have this paradox for success: you have to make change not seem scary by making it the norm. Just like we ignore ambient noise of birds chirping (or car noise if you live in a city).
My organizational goal is to get to a place where everyone’s goal is to make at least part of their job obsolete. When I have attempted to do this, I have got most support from the superstars of the organization and most opposition from the bottom performers. This is neither coincidence nor hindsight bias. People with least job security falsely assume that they will be hard to replace due to their seniority in the job function. Au contraire, the longer you have been doing something, more your chances of getting replaced in the current world. In the current growth phase of the world economy, there are more people than there are jobs. People at the lower rungs of the ladder are always looking to move up and take your spot. Why not use this to your benefit instead of fighting it?
An organization needs to set short and long-term goals for itself and all its branches and leaves to make part of their job obsolete every quarter and track the progress. When combined with strategic goals and communicated well, this becomes a tremendous engine for growth. At the organizational level, it can be a way to increase operational efficiency but when implemented well, this is also way to energize and grow the most important asset – people. If every manager makes a list of his/her tasks and makes it a goal to delegate part of the tasks continually, what you have is an organization that is growing in skill and efficiency. Without considering the benefits to the morale, just the fact that a task is being done by a lower paid employee than before makes this a no-brainer.
To be sure, starting such a disciplined approach and sustaining it is hard, especially when people feel insecure about their jobs. It is the leaders’ job to allay such fears and make people embrace the approach. It will require new levels of transparency, honesty and increased communication – a tall order if the management does not believe in the growth model. By treating people with respect, investing in their future and trusting them to do the right thing is what an organization needs to do consistently before attempting this approach.
It is easy to see how managers can make their jobs obsolete by delegating or using tools. How about the low-level workers? Who do they delegate to? The answer is: to a more efficient place. Sometimes it is to another country, but many times it is just automation or innovation. It seems too much like Toyota’s continuous improvement system (TPS) because the approach makes sense in a manufacturing operation. By reducing the seven wastes (muda): overproduction, waiting, transportation, unnecessary processing, excess inventory, unnecessary motion and defects, one use set of tools and language to drive operational efficiency. However, other types of organizations, and even other pars of Toyota don’t follow this model since a) it is difficult to measure and b) difficult to implement. By making everyone’s job obsolete a corporate goal you solve both these problems and get to a culture of continuous improvement with a smile.
Strategy, Marketing, Orthogonal thinking, Newton's law 