Build, Buy, Borrow, Bot Take 2

If you are currently in a Buy cycle (e.g., hiring an AI lead), please stop. Unless that is you have a clear AI strategy that includes a workforce redesign that appropriately allocates work between humans and AI.

No? It’s ok. We can help you with that, but also, let’s stick with the story.

Borrow is the first step in a cycle that will lead to:

Build and Bot
And Buy

Why Borrow? Well, because there are experts like us who have been uniquely and obsessively focused on how organizations get through to the future. And the future isn’t a “we implemented a new technology” moment. It’s an Industrial Revolution (first or second) moment. It’s a “birth of the internet” moment. It’s a “how will we work during the Covid shutdown” moment.

Except it’s bigger than any of those. And getting through it effectively means your organization can flourish instead of struggle.

So, you’re going to Borrow talent through a partner to guide and assist you in defining and executing on your future.

And that partner will help you determine where work is allocated among humans and AI. Not by random assignment or cycles of experimentation, but through calculated, ROI driven, validated analysis of the real work inside your organization and the real capabilities of both humans and AI.

Once we know that, we Build the necessary capabilities in your human employees to do the work they are best suited for. And there will be new skills needed as humans work alongside, and manage, AI agents. Your leaders, too, are going to need a whole new set of skills, and the support to constantly switch between empathy-driven human interactions and precision-driven AI interactions. And we will also build a new cadre of AI managers; those people whose explicit role it is to drive forward AI in their own functions. It’s not just one hire. It’s a new workforce.

And we will Bot. Having AI do work requires precise instructions, guardrails, quality checks, and intervention, and many organizations simply do not have that level of detail in their processes today. And by the way, nor do we recommend spending oodles of time getting there. Rather, we have tools to help you get to the level of information needed and the process to implement and evaluate what is working and change what is not.

Along the way, there will be times when we will Buy; when there are skills that would take too long to build, or culture gaps to fill as we move into your future organizational structure, or experience that can drive us forward faster.

And then at some point we’ll get to the new normal in which Build, Buy, Borrow and Bot all make sense for various reasons at various times.

Now is not your Buy moment. Now is your Borrow moment.

Book a meeting if you want to learn more.