Technology: The Gift that Keeps on Taking
Technology is the gift that keeps on taking.
I realize now that I had dreadful parents. I rode my bike for miles without sending a text message home. I didn’t even have Life360, Apple’s real-time location sharing app. No wonder mom was often frantic. She didn’t have a cell phone.
Google Maps has made me incompetent and fearful. Waze is worse. I can’t walk across the street without checking for traffic jams and speed traps.
It’s a catastrophe to leave my cell phone home. What if I die in the ditch because I can’t call 911 after my car rolls over? Worse yet, what if someone texts me about a missing cat or what if I miss a weather alert or what if there’s another global crisis or what if my wife needs me to come home for lunch? I can’t miss lunch. I’m so worked up just thinking about it I need to scroll Instagram!
Technology destroys leadership. Micromanagement is a breeze with technology. Managers can persecute employees with updates, requests, and directions while wearing their pajama bottoms. Face-to-face meetings are a colossal waste of time. It takes so long to share a physical location. Nothing builds trust and morale like conflict resolution via video conference.
Technology enables leaders to look busy without doing anything. Leaders earn promotions because they persecute people with emails after hours. Look how important they are!
Why rely on experience and insight when you can suck on the teat of algorithms to make decisions?
The solution is the problem.
I’m so thankful I can type this on my laptop and post it to the Internet without getting out of my La-Z-Boy.
What if you relied a little less on technology today?
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FOMO is another reason?
Absolutely.
Made my morning. I look busy reading this blog post. Happy Thursday, Dan!
I’m delighted to contribute! Happy Thursday, Pete!
Today’s post reminds me of a United Airlines commercial from around 1990 in which a CEO gives a stand-up speech that went something link we used to do buisness face to face with a handshake, now we do it with a phone call and a fax. Then he hands out airline tickets and said everyone is going to see all of their customers face to face. The technology wheel can be a big help to our customers on many levels nowadays, it can also a hinderance when the wheel gets set on autopilot.
I wish Airlines held on to face-to-face interactions a little more. I realize it’s expensive and I don’t want to pay more to fly, but a real person is nice.
Great post, Dan.
Makes me ponder: How might we recast technology as a tool that serves us and amplifies our human leadership and not a crutch?
I’m thinking the first thing I’ll do today is NOT have a phone or laptop in sight when talking with my teammates.
“If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.” – Omar Bradley (General, US Army)
Love the Bradley quote, Joe. Putting technology away during conversations is a big one. No monitors. No alarms. No notifications. Just people.
Wow Dan! This post was a different feel today!
I think the issues with tech just swapped out the issues that exist when you’re in person. We check the news to look busy instead of standing by our colleagues desk to “shoot the breeze.” We have to balance the positives with the negatives. Being able to use technology to work remotely has offered me the opportunity to advance my career. Does it have it’s ups and downs, you bet! I find myself sometimes wasting time in front of my computer, but without it, I would be making half of what I am today. We can’t blame tech for poor behavior, as an individual contributor or a leader. It’s a brave new world and we have to adapt.
Okay, I have looked busy enough by my comments, I’m gonna go do real work now! As always, thank you so much for the insights!
🙂
I’m with you, SB. Where would we be without technology? I wouldn’t have the opportunity to encourage leaders all over the world. There is an enabling factor and a disabling factor. I wonder if we can learn to master it before we become helpless.
I actually giggled when I read this. My husband used to complain about his former boss who would end dumb, non-time sensitive emails throughout the weekend. He even emailed what he called the Sunday Night Shout Out each week which would arrive on my husband’s phone with a “ding ding” in the middle of dinner with our boys. UGH!!
Gotta love it. We aren’t going back. And there are some nudges toward limiting technology. It’s a challenge.
Great post, Dan! Like bureaucracy, technology is a two-edged sword that can hinder as well as help. In “The Delicate Art of Bureaucracy,” Mark Schwartz observed that bureaucracies are extremely beneficial when they are lean, learning, and enabling. I think the same could be said of technology. It presents a real advantage when it cost-effectively enables, advances, and accelerates our initiatives, but as you pointed out, it’s no substitute for real leadership.
Thanks, Paul. I’m with you. Technology is awesome. It’s also awful. Or perhaps I should say, it makes skilled leaders better and lousy leaders more damaging.
I like your statement “Skilled leaders better, lousey ones more damaging” My challenge is am I becoming more skilled and less damaging. Thanks for the post Dan. Good reflection for the day.
I try to mostly not use my phone to plot my course. I like to practice my dead reckoning skills, but I can’t deny that when I need to get someplace on time that my phone sees what I can’t and alters my route for best results. I am also amused to occasionally ask it to map a route I know and find that it chooses a different path, which means I spent my whole life taking a less efficient route.
Thanks, George. You better be careful; you are bordering on a luddite. I love the idea of intentionally not using technology. Cheers
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