Nowadays it seems like every part of our lives is moving in some way, shape or form, into the online space. You’re managing your businesses online. You’re doing your shopping online. You are even connecting with friends and family online. Everything you do these days has an increasing reliance on software.
“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.” Christian Lous Lange, Historian
Amazingly, in 2008 only 12% of businesses were using cloud based apps to run the core functions in their business. Fast forward to just over a decade later, and over 85% of businesses rely on software subscriptions to manage their core business operations.
I’m sure you would not have to look too far in your own business to see how true and relevant this is for you as well. Now, success is all about managing your business online.
It’s really valuable to be able to thrive in the online environment. It’s smart to take advantage of all the amazing things you can do with the incredible software now available. You should be doing exactly that … but it is also very important to keep the human experience at the centre of your business. Maintaining a quality human experience is vital for your culture, and also vital for your success moving forward into our new business futures.
With such a balance in mind, here are essential elements of a business best left to humans.
SMILING CONNECTION:
Only humans can create a warm rapport with a beautiful smile, sharing a really lovely moment with another human being. Building your business around those sorts of connections will help your team culture, and it will certainly help grow your reputation as a service provider who cares. Remember to smile, and remember to build connection into your everyday experience.
SUPPORTIVE LEADERSHIP:
Only humans can inspire other humans, using connection and relationships to lead individuals in ways that suit them best. Providing support for your team, your clients, and other members of your business community is an innately human activity that must be done with caring consistency. Yes you can leverage technology to deliver the message, but it’s a very, very human activity to lead in a nurturing way.
STRATEGIC DESIGN:
You can definitely leverage software and online platforms to design and build the most incredible things. What should be remembered though, is that those valuable tech tools are only as good as the creative human doing the thinking and feeling behind the design. This cannot be emphasised enough, and certainly should not be overlooked in the development of your future business.
SYNERGY & RAPPORT:
It’s vital to deliver connected experiences every step along the way, building one connection on to the next, and on to the next. Building trust and relationships is vital for the long term health of your business. This goes for your internal team as much as for serving the people you do business with.
SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT:
Finally, system development really is best left to humans. It comes back to creative spirit. What are we trying to achieve, and what systems can we set up to achieve it? Yes, you’ll be relying on technology to implement those things, and perhaps even enhance the creation, but the human at the centre of the process holds the genius.
The McKinsey Global Institute tells us that less than 5% of jobs consist of activities that can be fully automated. Yes, it’s great for you to have software. It’s essential for you to leverage that software to create new opportunities for your business. But any software is only as good as the user. Managing your business online well is all about maintianing the human focus which creates amazing experiences for people. In remote workspaces these aspects are even more important now than they have ever been before.
