C
Catalyst | Comment
Tessa Melkonian
“When recruiting for management roles,
organisations need to seek out talent with
the kind of sophisticated soft skills that fit
the management 3.0 concept”
Is your manager behaving like a robot?
tasks – whether that’s GPs providing
diagnoses or solicitors reviewing
case files. And management is
no exception. In some cases,
managers could even be replaced
by sophisticated AI systems, begging
the question: will we end up being
managed by robots at some point
in the near future?
The day-to-day role of a manager
naturally differs across companies.
However, the basic concept of a
manager fits into one of two schools
of thought – management 2.0 (the
traditional 20th century definition)
and management 3.0 (21st century).
In the 2.0 model, the manager
is essentially a mouthpiece for the
hierarchy. Their key objectives
are directing and reporting on
employees. They might be involved
in distributing tasks, collating and
evaluating data and conducting
annual reviews.
An AI machine could soon be
more than capable of relaying rules,
giving feedback and conducting
impartial end-of-year assessments.
In fact, it’s much easier for a
machine to carry out complex,
high-level reasoning and task
allocation than it is for it to do the
most basic sensorimotor tasks –
an insight that AI researchers call
Moravec’s Paradox. On this basis,
the future of work in warehouses
is much more likely to involve
machines assigning physical tasks to
humans than the other way around.
The concept of management
3.0 is different, though. Under this
model, a manager uses their soft
skills to interact with employees
on a human level, reinforcing and
championing the abilities of their
team members.
He or she must understand how
to give workers sufficient autonomy,
purpose and direction so that teams
feel empowered to think creatively,
to innovate and to solve complex
problems. The likelihood of highly
emotionally intelligent managers
being replaced by robots is far lower.
Fo r t h i s r e a s o n , w h e n
recruiting for management roles,
organisations need to seek out
talent with the kind of sophisticated
soft skills that fit the management
3.0 concept. Organisations should
actively employ methods that focus
on these areas in their recruitment
processes, evaluating a candidate’s
emotional intelligence, their ability
to build a psychologically safe and
collaborative working culture, and
to develop healthy relationships
with their staff and encourage
left-field thinking.
The arrival of AI in management
is inevitable, and organisations have
every reason to embrace it, as it can
remove the most mundane and
time-consuming jobs, such as task
allocation and evaluation, usually
associated with 2.0 managers.
But when it comes to building
rapport and fostering a thriving
work culture, it will be a long while
until these kind of people managers
need to worry about losing their jobs
to the machines.
Tessa Melkonian is a professor of
management and organisational
behaviour at EMLYON Business
School and heads the Department
of Management, Law and
Human Resources.
Issue 3 - 2019
61