Do you remember the „New Economy“? This was the buzz word in the late nineties when my colleagues were talking about this kind of internet driven economy. It may look bizarre today, but at that time, the internet started to catch on commercially. Soon, things became crazy. You could have a dump idea like “I wash your dog.com” and could raise $2m startup funding capital. Since greed eats mind, speculators got out of control about their blind investments over the “New Economy”. Soon, the dotcom crash happened in 2002.
Today, the mainstream talks about “Digitalization” or “Industry 4.0”. However, since some people learnt from the dotcom bubble, it is slightly different. Or put it that way: the bubble is less obvious, it’s more a dark side which we do not see at first sight. You could even say it is sneaky. Why?
I cannot be wrong if I follow the crowd. Really?
Everyone knows the game about cost savings. You don’t cut only costs, you also cut common sense. One alternative is moving your IT into the cloud. What first looks like cost savings is in fact giving up your independence. You give your power to your IT vendor and there is a strong argument in favor of this: As an entrepreneur, IT is not your core competence, you want to focus on your business and decrease your IT costs. Hence, let the professionals take over your IT. The same is with digitalization. Managers can hide their mental overload and pressure to perform with “Digitalization Initiatives”. Even the politicians, at least in Switzerland, support the digitalization. However, they support in fact a kind of dependency and it may turn out to be late when you realize this. Remember that those, who have been elected have nothing to say and those on the top who were not elected are the ones, who decide in the background.
Like with the dotcom story, not the whole truth is told and things are more glorified. In the meantime, rules are set up towards egalitarianism. In the old system you were a kind of second-class citizen. In the brave new world, you will become an animal while the playground is newly organized. See this also in the context where the top 0.1% control 90% of world’s wealth. I thought the digitalization and the internet will give us more flexibility and freedom? In some ways yes, but not really. We are moving towards an ideological correction. Things are changing depending on which ideology is presented. For example, around 30 years ago, the shareholder value was the child of neoliberalism. Today, things got out of control and perverted. There is something on the horizon, whether it is a crash or a soft landing change. For sure, there is large pressure in the economy and society and an irrevocable paradigm shift is ahead. This challenge develops in a strong dynamic and overwhelms us.
The human being cannot cope anymore and falls into powerlessness. You need to change your position and become an observer. You need to follow your truth and inner qualities.
What does the digitalization do with us?
Artificial intelligence, Blockchain, IoT, Smart Analytics, Fintech, automated trading systems, Insurtech, cloud, E-ID, IT security, mobile payment, agile transformation, etc. – you name it. All is part of the new ecosystem and part of psychological problems, which lead to exhaustion and burnout. Managers keep more pressure on their employees. In today’s corporate worlds, a constant accessibility is seen as normal. Are we still able to set our priorities?
Digital detox is luxury for those who become aware and for the others, the manipulators take care of keeping us busy or entertained in the virtual world. In the past, companies were more friendly and liberal. Nowadays, we feel the pressure because the pace becomes faster. So one thing is the pace, the other thing is the increased complexity. It is an illusion to think that with digitalization, things are done when pressing a button. Employees are expected to analyze quickly highly complex problems within our globalized world.
Human beings are not machines
Managers do not only put pressure on employees, they put pressure on themselves. Stress leads into fear and pain. A downward spiral, which causes more resistance while condemning others.
One solution to cope with this new environment is endurance. Giving up resistance and providing more room to the pressure also needs some overcoming: you need to show your fear, your pain, your stress and overload. Some managers will understand, because your will be their mirror.
Apart from body symptoms such as exhaustion, burnout and mental problems, companies realize their loss of productivity. Some care, some not. If companies think they can just replace their leavers with new resources they forgot about the demographic change. In some years, there will be a shortage of skilled manpower. Of course, you can outsource and play the game of offshore enabling if you want to extend the problem.
It takes two to dance tango
The global markets, competition, companies and managers are not only causing the pressure. That is only half of the game. The individual employee contributes the other part.
The pace of the digital transformation does not correspond to the pace how we behave and work as human beings. It takes time digesting a new process, a complex task or achieving a target. Changing your attitudes takes longer if you are in resistance to the change. This is mostly the case when blaming the circumstances, the company you work for, your boss, the situation or even yourself.
Human beings follow a natural rhythm because our species are part of nature such as animals and plants. The digitalization follows its own rhythm – it is much faster. The artificial intelligence does not differentiate between night and day. How much time do you spend in the nature? We work under artificial lights in our offices and violate the natural cycles. There is obviously a conflict between the fast digital rhythm and the slow natural rhythm. It is like a clash between two physical laws.
In this constellation, the individual is determined by the digitalization, similar to the threat felt when we are micro managed. If perceived badly, this can have some serious impact on our stress level. This conflict may seem to have a relation to the job or company we work for, but in fact it has not.
People bring their own ego and authority when joining a new assignment. You do not see this track record on their CV’s, they will act according to their beliefs and character and will attract conflicts or harmony. If conflicts arise and you do not address the underlying cause, either the manager or the employee will get sick in the end. As a manager, you have the pressure from the top, however, the question is how you behave and how you lead your team.
In the next blog I will talk about how you can manage yourself in the technology transformation puzzle.