Autonomous Transformation: Creating a More Human Future in the Era of Artificial Intelligence
Brian Evergreen
Wiley (August 2023)
How to create a future of “profitable good” with AI and other new technologies
As I began to read this book, I was again reminded of The Innovation Ultimatum in which Steve Brown focuses on disruptive technologies that intimately connect the digital and physical worlds. He devotes a separate chapter to each of these:
1. Artificial intelligence (AI)
2. Sensors and the Internet of Things (IOT)
3. Autonomous Machines — robots, cobots, drones, and self-driving vehiclem
4. Distributed leaders and blockchains
5. Virtual, augmented, and mixed reality
6. Connecting everything and everyone: 5G networks and satellite constellations
Brown suggests that these technologies be viewed as primary colors on a palette on which innovators mix and match in appropriate combinations and configurations. The companies that thrive in months and years to come “will be the ones that never rest on their laurels. These companies will fully embrace every one of these six technologies and combine them in creative ways to leapfrog competition …Winners will create massive value in the digital domain and use the six technologies to bridge that value into the physical domain, streamlining operations, delighting customers, and creating exciting new products and services.”
In another brilliant book Autonomous Transformation, Brian Evergreen introduces his concept of “Profitable Good.” He agrees with Brown that disruptive technologies cannot be ignored or denied, nor should they be. However, as he points out, business leaders have inherited and optimized processes and systems designed in and for the Industrial Revolution and they are no longer effective at leveraging the newest technologies.
What to do? In this book, Evergreen provides leaders with a blueprint “to create a more human future through the successful implementation [of new technologies] that comprise Autonomous Transformation.” That is the WHAT and the details that explain HOW are best revealed within Evergreen’s lovely and eloquent narrative.
More specifically, as he explains, “autonomous reformation is the process of reforming, or improving the performance of, an organization’s products, services, processes, or structures through the converting of analog and digital processes and assets to autonomous processes and assets without changing the nature of those products, services, processes, or structures.”
These are among the passages of greatest interest and value to me, also listed to indicate the nature and scope of Evergreen’s coverage:
o What Is Profitable Good? (Pages 5-6)
o Reformation, Transformation, and Creation: DefiningvAutonomous Transformation (13-21)
o The Pain of Uncertainty (27-28)
o Our Inheritance from the Industrial Revolution (36-38)
o Data Science Taylorism (40-41)
o Centurie-Old Systems (43-45)
o The Co-Existence of Maintenance and Creation (49-50)
o Requiem for theIndustrialRevolution: Rehumanizing Work (53-55)
o Problem Solving versus Future Solving (59-62)
o Doing the Wrong Thing Right 65-66)
o The Interconnectedness of Parts within a System (76-78)
o The Lost Art of Synthesis (81-83)
o How to Determine Whether or Not You Are Focused on a Subset of the Whole System (87-93)
o Intraorganizational Systems (96-97)
o Industry-Specific Organizational Systems (99-101)
o One Reimagining of Internal Technology Organizations, and, A Second Reimagining of Internal Technology Organizations (105-109 and 110-112)
o Chaos, Noise, and Epistemology in the Digital Age (115-118)
o Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and the Factory Floor, and, Two Views from Both Sides of the Field (123-125 and 125-126)
o The Multiplication of Expertise: A Leadership Imperative (131-137)
Obviously, no brief commentary such as mine could possibly do full justice to the value of the information, insights, and counsel that Brian Evergreen provides in abundance. However, I hope I have at least indicated why I think so highly of his work, especially of his latest book. That said, the value of the material will be determined by how well those who read the book absorb and digest the material, then apply it effectively to achieving the given strategic objectives.
Here are two concluding suggestions while reading Autonomous Transformation: Highlight key passages, and, record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), and page references as well as your responses to questions posed and to lessons you have learned. (Pay close attention to the key reminders in the final paragraph at the end of chapters.) These two simple tactics will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.