In Reinventing Jobs: A 4-Step Approach for Applying Automation to Work, Ravin Jesuthasan and John W. Boudreau explain how leaders can create and sustain a workplace culture within which people “feel safe and motivated to report when they envision new automation applications that might replace some of their tasks [and thereby release to focus on tasks that only humans can complete]. Leaders must show that, as automation progresses and jobs are reinvented, they can be trusted to help the human workers adapt or move to other organizations in a humane and exciting way.”

In several previous blog posts, I have asserted that the best career opportunities in months and years to come will involve human/machine collaborations. I do not understand, frankly, why so many people feel threatened by automated production. Initially, there was violent opposition to the Eli Whitney’s cotton gin and Cyrus McCormick’s reaper. “Machines are stealing our jobs!” Today, there is vehement (if not violent) opposition to alternative energy sources (e.g. wind and solar) that threaten industries such as coal. Nonetheless, there will be at least 7-10 times as many jobs available in emerging alternative energy companies than there will be in coal mines.

Reinventing Jobs was published by Harvard Business Rerview Press (Harvard Business Review Press (October 2018). I also highly recommend Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI co-authored by Paul R. Daugherty and H. James Wilson and also published by HBR Press (March 2018).