2026 Week 27

I’m reminded that dropping a tool or technology into an organisation without considering the implications on people is one of the reasons technology implementations fail to deliver their promised value. This is true of a software upgrade, it’s true of a new operational dashboard, and it is very true of newfangled tools built around non-deterministic models. These new tools have the tendency to go off and do their own thing. Where the needs of employees are considered, it is often as an afterthought. Tool first, tell people to use it second. We make so many assumptions about how people will react to changes in their tooling. We promise these changes will have a positive impact on the business, but rarely are these promises challenged. As organisations across the world are letting people go in the hope that they can be replaced by a for loop and a statistical model, I would caution them to closely examine the promised benefits. Once you destroy a team, you can’t just put it back…