New Technology; New Org Structure
- Dan Greenberg
- Mar 4
- 5 min read
The conversation around AI that is dominating news and social media is all about how many of our jobs can already be done by AI. We see posts and articles about the increased power of AI its ability to do most white collar jobs. The only question is how quickly will it be able to do all of our jobs, right?
However, speaking with consultants and business services providers who work with technology companies you will hear something interesting. That conversation referenced above is outdated. It’s an old conversation. That conversation about AI being able to do everything is dominating our feeds and news cycles, but the tech forward companies that have embraced AI already had that conversation in 2024. It’s old news now. The companies who know best how to use AI have already moved on to a different conversation when it comes to their own internal operations, and it may not be the conversation you think. The new conversation is about understanding the limitations of AI and what those limitations mean for the types of people that they need to employ, the arrangements by which to employ them, and the operational rigor that it will take for humans to work alongside AI.
I am not claiming that jobs wont be replaced by technology, they absolutely will be, but I am arguing that new roles and work arrangements will replace them. This is not a new theory and there is nothing novel about my claim, but it certainly pushes back against the grain of the current flow of writing and conversation. What I am talking about here is not so much a theory, but more of a point of view. It is a point of view that matches what we have seen in history with other technological leaps, and a point of view that has already come to fruition in our current cycle in certain contexts, as companies that have promised over and over again that they will replace people with AI agents have continuously been unable to do so in many cases. And, let me be clear, and I will expound on this a bit later; it’s not that the technology can’t do the jobs, it’s that the scalability of the tools based on the technology is fundamentally lacking.
Even if you disagree with my point of view, the question is; what do you do now? As a business, how do you build for a future where technology increasingly takes over the tasks that humans are doing today, while still accomplishing everything you need to from a business operations perspective today? How do you prepare for a future where humans do different jobs while understanding that the business tools based on the technology have limitations and that means that advancement to that future state will be slower than expected? How do you act in this time of limbo?
Some think that the answer is a universal basic income or some other version of wealth distribution because eventually the machines will be able to do all the work. They have essentially thrown in the towel on business productivity, and have moved on from the economic implications. But this fundamentally misses the point. This question is much bigger than capitalism vs. socialism, or wealth distribution vs. work retraining programs. The question is; how do we stay productive as a society? How do we build organizations that embrace technology and position people alongside technology in a way that improves productivity?
There are two important things to consider when thinking through this question:
Specialization of Focus: It is not efficient to have highly skilled workers focus on outward productivity and inward tool engagement at the same time. In other words, if you have someone who is great at building relationships, you don’t want them also spending their time learning how best to interact with AI tools so that they can essentially run all of their own operations. First of all, not many people are great at both of those things but secondly, and most importantly, it’s not efficient. You want to find people who are great at doing the things AI can’t do and then pay them to do those things. Then you want to find people who are great at operating, and great at engaging with and working with tools, and pay them to do that.
Shift to the Vanguard: Businesses compete at the vanguard of technological development. We have seen this affect play out repeatedly over the course of economic history. The U.S went from being a manufacturing economy to a service economy because technology improved and many pieces of the manufacturing puzzle because commoditized. This meant that everyone could do them, so businesses started to compete on service offerings, and consultancies entered the market to help firms operate more efficiently and grow based on new financial and operational strategies. Competition fundamentally changed because what businesses competed on in the past became commoditized and that opened up opportunities for new kinds of competition, new kinds of services, and new types of roles and businesses at the vanguard of technology.
All of that said, businesses still have to offer something to the market, so there will still be production, revenue, and administration. I focus on revenue so that is what I am going to write about here but the principals actually apply quite well across an organization.
In order to prepare a business for the future while still positioning it for success today, companies need to find 3 things, and then do a fourth. Here is what they are.
Find Great “Relationship” People & Executives: These are your sellers, marketers, deal-makers, and executives. Hire them for their emotional intelligence and ability to make relationships and deals. These are the traits AI cannot replicate.
Find Function-Specific Tools: Don’t just look for “AI for your industry”, or “AI for your team”. Look for tools built for a specific function. Focus on getting specific tasks done with the best-in-kind technology available for that particular action.
Find Great “Operational” People: This is the new middle layer. These are the “interface” people. They take input from the relationship experts and manage the tools to produce a result. They can be technical or operational in their skill set. They serve up information to your front-line people on a silver platter, allowing the experts to stay focused on their craft.
Build a Functional Map and Create “Pods”: Following the lead of former submarine commander David Marquet, you must “push authority to where the information is.” Create pods that include relationship people, operational people, and their specific tools. Give these pod leaders significant authority to act.
Tools are function specific and since we are integrating tools into our org chart in this new agentic world we live in, we need to start thinking about how to orient ourselves based on function, not based on traditional organizational structures. Sure, some of this will look familiar, but many functions within organizations today have highly varied functions and use different tools to achieve their goals.
We are on the precipice of new ways of working, new ways to engage workers, new kinds of roles, and new ways that companies will compete. In order to meet those challenges now and in the future, we need more flexible organizational structures that are focused more on function and less on horizontal alignment. We need more decentralized power and a focus on integration of people and tools in the organizational structure. And, we need to reinvent the middle operational layer of talent in a way that allows us to hire and train the right people to interface with tools so that we can empower all of our people and tools across the org to specialize in what they do best.
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