Let's Hope They Put Something Away

Automation has eliminated many low-level jobs. Over the next 50 years it will be senior management positions that will become obsolete because of increasingly intelligent computers. However, smart machines have their limits.

[MIT Professor Andrew] McAfee says, “I’ve never seen a piece of technology that could negotiate effectively. Or motivate and lead a team.” Tom Peters, a veteran American management guru, reckons the best leaders of the future will spend half their time reading books.

If those books were as revelatory as Mr. Peters' own best-seller from 30 years ago, reading would be a fruitful, job-preserving activity. IMHO, unfortunately, such brilliant reading material is produced very rarely.

Let's hope for their sake that the senior managers have put something away for a rainy day.

[Update - 10/4: the Economist echoes Mr. Peters. Business leaders should study the classics:

The only way to become a real thought leader is to ignore all this noise and listen to a few great thinkers. You will learn far more about leadership from reading Thucydides’s hymn to Pericles than you will from a thousand leadership experts. You will learn far more about doing business in China from reading Confucius than by listening to “culture consultants”.]