Technology can make your life as a manager a lot easier, but if you don’t understand it, it can make your life very frustrating. Systems for logistics, reporting, banking and reservations should help you. Today they are more complex than ever, and when something goes wrong it is hard to find out where.

Recently the OTP, the verification code the bank sends you, stopped working when we tried to make a transaction in our online banking. It took the bank more than three weeks to find the cause. Many departments were involved and we made many visits to the bank. Nobody was lazy. The system was simply so complex that nobody could see the whole picture.

Systems changed how we work

At the start of my career I was a project manager, installing large systems. That was the time when systems became complex and had to connect to other systems. Slowly, the systems started to decide how you run your processes. Work became easier, but you now had to understand two things: your profession and how the system works. Management changed too, from walking around and talking to people to sitting behind a computer and doing administration.

Something else changed along the way: people started to hide behind the system. “Sorry, the system doesn’t allow that.” “I can’t change it, the system can’t do it.” You hear it in banks, shops, offices and lodges. It sounds like a reason, but it is an excuse. A system does only what people told it to do. We build it, we set it up and we can change it. As a manager, don’t accept this answer from your team, and never use it yourself. If the system stops you from doing the right thing for your customer, the system needs to change, not the customer.

Today we have mobile systems and Artificial Intelligence. They promise efficiency and more free time, but for most managers that is not happening yet.

Email and WhatsApp: only half the conversation

Have you noticed how much miscommunication happens on email and WhatsApp? A conversation has three parts: the words, the tone of voice and the body language. Long before we had words, people already understood each other through gestures and sounds, and that is still how we read each other today. Email and WhatsApp only give you the words. You have to guess the tone and the body language, and most of the time we guess negative.

Emojis were invented to fix this, but they created new problems. I struggle with them myself. Is a yellow heart different from a red one? What does a blue heart mean, or a purple one? And what is the story with the eggplant? It turns out that the colours can mean different things to different people, and that some emojis have a meaning that has nothing to do with the picture. On top of that, every generation seems to have its own street language. A message that is friendly for you can be strange, or even offensive, for someone twenty years younger or older. If you are not sure what a symbol or word means, don’t use it.

So for important conversations, meet face to face, or use video if you can’t. Use email and WhatsApp to confirm what you agreed or to send a summary afterwards.

Artificial intelligence: a great tool, a poor replacement

I am not an AI expert, but I have learned a few things. Many people use AI in a way that doesn’t help them. I receive emails that were clearly written by AI. I know these people, and the words and phrases are not how they speak in a face-to-face conversation. I bet they don’t know what half of those words mean. Sometimes I send the email back and ask for an explanation, and then I finally get their real voice. The same happens with training requests. It is clear that AI wrote the content, and when I start asking questions there are no answers. If you can’t explain it, you don’t own it.

I use AI a lot, but I have learned how to train it. Start by giving it a profile: the company you work for, the culture, the mission and the language you want the answers in. Also ask it to be critical, because AI is generally a pleaser and tells you what you want to hear. You need a sparring partner, not a cheerleader. The quality of the answer also depends on the quality of your question, and question prompts can help you ask the right one. Always check the sources it gives you, because they are not always correct and links often don’t work. I write my content myself first and then ask AI to refine it or add what is missing. Know what you want, and be critical.

The bottom line

Technology and systems can help you enormously, if you know how and when to use them.

Management is still people work.