Power tip: "You can't automate what you don't understand," Sara Reece
“Automation doesn't fix broken processes. It amplifies them.”
Transcript
Sara Reece: One of the biggest mistakes I see leaders make is believing automation will fix operational problems. It won't. Automation doesn't fix broken processes. It amplifies them. I've seen organisations invest millions of dollars into new technology because they expect the technology to solve the problem. But the solution wasn't the technology. The problem was that the executive leadership didn't fully understand how the work was actually getting done.
One of the advantages of what I do is that I get invited into organisations across a wide range of industries. Different businesses, different leadership teams, different processes. And I've noticed the same pattern over and over again. I've worked with multiple clients where we were preparing to automate part of a workflow, and as we started mapping the process, something didn't add up. The software wasn't the problem. The process was.
So we stopped. Instead of forcing automation onto a broken process, we spent time with the people doing the work. By "we," I mean myself and the executive team. We observed the process, asked questions, and learned how the work was actually getting done. Almost every time, we discovered a gap between the documented process and the real process. The team had developed workarounds because reality had changed. They weren't trying to ignore the process. They were just trying to get the job done.
Once we understood the real process, one of two things happened. Sometimes we found an excellent opportunity for automation, because we finally understood what should be automated. Other times, simply improving the process solved the problem. In fact, there have been organisations where, after redesigning the workflow, we realised they didn't need the automation after all. The process had become lean, effective, and easy to execute. Adding technology would have added complexity instead of value. And that is a success.
When I ask leaders, "Do you have a process?" almost everyone says yes. They'll point to an SOP or a process document of some kind. But that is a documented process. The question that really matters is: what is your team actually doing every day?
If you're considering automating a process, my advice is simple. Go to where the work happens. Spend time with the people doing the actual work. Observe. Ask questions. Don't make it an audit, and don't make it punitive. The goal isn't to prove someone is wrong. The goal is to understand why the process has evolved the way it did.
I think this requires something that doesn't get talked about enough. It requires humility. The humility to walk into the frontline of your business and accept that the work may not be happening the way you think it is. It's the ability to ask questions instead of giving answers, and to recognise that the people closest to the work often understand challenges that never make it into a report or a meeting.
One mindset I occasionally hear is, "My managers understand the day to day. I don't need to." In my experience, that's a blind spot. Your frontline team understands the work. Your managers understand their teams. But executive leadership understands the company's actual strategy. They see the big picture. Automation sits at the intersection of all three. The people doing the work can't decide how automation should support the long term direction of the business, and leadership cannot make good automation decisions without understanding how the work is actually done.
You can delegate execution. You cannot delegate understanding. That doesn't mean living the day to day. It means spending enough time there to understand reality before making decisions that change it.
The goal isn't to implement more technology. The goal is to build a business that's more efficient and more effective. To serve customers better, support employees better, and build a healthier, more profitable business that's ready to scale.
So before you ask, "What can we automate?" ask, "Do we truly understand how the work gets done today?" A successful automation doesn't begin with technology. It begins with understanding.
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