The Human Element Is Often the Weakest Link in a Process and the Most Overlooked
Posted on May 20, 2015 by Rey Tamayo, One of Thousands of Entrepreneurship Coaches on Noomii.
Tech Startups use technology to fix problems, but it often forgets that human behavior is the biggest problem of all and must consider it always.
It is funny how many innovations aim to automate everything and achieve efficiency gains by using technology yet they forget the human element of the equation. This human component is often the weakest link in the system. Technology can predict many things and address them to make it bullet proof, but it cannot predict all the mysteries of the human component. It is impossible to do so, but when considered into the overall process it can significantly plug many holes from potential common human mistakes. Since humans are so unpredictable it is impossible to plug all holes, there is always outlier behavior that will thwart the system. However, when considering the human interaction and human component, much can be done to plug the most commonly known problems.
One of the biggest reasons for startup failure is co-founder misunderstandings and fighting. There are ways to fix this problem, but it requires flexibility and experience to do so. All the ways address the human conditions that lead to startups falling apart, many times before they even get far along. be it jealousy, ego, poor managerial skills, lack of understanding, or a plethora of other problems that can prop up as the startup begins to hit and heat up, one of the primary problems of the startup implosion is the founders’ issues.
Take the security industry for example, they have come up with the most elaborate alarm systems and security methods yet when these fail it is usually the human component that fails. A fine example of this is a beautiful girl getting information from a guard that is crucial to their nefarious plan even without the guard noticing—even if in his training he is told not to give away this information. Most of the major heist in history have succeeded because of mistakes made by the humans trying to prevent the heist from happening not the technology. To this day the security industry is highly reliant on hard to manage human power to help them keep ahead of those that would do wrong. The funny thing is that watching the watchers requires more watchers and this means that the cost of watching the watchers watching the watchers, etc. becomes too costly. Even when alarm systems have become super sophisticated and top security officer training becoming almost militaristic at this point, the less trained security officers are still a big kink in the system. The biggest irony is that the lowest trained officers are the most numerous and usually the first responders—so the kink in the armor is large.
Security industry aside, there are many other business sectors which rely heavily on human power and even the high technology that has reached them usually does not take the human factor into account. While more and more companies are adding great technology that measures human productivity, the technology primarily aims at measuring rather than prevent the problems for those that have low productivity. There are companies such as Amazon and Boxed that get it and are finally employing technology to assist humans to fulfill faster and better, but that technology is still experimental. The human factor needs to be of greater consideration if optimum productivity and efficiency is to be achieved.
Beyond watching, securing, and measuring productivity to reduce cost, the human component can be enhanced greatly by predicting the better-known behaviors. Assisting in improving those behaviors that need improvement and eliminating as many negative ones as possible. Uber, for example, can actively assist drivers to move towards areas that will provide them better chances of engaging a rider rather letting move around with little aim and no assistance as cabbies do now. Google can refine the search return if the searcher keeps coming back to look for additional search return because they did not find the right one—but not just give them a new search return educate them on improving their searches. Considering the human experience in any system you build will not only make it easier to use but also improve its effectiveness beyond what most current technology does; while ultimately decreasing costs.
