Describing a company as “lean” describes how they handle their processes. Employing a “lean” methodology puts all those Six Sigma and process gurus to work by refining and breaking down bottlenecks into more manageable parts, eliminating waste and driving efficiency. NLP is helping organizations rely on fewer people to come up with such answers.
“Every time people come to me and ask for new bodies, it turns out so much of that can be answered by asking the right questions of our data and getting that in front of the decision-makers,” says James Reinhart, CEO of thredUP, speaking to the Wall Street Journal2. “I think frankly it’s eliminated four to five people who would [otherwise] pull data and crunch it.”
The knee-jerk reaction to that is: “See I told you, the machines win again!” But not so fast.
All those companies the Journal spoke to “had middle and even senior managers who operated as player-coaches, tasked with both doing things and directing others.” That’s the distinction. There’s still a need for delegation and talented people to decipher meaning from machines.
At least for the time being.
