Autonomous Transformation

Autonomous Transformation

by Brian Evergreen
Released August 2023
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781119985297

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Book description

From technologist and strategist Brian Evergreen, a bold new agenda for the role of organizational leaders in creating a more human future with technology

Social good initiatives are incompatible with the current network of systems that make up and support the private and public sectors. Millions of dollars have been invested in bringing leaders together from organizations around the world to design solutions for global challenges such as the climate crisis, child labor, racism, war, and many more. Despite executive buy-in, alignment of core capabilities and resources, passionate leadership, and well-designed strategies, these initiatives inevitably fail (with a few, notable exceptions).

The dawn of the Internet ignited a global redesign and rebuild of the interlocking systems that make up and support the private and public sectors today. The era of Digital Transformation extended this further through the adoption of cloud technologies and distributed computing.

With a recent wave of technological advancements, organizations have arrived at another global redesign and rebuilding of the network of systems that make up society: Autonomous Transformation, revealing an opportunity for leaders to create Profitable Good through systemic design in combination with emerging autonomous technologies and surprising and remarkable partnerships.

Autonomous Transformation provides a blueprint for leaders and managers who have aspired or attempted to harness artificial intelligence and its adjacent technologies for the betterment of their organization and the world, weaving strategy, business, economics, systemic design, and philosophy into four actionable steps with accompanying frameworks:

  1. Clear the Digital Fog
  2. See the Systems
  3. Choose a Problem Future
  4. Design Inevitability

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Introduction: We Can Create a More Human Future
    1. What Is a More Human Future?
    2. How Do We Create This More Human Future?
    3. What Is Profitable Good?
    4. Greed, Profit, and Altruism
    5. What About Social Purpose Corporations?
    6. Profitable Good in the Real World
    7. Notes
  6. PART ONE: The Fundamentals
    1. CHAPTER 1: Reformation, Transformation, and Creation: Defining Autonomous Transformation
      1. Weaving Our Way to the Moon
      2. Job Protectionism, Job Fatalism, and Job Pragmatism
      3. Preservation of Human Work for Human Experiences
      4. Creating a More Human Future Through Creation, Reformation, and Transformation
      5. Survivalism and Digital Darwinism
      6. Notes
    2. CHAPTER 2: What Does It Mean to Be Human in the Era of Artificial Intelligence?
      1. The Pain of Uncertainty
      2. Capability
      3. Consciousness
      4. Notes
  7. PART TWO: The Art of the Impossible
    1. CHAPTER 3: Our Inheritance
      1. Our Inheritance from the Industrial Revolution
      2. Taylorism, or Scientific Management
      3. Data Science Taylorism*
      4. Notes
    2. CHAPTER 4: Maintenance Mode
      1. Centuries‐Old Systems
      2. Maintenance Mode as a Means of Sustaining Scaffolded Systems
      3. Maintenance Mode and Advanced Technologies
      4. Is Technology the Problem or the Solution?
      5. The Coexistence of Maintenance and Creation
      6. A Note for Individual Contributors
      7. Note
  8. PART THREE: Envision Your Future
    1. CHAPTER 5: Requiem for the Industrial Revolution: Rehumanizing Work
      1. Note
    2. CHAPTER 6: The Problem with Solving Problems: Introducing Future Solving
      1. Problem Solving versus Future Solving
      2. The Use Case Problem
      3. The Second Use Case Problem: Use Case Battleship
      4. Doing the Wrong Thing Right
      5. Notes
    3. CHAPTER 7: Developing the Skill of Envisioning
      1. Functional Reimagining
      2. Multiverse Reimagining
  9. PART FOUR: Discover and Rediscover
    1. CHAPTER 8: Systemic Design and the Lost Art of Synthesis
      1. The Interconnectedness of Parts within a System
      2. Dimensions of Systems
      3. The Lost Art of Synthesis
      4. Notes
    2. CHAPTER 9: The Organization as a Chessboard: Seeing the Pieces
      1. How to Determine Whether You Are Focused on a Subset of the Whole System
      2. A Note for Individual Contributors
      3. Notes
    3. CHAPTER 10: The Organization as a System
      1. Intraorganizational Systems
      2. Interorganizational Systems
      3. Industry‐Specific Organizational Systems
    4. CHAPTER 11: Broken Systems
      1. The Hedberg Strategy
      2. A Broken System
      3. One Reimagining of Internal Technology Organizations
      4. A Second Reimagining of Internal Technology Organizations
  10. PART FIVE: Clear the Digital Fog
    1. CHAPTER 12: Chaos, Noise, and Epistemology in the Digital Age
      1. Chaos, Noise, and the Three Logical Fallacies
      2. Epistemology in the Digital Age
      3. Notes
    2. CHAPTER 13: Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and the Factory Floor
      1. The Divide Within
      2. The Divide Across
      3. The Divide Without
      4. Note
    3. 14 The Multiplication of Expertise: A Leadership Imperative
      1. Three Altitudes of Inputs and Outputs
      2. Example A
      3. Example B
      4. Notes
  11. PART SIX: Design for Inevitability
    1. CHAPTER 15: From Data‐Driven to Reason‐Driven
      1. Aristotle's Conundrum
      2. Organizational Empiricism
      3. Organizational Reasoning (from Data‐Driven to Reason‐Driven)
      4. Notes
    2. CHAPTER 16: The Reformational Economics of Linear and Exponential Value
      1. Linear versus Exponential Value in the Case of Capability
      2. Notes
    3. CHAPTER 17: The Reformational Economics of Omission and Commission
      1. Outcome Bias in the Face of Failure
    4. CHAPTER 18: The Ecosystem: Surprising and Remarkable Partnerships
      1. Designing for Inevitability: An Ecosystemic Discipline
      2. Building an Ecosystem
      3. Maintaining versus Sustaining an Ecosystem
      4. Surprising and Remarkable Partnerships within an Organization
  12. PART SEVEN: Create a More Human Future
    1. CHAPTER 19: Beyond Pilot Purgatory
      1. Pilots within Social Systems
      2. Riskless Experimentation
      3. Piloting the Path to Promotion
      4. Human‐Centered Transformation
      5. Note
    2. CHAPTER 20: Storytelling: Leading Social Systems
      1. Storytelling as a Strategic Organizational Imperative
      2. Closing the Story Circle
      3. Storytelling as an Agent for Change
    3. CHAPTER 21: A More Human Organization
      1. Notes
  13. PART EIGHT: Autonomous Transformation Technologies
    1. CHAPTER 22: Autonomous Transformation Technologies: A Leader's Guide
      1. Autonomous Transformation Example 1: Product Development
      2. Autonomous Transformation Example 2: Global Logistics
      3. Autonomous Transformation Example 3: Health Care
      4. A Note on Blockchain
      5. Notes
    2. CHAPTER 23: A Deeper Dive into Artificial Intelligence
      1. The Components of Artificial Intelligence
      2. Analytics
      3. Statistics
      4. Data Science
      5. Decision Science
      6. Machine Learning
      7. Generative Artificial Intelligence (Generative AI)
      8. Reinforcement Learning
      9. Autonomous Artificial Intelligence
      10. Machine Teaching: A New Paradigm
      11. Automation versus Artificial Intelligence
      12. Automation versus Autonomy
      13. How to Tell When Someone Is Lying about Artificial Intelligence
      14. Quiz
      15. Notes
  14. Conclusion
  15. What Should You Read Next?
  16. Acknowledgments
  17. Index
  18. End User License Agreement

Product information

  • Title: Autonomous Transformation
  • Author(s): Brian Evergreen
  • Release date: August 2023
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781119985297