Why I Want AI to Steal 70% of My Job (And Why You Should Too)
Why the 'Spaghetti Junction' is Safer Than You Think - according to the latest McKinsey report.
I was reading a recent McKinsey report last week that stopped me in my tracks. We often talk about the ‘future of work’ as some distant, abstract concept, but the data is telling us that the future has already arrived.
The report highlights a staggering statistic: current generative AI has the potential to automate work activities that absorb 60 to 70 per cent of employees’ time today.
Let that sink in for a moment. Two-thirds of the work currently being done in our organisations could be handled by a machine.
For many, this number induces a cold sweat. It feels like a threat. But when I read it, I didn’t see redundancy. I saw the ultimate validation of what I call the Bionic Leader.
If we are currently spending nearly 70 per cent of our time on tasks that a machine could do, that means we are only spending 30 per cent of our time on the things that only a human can do. Navigating this shift is what I describe as the ‘spaghetti junction’ of leadership - the paths are twisting and the exit is not always clear, but the destination is worth the journey.
The Great Unlocking of Time
The McKinsey findings reinforce a critical distinction I have often made between ‘graft’ and ‘value’. We have been conditioned to believe that long hours of manual data processing - the ‘graft’ - is where our worth lies.
It is not. That is just the noise.
If McKinsey is right, and we can hand over that 60 per cent of ‘noise’ to an AI agent, we are not making ourselves obsolete; we are liberating ourselves. We are buying back the capacity to be strategic, empathetic and present.
This is the essence of the Bionic mindset. It is not about competing with the machine for speed; it is about partnering with it to reclaim our humanity.
The ‘Apprentice Gap’ Paradox
However, the report also triggered a deeper reflection on a specific risk I have been worried about for some time.
McKinsey notes that while AI can handle basic tasks, the real premium in the future will be on judgement.
This creates a paradox. Historically, we learned judgement by doing the basic tasks. We learned how to manage clients by taking notes in meetings we weren’t qualified to lead. We learned how to spot patterns in data by manually entering it into spreadsheets.
If AI does the note-taking and the data entry, how do our junior colleagues learn the judgement?
We risk creating a ‘hollowed-out’ generation who have the theoretical answer provided by an AI, but lack the tacit wisdom to know if it is the right answer. If we are not careful, we will end up with leaders who can generate a strategy in seconds but cannot defend it in a crisis.
The Premium on ‘Human’ Skills
The antidote to this is also found in the data. The demand for social and emotional skills is predicted to rise as the demand for basic cognitive skills stabilises.
In a world where an AI can write a perfect email, the value of a face-to-face conversation skyrockets. When an algorithm can predict a trend, the value of a leader who can rally a team to act on that trend becomes priceless.
This is why I argue that the most advanced leadership tool of the future is not a piece of software. It is the ability to disconnect, to think deeply and to connect on a human level.
Takeaways for Leaders
If you manage a team, you need to look at that 60 per cent figure and ask hard questions about your current workflows.
Audit the Noise: Identify the tasks your team does that fall into that automatable 60 per cent. Is it scheduling? Data sifting? First-draft reporting? Automating this is not about cutting heads; it is about freeing minds.
Teach Your Working: To solve the Apprentice Gap, you must change how you mentor. You can no longer rely on osmosis. You must narrate your decision-making process out loud. Explain why you rejected the AI’s suggestion.
Protect the Sanctuaries: Create ‘human-only’ zones in your week. These are meetings or thinking times where no AI is allowed. This protects the ‘analogue premium’ that builds trust.
Takeaways for Coaches
For my fellow coaches, this shift fundamentally changes our contract with our clients.
Coach for Wisdom, Not Knowledge: Knowledge is now a commodity. Your client can get the ‘textbook’ answer from an AI agent in seconds. Your value lies in helping them apply wisdom to that knowledge.
AI Literacy is a Core Skill: You cannot mentor a modern leader if you are ignoring the tools they use. Help them experiment with AI safely, but hold them accountable to ethical red lines.
The Empathy Gatekeeper: Remind your clients that while AI can simulate empathy, it cannot feel it. Help them identify the moments - like performance reviews or crisis management - where the human must remain firmly in the loop.
Conclusion
The McKinsey data is a wake-up call, but it should be an optimistic one. We have the opportunity to shed the drudgery that has weighed down leadership for decades.
We can leave the 60 per cent of ‘graft’ to the machines, and focus entirely on the 40 per cent of leadership that is truly, wonderfully human.
That is a future worth running towards.
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True. Leveraging AI is not just about using it as a tool
I have some questions to do with the ethics, dangers and security concerns of using AI.
- AI right now is incredibly bad for both the consumer computer market and the environment, as it is buying up massive amounts of computer parts and using massive amounts of water. Is supporting this worth gaining the, understandbly tempting, potential 60% of employees time to be reallocated to other tasks?
- What strategies would you put in place to stop the creep of AI taking over things it shouldn't? For example, if some employees use AI to generate an answer to a question, and don't proffread or fact check it.
- How would you deal with the potential cybersecurity threat posed by unregulated acess to LLM AIs? Many of them use conversations as training data, and if an employee put confidential info into it someone may be able to learn the data, or data that includes or references it. This, to my knowledge, can only be circumveneted by a locall LLM model, which may be unattainable for some leaders without the neccessary powers.