Success with Human Resource Capital

The purpose of this page is to express how humans fit into the chuck-stack success story.

Human First

The chuck-stack is a human-first approach to operational excellence. If humans, as a collective whole, are not 'driving the bus' toward a better existence for humanity, there is little reason to think beyond this sentence.

Not Possible Today

The current 'norm' in web-scale technology stacks has made the world a difficult place. It keeps innovation beyond the reach of the every-day person. We, members of chuck-stack, have lived in technology for the last 20 years, and we can barely contribute in this world of web-scale complexity.

The chuck-stack focuses on the needs of small and medium organizations. Web-scale complexity has little to no value in these organizations. Web-scale tooling requires too many experts and too much effort.

We need thinly veiled systems that are easy for humans to operate and reason about.

Just Ask

We need 'just ask' systems. Once we create these systems, we need to train users to 'just ask'.

Generative AI is exposing more people to more skills and knowledge. chuck-stack uses AI to assemble off-the-shelf tools in a simple way to ultimately give humans (who might have performed a task in an organization for years) the ability to say 'Can you do X for me?'.

These people know the nuances of the role. They know what works and what is acceptable. They are the experts! We need these people to help themselves.

How do we make this happen?

Bound by Roles

There are tree types of work instructions as defined here:

Roles - responsibilities of a person or system in an organization
Tasks - actions to be performed by one or more roles
Tools - software or mechanical devices used to perform one or more tasks

Let's focus on the role work instruction. This is your contract for what a person can (should or should not) do within an organization. For example:

A CSR (customer service rep) probably SHOULD manipulate orders on behalf of a customer to foster customer loyalty.
A CSR probably should NOT create accounting payments to anyone they want.

If you take the time to accurately define roles, you can use AI to ensure users stay within the proper role guardrails.

Human Agency

A better way to discuss role work instructions is through human agency. Humans strive to be relevant. One way we achieve this goal is by giving humans the autonomy to perform the tasks they understand well.

Said another way, if we document roles is such a way that they provide user's autonomy to perform tasks, we get better engagement. If we build 'just ask' systems where users can start automating tasks, we create superclerks.

In any given group of humans, some percentage will rise to the top of a performance scale. The super performers will start to automate tasks. Automation will reduce the need for as many humans.

Human AI Contradiction

We are painfully aware that augmentation and automation create efficiencies. These efficiencies often reduce the need for human capital. Said another way, some people might lose their jobs. This was true during the last 25+ years of ERP implementations, and it will be true moving forward.

If people are going to lose jobs as a result of chuck-stack adoption, how can you claim to be 'human first'?

This is a great question! In a chuck-stack deployment, we invite and educate everyone. We go to heroic efforts to help people see a different way of reasoning about their roles.

The reality is that not everyone can adapt. Then the question is: how do you quantify who can adapt?

Skills Knowledge Attitude Potential

Skills, knowledge, attitude and potential are 4 powerful attributes to measure human performance.

Skills - the ability to perform a task with near perfection repeatedly
Knowledge - the ability to gain, retain, connect and apply information to a wide variety of scenarios
Attitude - your collective belief system built from every experience in your life
Potential - your ability to acquire new skills and knowledge and mold your attitude

During a chuck-stack deployment, you are constantly coaching and measuring these attributes.

At any time, you might be coaching up, coaching out or both at the same time. Your responsibility as an organization is to invite your team to join you. Help them understand how to achieve success. If they cannot, do all you can to help them achieve success elsewhere.

Here is an IT job description illustrating how we use skills, knowledge and attitude.

Strategic Advantage

We believe the chuck-stack will give small and medium organizations a human resources strategic advantage. The goal is sub-linear employee growth as compared to revenue or complexity. Said another way:

Find, promote and retain elevated talent
Grow more with strategic employees

Beyond Owner Operator

The chuck-stack acts as a blueprint for owner operator success. It helps you escape the "Owner Operator" value limiting trap.

Many of not most small and medium organizations are trapped in an owner operator status. This means most strategic and tactical decisions are made by few in the organization. Many of the small and medium organizations are owned and operated by people over 55 years old. This means that the organization could face an uncertain future beyond the next 5 to 10 years.

Here is a more detailed discussion about escaping the owner operator trap. Here is an example scenario.

Decentralized Amazon

Here is extreme example of the envisioned success of chuck-stack. It also paints a picture of why the chuck-stack matters.

If we can elevate the platform to allow everyday users to reason about language, technology and business (organizations)...
If we can give them a way to think about and demonstrate their natural talents (not passion - but talent)...
If we can give them a way to understand how their talents fit into their world (neighborhood, city, state, country)...
If we can give them an entry point to start adding value into their world in a way that is authentic to the person or organization...
If we can give them a way to be compensated for their value...

We can see a way to create a decentralized version of amazon.com. We choose Amazon because it is not difficult for a reasonably intelligent human to imaging a world where Amazon tries to eliminate humans from the entire value chain. We want no part of this world.

History has proven that the masses seldom benefit from the charity of the elite. We need to create our own 'human-first' systems.