Humans Are Underrated

• Date: 01 May 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22164
• Author: Tom Pryor
• Published date: 01 May 2016

71

© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI 10.1002/jcaf.22164

Humans Are Underrated

Tom Pryor

BOOK REVIEWED

Colvin, Geoff, 2015. Humans

Are Underrated (New York:

Portfolio/Penguin).

If you work in the finance

and accounting profession and

read my review of Rise of the

Robots, you might assume your

career outlook is bleak. I bring

you good news. Geoff Colvin

provides hope in his book

Humans Are Underrated.

It is true that computers,

algorithms, and robots have

and will continue to perform

finance and accounting activi-

ties effectively and efficiently. In

Humans Are Underrated, Colvin

offers a career strategy:

We should know by

now that figuring out

what computers will

never do is an exceed-

ingly perilous route

to determining how

humans can remain

valuable. But a better

strategy is to ask: What

are the activities that

we humans, driven by

our deepest nature or

by the realities of daily

life, will simply insist

be performed by other

humans, regardless of

what computers can

do? (pp. 41–42)

There are many things we

want to hear from a person

instead of computer. One activ-

ity is learning our verdict by a

judge in court. Another is hear-

ing a cancer diagnosis from a

doctor, even if he/she got the

information from a computer.

What financial or account-

ing judgments do you want to

learn from a person instead of

computer? The answers to that

question will be useful career

guides.

If you are afraid your job

will be replaced by a com-

puter, author Geoff Colvin

predicts it probably can and

will be. A college degree is no

longer a meal ticket to a good

life or career. Skills of interac-

tion are becoming the key to

success.

Professor John McGinnis

of Northwestern University

says that average lawyers “face

a bleak future.” Their best

chance of prospering may

well lie in using interpersonal

abilities, “by persuading angry

and irrational clients to act in

their self-interest,” McGinnis

explains. “Machines won’t be

able to create the necessary

emotional bonds to perform

this important service.”

Author Geoff Colvin pres-

ents an argument that many

professions will experience

similar impacts as lawyers.

He predicts that “tomorrow’s

most valuable engineers will

not be geniuses in cubicles;

rather, they’ll be those who

can build relationships, brain-

storm, collaborate, and lead.”

Peter Drucker coined the

term knowledge worker in the

late 1950s. In the 21st century,

the most valuable people are

increasingly “relationship

workers.”

America’s Department

of Defense is being impacted

by the same relationship and

people trends we see in busi-

ness. U.S. Secretary of Defense

Ashton Carter said:

In future wars, win-

ning will mean having

a victory that is widely

accepted, including by

the defeated. So you

won’t win by mow-

ing down millions of

people. You’ll win by

having people at the

front edge who have

human skills.