There are many ways to use technology in a positive way. John Naisbitt described how this could be done more than forty years ago in his two books Megatrends and High Tech, High Touch.
Looking to the future, he said that it would be vital for service providers to get the right balance between the following aspects.
High Tech – This would involve providing technology that simplified people’s lives and helped them to achieve success.
High Touch – This would also involve providing the personal touch that added something extra to help people to achieve success.
Today this approach often calls for starting with High Touch – the human dimension. Let’s look at an example from medicine. This what a good doctor does when meeting a patient. They often go through the following stages.
High Touch – They start by making the person feel welcome and asking them about their situation.
High Tech – They then use High Tech (or Low Tech) to find out more about the patient and provide the treatment.
High Touch – They then finish the session by focusing on the patient and describing the specific next steps.
Beware of people who immediately jump to High Tech first and prescribe an answer without factoring in the human dimension.
The High Touch, High Tech, High Touch approach can work in many fields. Imagine that you are writing a proposal for a client who wants to use AI or another tool. You may focus on the following themes.
High Touch
This involves starting by customising the proposal and focusing on the people aspect. It is important to show you understand the people’s or organisation’s needs, strengths, culture, challenges and goals.
High Tech
It then involves showing how it is possible to use High Tech to help the people or organisation to simplify their lives, tackle challenges and achieve success.
High Touch
It concludes by returning to the people aspect. This involves describing the specific next steps that can be taken to help them or their organisation to achieve their goals.
Let’s return to your own work. Looking ahead, can you think of a situation where you may want to follow elements of the High Touch, High Tech and High Touch approach?
This could be when working with a customer, leading a project in an organisation or implementing parts of a strategy. How could you follow this approach in your own way?
If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. This invites you to complete the following sentences.
Leave a Reply