I enjoyed a rare late night kitchen table chat with a good fun friend of mine this weekend. She is a commercially successful fashion designer whose inspirational work influences what many women around the UK wear. She has spent years refining her skill and expertise and cares deeply about helping the customer feel great as she steps out of the house wearing her designs.

Inevitably, as all my friends now have to endure, the conversation moved towards robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the impact technology has had on her particular job. I wanted to get my head around what I am now calling the ‘DNA’ of her job; the aspects that only a human could do. Even with today’s sophisticated tech, do some of the best creative designs still start off as pencil drawings?

(Yes.)

With articles on robots and AI featuring almost daily in the mainstream press, I now see that there is an urgent need for us each to identify the ‘DNA’ within our jobs. By this, I mean the un-patternable and unique human-only aspect of each role.

This aspect will be considered premium and I think we should ring-fence and protect it as a ‘Do Not Automate’ function (you heard it here first). The nature of this ‘DNA’ will vary from job to job, but they are likely to be tasks that involve touch, eye contact, smell, gut feel, imagination and unique thought.

Simply put, these are tasks that have some form of organic basis. Even a single fresh idea sparked from an online search means a human value has been added to that supply chain. And they will all link at some point to an end outcome of a human emotion.

For the ability to consciously experience an emotion (wanted or not) is fundamental to all of our lives. Customer happiness is already a key measure for most workplaces, but I do see a near future where ALL aspects of human work will be measured on emotions.

Back to my fashion designer friend… If you as a shopper are looking to buy an outfit for a Christmas 2016 party you can ask Google to give you this season’s trend inspiration and style advice. But what if your job is to lead the team that selects A/W 2017? Your work is what Google will curate, not create.

An algorithm can tell us what to wear right now, but it is still a unique human job to inspire us as to what will be on trend next summer. This is the core DNA of her job, and so the challenge is to give her brain and body the time, space and quietness to listen to gut feel, tap into team intuition, and develop her ‘hunch’.

It would not be easy to automate this job DNA, however, technology has certainly transformed her performance in facilitating her to concentrate on it e.g. virtual cross-functional working with the Merchandising and Buying teams.

So, what does this mean for us right now? If you have at least 15 years ahead of you in the workforce, you need to act now. Review your last week at work and identify the moments in your role that brought out your unique human skill. Preview next week and highlight the moments where it really does have to be you in the scenario.

These are the moments to focus on, not the business as usual (if it is BAU then it probably follows a pattern…) as they are likely indicators of your job’s DNA. If this adds positive value, it would be a smart value to protect this as the Do Not Automate element.

Most of us will have been called upon talk about ourselves in an interview; about what makes us unique, and “better” than the other candidates in the running. With robot-related redundancy mentioned within Donald Trump’s first NY Times interview recently, it may not be too fantastical to imagine a point in the near future where we may have to pitch ourselves against AI.

(On a side note, I’m not sure my friend and I would have interviewed very well 7am the morning after our deep and meaningful…)

…it was just the one bottle, honest!
The robots are coming… remain employable and identify your job’s DNA (Do Not Automate) element!

Laura x