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Accelerating technology has been creating a lot of worry over job loss to automation, especially as machines become capable of doing things they never could in the past. A recent report released by the McKinsey Global Institute estimated that 49 percent of job activities could currently be fully automated—that equates to 1.1 billion workers globally.
What gets less buzz is the other side of the coin: automation helping to create jobs. Believe it or not, it does happen, and we can look at one of the world’s largest retailers to see that.
Thanks in part to more robots in its fulfillment centers, Amazon has been able to drive down shipping costs and pass those savings on to customers. Cheaper shipping made more people use Amazon, and the company hired more workers to meet this increased demand.
Division of labor
So what do the robots do, and what do the people do?
Tasks involving fine motor skills, judgment or unpredictability are handled by people. They stock warehouse shelves with items that come off delivery trucks. A robot could do this, except that to maximize shelf space, employees are instructed to stack items according to how they fit on the shelf rather than grouping them by type.
Robots can only operate in a controlled environment, performing regular and predictable tasks. They’ve largely taken over heavy lifting, including moving pallets between shelves—good news for warehouse workers’ backs—as well as shuttling goods from one end of a warehouse to another.

Under current technology, the expense of building robots able to stock shelves based on available space is more costly and less logical than hiring people to do it.
Similarly, for outgoing orders, robots do the lifting and transportation, but not the selecting or packing. A robot brings an entire shelf of goods to an employee’s workstation, where the employee selects the correct item and puts it on a conveyor belt for another employee to package. By this time, the shelf-carrying robot is already returning the first shelf and retrieving another.
Since loading trucks also requires spatial judgment and can be unpredictable—space must be maximized here even more than on shelves—people take care of this too.
More robots mean more humans, for now
Ever since acquiring Boston-based robotics company Kiva Systems in March 2012—at a price tag of $775 million—Amazon has been ramping up its use of robots and is continuing to pour funds into automation research, both for robots and delivery drones.
In 2016 the company grew its robot workforce by 50 percent, from 30,000 to 45,000. Far from laying off 15,000 people, though, Amazon increased human employment by around 50 percent in the same period of time.
Even better, the company’s Q4 2016 earnings report included the announcement that it plans to create more than 100,000 new full-time, full-benefit jobs in the US over the next 18 months. New jobs will be based across the country and will include various types of experience, education, and skill levels.
So how tight is the link between robots and increased productivity? Would there be even more jobs if people were doing the robots’ work?
Well, picture an employee walking (or even running) around a massive warehouse, locating the right shelf, climbing a ladder to reach the item he’s looking for, grabbing it, climbing back down the ladder (carefully, of course), and walking back to his work station to package it for shipping. Now multiply the time that whole process took by the hundreds of thousands of packages shipped from Amazon warehouses each day.
Lots more time. Lots less speed. Fewer packages shipped. Higher costs. Lower earnings. No growth.
Though it may not last forever, right now Amazon’s robot-to-human balance is clearly in employees’ favor. Automation can take jobs away, but sometimes it can create them too.
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If you've been dreaming for years about having your own R2-D2 or BB-8, get ready. Just don't expect your new robot companion to do too much, because you might be disappointed. Continue reading →

Warren Berger believes questions are more important than answers. A best-selling author and self-proclaimed “questionologist,” Warren is on a mission to help all leaders learn how to use questioning to support innovative, resilient and adaptive organizations.
We caught up with Warren recently to ask him about why it’s more important than ever to lean into questioning and curiosity.
Lisa Kay Solomon: Your recent book is called A More Beautiful Question. Can you talk about what a “beautiful question” is and why they are so important to ask?
Warren Berger: I am particularly interested in questions that lead to innovation. So, I studied a lot of those kinds of questions to see what they had in common and arrived at this definition: A beautiful question is an ambitious yet actionable question that can shift the way we think about something and may serve as a catalyst for change.
Each aspect is important. “Ambitious” because we have to ask bold questions to innovate. “Actionable” because big questions we can’t do anything about don’t lead to change. Critically, the question has to cause a mental shift—it makes you step back and say, “Hmmm, that’s interesting. I hadn’t really thought about this question before, and I want to explore it further.”
These kinds of questions are the starting point of innovation and growth, which is why every leader should be asking them and encouraging others to ask them.
LKS: How does questioning help us become better innovators?
WB: Questioning helps us become more comfortable and proactive in dealing with the unknown, which is critical for innovators. Innovators often operate in a realm where the solution to a particular problem is unknown or may even seem impossible.
The innovator’s job is to explore that unknown and arrive at a completely new and original answer. Questions can help the innovator keep moving forward; you start with one question, then that can lead you to a better, deeper question, and so on. You could almost think of questioning as “an app for the unknown.”
When you finally arrive at the answer—the innovation—it may seem the questioning is over. But it isn’t really. Soon, the innovator is wondering how to make their creation even better, more affordable—how they can expand upon it.
For true innovators, the cycle of questioning never ends.
LKS: Are you seeing technology change the type of questions we should be asking?
WB: Technology has thrown everything open to question because everything we thought we knew how to do can now be done differently. The shoe-retailer must ask a whole new set of questions as new technology revolutionizes that business. And it’s like that in every category—everything is being reinvented, and then reinvented again.
You might think this would cause us to ask more technical questions, but I also find it’s causing us to ask more basic questions, like “What business am I really in?” When you find your industry and your customer’s lifestyle are being reinvented, you have to go back to basics and ask fundamental questions.
Warren Berger.LKS: In AMBQ, you advocate for turning mission statements into mission questions. Can you share more about why that’s so important?
WB: Research suggests questions are more engaging and motivational than statements because they are more open-ended and invite participation. Mission statements might be better phrased as questions that start, for example, with the words "How might we."
Let’s say a robotics company’s statement is, “We make the world a better place through robotics.” That doesn’t sound very credible, and it also sounds like they’ve already done it. “How might we make the world a better place through robotics?” is more open-ended, forward-looking—and it invites people to help answer the question.
LKS: What are the most important questions leaders should start to ask themselves now?
WB: One big question they could ask is, “How might I foster a culture of inquiry?”
To do this, leaders must lead by example. They need to ask big questions in front of others and exhibit their own curiosity. But they also need to encourage others to question more. Even though a leader can (and should) serve as the “Questioner in Chief,” the real potential is when people at all levels wonder and inquire together.
In the book, I refer to this as “collaborative inquiry.” When lots of people are asking their own questions and also working together on big, shared “How might we” questions, you have a great breeding ground for innovation and growth. Plus, you’re more likely to have a highly-engaged workforce. When people are curious and asking questions, they’re more intellectually engaged.
LKS: How can leaders build skills and incentivize questioning throughout their companies?
WB: Talk to people about the kinds of questions the company is most interested in. Give examples and stories to help them understand the difference between high potential questions and less powerful or useful questions.
You can also do question-formulation exercises—basically, “question-storming” where you train people to come up with questions instead of ideas. This gets people used to asking questions quickly on any challenge, but you can also use the exercises to teach them how to refine and improve their questions.
To incentivize asking questions, make sure you share and celebrate the great questions people come up with. And try not to punish questioning, by saying things like, “Don’t bring me questions, bring me answers!” There can be real value in someone bringing you a question, and you shouldn’t necessarily expect them to have the answer immediately or by themselves.
If it’s a big enough “beautiful question,” it might end up being something the whole organization goes to work answering!
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