I used to own a house that began construction in 1896 and wasn’t finished until 1902.
From what I understand, around 50 men worked on it five, six, and sometimes seven days a week.
My current house is bigger. It took about four months to build with a team of around eight people.
I’ve been thinking about those two houses a lot lately, especially with all the fear surrounding AI.
Better tools allowed a much smaller team to build a bigger house in a fraction of the time.
The work got safer, too. The estimate is that two people were killed while building the old house. No one was injured building my current one.
That’s what better tools can make possible.
And I think AI is another chapter in that story.
When I hear people talk about AI today, there’s much more fear than excitement, particularly about the jobs it might replace. And I can understand why. When a tool can suddenly do work that used to require a person, it’s natural to wonder what happens to that person.
The people building my current house had tools that allowed them to accomplish far more with less time and effort. And while that meant fewer people were needed to build the house, it also changed what was possible.
I think that’s the opportunity we should be looking at with AI.
If I resist AI to protect my job, I may actually put it at greater risk. But if I use it to eliminate parts of my job, I create more room to contribute in ways I couldn’t before.
There’s another lesson in those houses, too.
Despite the enormous difference in how long they took to build, the basic process didn’t change. The foundation still came first, the walls still had to go up in the right order, and the people building the house still had to work from the same plan.
The tools made the work faster, safer, and more productive, but they didn’t eliminate the need for a plan, a process, or a team working together.
And I think that’s where EOS becomes even more important as AI advances.
EOS gives an organization clarity about what it wants to accomplish and a structure for getting there.
With a clear vision and the right structure, AI can help a team accomplish more than ever before. Without those things, it can just as easily create chaos at scale.
I believe people will always want to come together to accomplish something bigger than they could on their own.
And as our tools become more powerful, I think we should be asking ourselves what more we could accomplish together.
What parts of your job are you still protecting that AI could take off your plate? And what could your team accomplish if you let it?
