Who has greater choice in how you interact with others, you or your computer?
Saturday’s Wall Street Journal article, Sweet Talking Your Computer, was sensational, hilarious, and just a bit scary.
When BMW introduced one of the most sophisticated navigation systems and telematics systems into its 5 Series car in Germany, BMW was forced to recall this pinnacle of German engineering? Why? Not because of anything technical. The system had a female voice. Agitated German men couldn’t trust a woman (um, that would be a computer voice) to give them directions.
People respond to computers the same way that they respond to people.
If you were asked how much you liked your dinner, odds have it that you would respond to your buddy, differently than if the chef came out and asked for your opinion.
Don’t believe it?
The author of this article ran a survey where he tutored his students through a computer. Half of the students were asked by the same computer how they thought the computer’s performance was. The other half of the students were asked by another computer across the room. Who had the better scores? Yes, you guessed it. When the computer across the room asked them, the students gave lower scores. They couldn’t even be honest with a computer.
So, do we have a chip in our brain that causes us to avoid difficult conversations? Do we shun honesty in order to not hurt people’s feelings? Well, if we can’t even be honest with a laptop, who can you trust anymore?
The key to writing better code is to look at the code you have, see the problems for what they are, admit that these problems are unworkable, and then change the code.
The foundation to a great and extraordinary company is to have a group of people so dedicated to the results of the company that they replace their “nice” 1.0 chip and replace them with the 2.0 chip called “living according to their commitments.”
It might be difficult to “reboot” people, but with the establishment of integrity, commitment, and the skill set of speaking through declarations, it is certainly far from impossible.