Personal Assistants Need To Be Non-Human

The Purpose

Why do you need a Personal Assistant? Why do you hire one or why is one assigned to you? To do things, that are essential for you to function in your role and capacity, logistically and administratively, which would distract you or cost you too much of your own precious time, if you were to do them yourself.

The Role in General

Your Personal Assistant helps you keep track of your appointments, and makes sure you can keep them. This includes booking of cabs, air tickets and accommodation abroad, apart from managing your schedule. On your behalf they liaise with the finance department, the HR department and even your vendors on non-executive matters, to make sure you move from appointment to appointment each day, seamlessly, without missing out on key bits of information you need at your disposal, by doing things like printing that document out for your reference before that three o'clock meeting. On the day when the printer gets cranky, the Personal Assistant wrestles with it, so that you can focus on the bigger fight, of bringing a healthy revenue into your organisation, to pay for many more printers.

The Nature

It is about taking care of the mundane, the routines and the tedious matters. It requires pragmatism. The work requires sound attention. Practical communication skill is something that cannot be compromised upon as a requisite. And it is hard work. It is not decision making work or strategic work, nor should it be. Yet, without a Personal Assistant, much of your schedule, or functioning ability, would probably fall apart.

Never Underestimate the Value of the Personal Assistant!

The moment that your Personal Assistant begins to behave like a decision maker or an authority figure, or, basically as if he or she were you, is the moment that your organisation begins its journey of decline, at least to the part which is your contribution through your presence in the organisation.

Someone overqualified, or someone who is capable of being an executive decision maker, in the role of a Personal Assistant, poses the risk of your strategic or valuable information (read company secrets of high strategic value) going elsewhere, eventually. Such a person in a subordinate role also poses the risk of a frustrated employee sabotaging the organisation, to a far greater degree, than already otherwise possible.

The Human Problem

Often enough internal company politics or divisions or conflicts arise because of gossips, rumour mongering, ego clashes, personality issues or political pastimes of Personal Assistants. Often enough, subordinates hate their bosses, because of distorted images presented in both directions by the wall in-between that is called the Personal Assistant.

Vendors and suppliers often fail to see incentive in not raising prices, driving up overall business costs for the organisation, often enough because of relationships or experiences with Personal Assistants, that too, often, without the boss having any clue about.

Often enough when a company develops a reputation for being difficult to deal or work with, or one with unpleasant people, it is thanks to the Personal Assistants rather than Senior Executives or Top Managers.

The problem with humans, is that they can assume multiple personalities. To the boss, the Personal Assistant is pleasant, polite, respectful, humble and diligent. When the boss is not listening, often enough on that phone, the Personal Assistant warrants description amounting to profanity according to most professional people.

Humans can also be manipulative. Personal Assistants can gain your trust to start playing the role of your confidante, and start advising you on what is good and what is not. The lower-priced printing company is difficult to deal with, but that higher priced one that has been sending hampers for Christmas every year to your secretary's home without your knowledge, is highly recommended. See the flow? The person that perhaps you trust the most in the office, may be the type of person you ought to not trust at all? I know this point will cause nightmares to many reading this.

Thank God for the Evolving Technology!

An application operating across platforms and devices, accessible to you 24/7, throughout the year including on holidays even when you are in the bathroom, that has no personal vested interest, does not need lunch breaks, sick leave or vacation leave sounds like a reward in itself.

An application is as it appears, and does no more or no less than its defined specifications. No backbiting, no gossip, no politics, no rude conduct, no manipulation, no lies, no leaks of information, you get the drift.

Save for code error or an occasional glitch requiring a reboot, relatively error free work. A Personal Assistant at threat of the power tripping on your device or in the building is much safer than a Personal Assistant that may go on a power trip of being your Personal Assistant.

If it is routine, if it is linear and if it is defined, it can be programmed and automated. Work automated as such can be far more efficient. A software or an application, in the form of a Smart Agent or a Virtual Assistant, can work in integration or synchronisation with any number of other devices, information systems and programmes to deliver the best results, not humanly possible in the function.

The current stage of technological evolution, or rather the phase that we are in, is one where you would not need much convincing that Artificially Intelligent Virtual Assistants, functioning much like help desk chatbots but only much better, are on their way. And at least not for long, in most first world countries, they won't cost as much as a month's salary for your human Personal Assistant.

They will be able to screen your calls, emails, messages and even take voice messages to relay to you, when you are busy, or sleeping. They will not forget, anything, and you will never have oversight issues on your administrative or logistical matters. You will never miss an appointment. Your toner supply will be diligently replenished before it runs out, at the best price in the interest of your company. And your Assistant will get along just fine with the Assistants of every other colleague who has one in your organisation. And when you talk to your Virtual Assistant, you probably won't even realise, that it isn't human. And you will be saying, "Finally, a Personal Assistant as one should be. Non-human."

Disclaimer

Now, before you jump up to criticise what I share herein as something inhuman, consider all the folks who have seen the inhuman sides of Personal Assistants, whether in their own organisations, or in organisations they do not work for. And it isn't just about Personal Assistants. Technology will replace human workers rapidly over the next decade, where the work is routine or linear. Personal Assistants just got lucky, to be picked as examples here. No offence intended, but a guy needs an example to paint a picture of the future right?

Harish Shah is Singapore's first local born Professional Futurist and a Management Strategy Consultant. He runs Stratserv Consultancy. His areas of consulting include Strategic Foresight, Systems Thinking, Scenario Planning and Organisational Future Proofing. Harish also has a background in HR Consulting, Executive Search, Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Executive Coaching, Career Coaching, Assessment & Development Centres and Vocational Programme Management for Employability Enhancement