Over the past twenty years, working across a diverse array of companies, countries, and industries, I have observed a recurring pattern regarding how organizations succeed—and how they fail. I want to share a piece of wisdom that has become the cornerstone of my professional philosophy: in order to perform better continuously, an enterprise must maintain its excellence level on a continuous basis. This sounds simple, yet it is one of the most difficult feats to achieve in business. It is precisely why I push so hard for the automation of systems.
To understand why automation is not merely a technical choice but a strategic and conscious discipline, we must first decompose how organizations function, how they fail to retain knowledge, and how they can finally begin to benefit from the power of compounding wisdom.
The Fragility of Process in the Modern Enterprise
When an organization reaches a certain level of maturity, it naturally attempts to create explicit processes. At its core, a process is the systemization of a recurrent activity. Whether it is a service provided to an external customer or an internal function serving another department, a process is something that should be repeatable, measurable, and improvable.
In industries such as automobile manufacturing, garment production, or retail goods, establishing these processes is relatively straightforward. There is a definite production chain or supply chain. Efficiency is baked into the unit cost; therefore, the systemization is survival. However, in “softer” industries (like finance, healthcare, or artisanal services) defining and maintaining processes is notoriously difficult.
The strength of these industries is their agility; their supply chains can adapt quickly to market shifts. But this adaptation is also their greatest weakness. Flexibility introduces mistakes, exceptions, and variations. Because these organizations often prioritize unit productivity (the immediate output of a single worker) at the detriment of large-scale, long-term productivity, the “correct” way of doing things is easily forgotten. The process exists in the air, rather than in the foundation.
The Talent Paradox and the “Maturity Point” Drain
In these less-automated environments, the capacity to scale and the maturity of the enterprise rely directly upon the people: their knowledge, their craft, and their level of experience.
We all know the effort it takes to build a high-performance team. It requires strong leadership, time, and stability. From a management perspective, you are playing a complex game of alignment: you must have the right people at the right time, nurture their growth, and accommodate their personal ambitions.
But here is the inherent risk: when your maturity depends entirely on individual performance, your organizational excellence is volatile. Whenever a talented individual changes teams or leaves the enterprise, you are not just losing a headcount; you are subtracting “maturity points.” You regress.
Managers are often tasked with retaining this level of maturity through staffing and recruitment, but this is a flawed strategy if used in isolation. We must realize that recruitment is a quality game, not a quantity game. In fact, as demonstrated by Brooks’s Law and the Ringelmann Effect, adding more people does not create a linear factor in scaling output; in fact, as many studies have shown, increasing headcount can actually decrease productivity at certain thresholds. Relying solely on a “high-talent” strategy is a precarious way to run a business because the market is open, and talent is mobile. If your craft is not persisted within the organization itself, your excellence is on loan, not owned.
Automation as the “Cushion” of Continuity
This is where the automation of systems becomes transformative. I foster automation not just for speed, but because it guarantees a “flooring” of quality.
Think of automation as a foundational cushion: a persistent layer that ensures the enterprise maintains continuity and reliability of service over time, regardless of personnel shifts. When we automate a system, the knowledge is persisted; it is entrenched in the code and the digital architecture. It becomes a permanent asset of the enterprise (corporate memory) that does not vary according to who was hired this morning or who resigned yesterday.
An automated system provides several unique qualities:
1. Persistence of Craft: The “know-how” of your best experts is codified. It becomes an inherited asset.
2. Unbiased Introspection: As long as you have a grasp on the code, the system is transparent. You can measure input, transition, and output data without the bias of human ego or memory lapse. You can introspect it to see exactly where a failure occurred.
3. Transferability: Because the knowledge is explicit rather than tacit, it can be transferred between organizations, even during changes in leadership or shifts in strategy. It remains a “persisted asset” that survives the corporate lifecycle.
The Ultimate Configuration: Experts, Systems, and Al
Of course, automation does not replace the need for talent. The best possible configuration for an enterprise is a symbiotic relationship between human experts and automated systems.
In the ideal scenario, your senior experts are not bogged down by the manual execution of repetitive processes. Instead, they are freed to innovate, to open new paths to the future, and to teach younger talents how to craft their own paths. The experts focus on the “holistic system”-the intersection of human, digital, and physical processes-to yield better results.
We are now entering a new era with Artificial Intelligence that adds another layer to this “cushion.” Al allows us to mimic the output of an expert within the boundaries of specific tasks. It enables the “offloading” of part of the wisdom that an expert has grown over decades.
This is how a company achieves the power of compounding wisdom. By systematizing and automating, you ensure that every lesson learned is “saved” into the system. You are no longer starting from zero every time a senior employee retires. You are building a mountain of knowledge where the baseline for the next generation is higher than the peak of the last.
The Role of the Architect and the Risk of Short-Termism
With the advent of Generative Al and agent-based code generation, the ability to change and improve these systems is accelerating. We can now alter processes using natural language, requiring far less energy and manual coding effort than before.
However, this ease of change necessitates a “system thinking” approach. You still need an “architect-minded” individual at the helm. If you impact a holistic system without understanding the interdependencies, the damage can be greater and faster than ever before.
This leads me to a final warning for leadership. Throughout my 20+ years of observation, I have seen companies suddenly lose efficiency, and the impact is almost always linked to a loss of maturity in key roles, specifically Business Experts, experienced Engineers, and, most critically, Enterprise Architects.
When a company loses its “architectural memory,” the damage is significant, but it is not immediate. It is a gradual, silent erosion of excellence. Unfortunately, by the time management realizes the system has degraded, it is often too late. They might save on “OpEx” (Operating Expenses) in the short term by reducing workforce or cutting these “high-maturity” roles without a backup plan, but this is simply a short-term debt. It is a trade-off that becomes incredibly costly when the “cushion” of the organization’s reliability finally bottoms out.
Conclusion: Securing the Future
Excellence is not a destination; it is a level that must be maintained. If your organization relies solely on the brilliance of individuals, you are building on sand.
To ensure business continuity and continuous
system improvement, you must turn your processes into persisted assets. This capacity to systematize should be the demonstrable proof of your managers’ quality. A true leader does not make themselves indispensable; they build a machine that works without them. You must automate to create a floor for your quality. By doing so, you protect the enterprise against the volatility of the talent market and create a foundation upon which true, compounding wisdom can be built.
My challenge to you is this: Look at your most critical value streams. If your best person left tomorrow, would the process remain, or would it vanish with them? If the answer is the latter, it is time to start automating. Entrench your craft in your systems, and give your organization the cushion it needs to survive and thrive.
Yannick HUCHARD
