Why the power of relationships still matters in the AI era (2/2)

As we saw in the first part of this article, the autonomous future upon which we are embarked is not just more intelligent, it is more relationally demanding.

This should not come as a complete surprise. Leaders have been saying for years that relationships are among the most important things in business. Some have gone further and suggested that they are all that ultimately exists in business. Outside management thinking, it is well-established through highly credible research, for example the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the world’s longest studies of adult life, that the quality of our relationships is one of the strongest predictors of long-term health, resilience and happiness.

We say these things because we know, at some level, that they are true. Yet our institutions remain oddly under-developed when it comes to treating relationships as something worthy of serious design. We still tend to assume ...