Everyone’s Chasing the Magic Fix
Ever noticed the trend that when an organisation faces a crisis caused by human error — like Optus’s recent Triple Zero outage — the response has become almost predictable?
“Automation will fix it.”
As if it’s a quick-fix answer to a far more complex situation. It always reminds me of the analogy of using a band-aid on a massive open wound that has severed an artery — thinking that the little band-aid gives you time to stop the bleeding.
The irony is, automation is rarely the real or full solution.
It can have a role, but in truth, it often ends up being the amplifier.
It magnifies whatever already exists within the organisation — the culture, the leadership mindset, the gaps, and the blind spots.
If your systems are fragile, automation will expose that fragility faster.
If your processes are weak, automation will multiply that weakness.
And if your leadership is disconnected from its people, automation will hard-code that disconnection into the system itself — turning it into an algorithm that operates on autopilot, without empathy or awareness.
Let’s Go Back to Basics
At its heart, automation is simply the transfer of responsibility from a human to a system.
It’s the codification of human thought — rules, conditions, and logic written in lines of code. That’s it.
As humans, we created it.
Its code determines its intelligence — how we ask it to interpret and relay information to us.
At its most fundamental level, it just executes.
Faithfully. Relentlessly. Without question … unless we build in the questions.
So, when organisations say they’re “automating decision-making,” what they’re really doing is embedding human assumptions and biases into the machinery.
They’re hard-wiring potential risk into their systems — risk that’s invisible until it fails.
Because automation doesn’t remove risk; it redistributes it.
It shifts the exposure from those who do to those who design, develop, and decide.
The question we should be asking isn’t “What can we automate?”
It’s “What should we automate — and why?”
The Layers of Automation — and Risk
Automation isn’t one thing. It comes in layers, each carrying its own opportunities — and its own dangers.
Mechanistic automation is the simplest: automating repetitive, routine tasks such as scheduling, notifications, or workflows. It’s about efficiency — but if the underlying process is flawed, all you’ve done is accelerate the mistake.
Then comes cognitive automation, where systems begin to make choices based on data patterns. These are the decisions humans used to make — now handed over to an algorithm that interprets probability as certainty. And when data is biased or incomplete, the system’s “decision” simply replicates that bias at scale.
Finally, there’s adaptive automation — systems that learn from outcomes and adjust over time. It’s powerful, but perilous. Once a system starts teaching itself, even its creators can lose sight of how it makes decisions. That’s where black-box risk lives — in the space between what we built and what it has become.
Each layer delivers progress, yes — but also a new layer of risk.
The Human Lifecycle of Automation
Automation doesn’t arrive like magic.
It’s conceived, designed, and delivered through a very human process — a project.
It starts when someone in leadership decides that automation is the fix. The intention might be noble — to improve efficiency, eliminate error, or reduce cost. But often it’s reactive, born out of fear, pressure, or optics.
From there, the baton passes to a project team — charged with finding and implementing a feasible solution to stop the issue from being repeated, to “stop the bleeding.” They’re tasked with building a solution quickly, sometimes without the full clarity or alignment needed to understand the real problem.
That team works closely with software suppliers, developers, and engineers to interpret the directive into code — often as part of a customisation process within the project. The logic they capture and embed becomes law. The assumptions become architecture. And their blind spots? They become vulnerabilities — invisible, silent, and waiting.
Too often, the business thinks it knows what it needs, but urgency drives the process. Problems are viewed in isolation, and decisions are made to fix symptoms rather than understanding the cause. The result? Another digital band-aid on a much deeper wound.
Then comes implementation — the rollout, the handover.
Deadlines loom, corners get cut, user testing is “fast-tracked.” People are expected to adapt — to trust the system even if they don’t fully understand it.
And finally, there’s governance — the part that rarely gets the same energy as the launch.
Ownership fades. Documentation lags. Updates pile up.
And over time, automation evolves from a living solution into a risk multiplier running quietly in the background.
Automation doesn’t replace people — it reflects them.
Every decision, every line of code, every headline is a human story in disguise.
Even when program specialists are brought in as part of the project plan, they can only make recommendations and provide guidance. The responsibility and accountability still rest squarely with the business leadership team — and their project team’s ability to stay connected to the real needs of the business.
A Project of People — for the Benefit of Whom?
Automation is always described as progress — a tool to improve productivity, speed, and accuracy.
But if we peel back the glossy narrative, automation is still a project of people, orchestrated by people, for people.
The question is: for whose benefit?
Too often, automation serves the metrics rather than the mission — designed to please investors, reduce headcount, or tick regulatory boxes. In those cases, it’s not transformation — it’s transference.
The cost shifts to the people on the ground — the ones expected to adapt to new systems, work around gaps, or carry the burden of what wasn’t properly designed.
Yet automation, when done with purpose and care, can be extraordinary.
It can remove friction, simplify complexity, and give people back time to focus on what only humans can do — create, connect, and solve.
But that requires leadership grounded in clarity and conscience.
Because businesses aren’t built on systems.
They’re built on people — at every meaningful touchpoint.
It all starts and ends with people.
Always has. Always will.
Where Risk Lives
Automation projects often begin with optimism and end with exposure.
They’re rushed, under-tested, or poorly scoped.
And when they fail, it’s rarely the system that’s to blame — it’s everything that surrounded it: the assumptions, the shortcuts, the absence of accountability.
Then there are the updates — the quiet disruptors.
Each one introduces new variables, new bugs, and new vulnerabilities.
Layer enough of those on top of one another, and even the most stable system becomes unpredictable.
And in the critical moments — when automation meets the real world — that’s where cracks appear.
When judgment, empathy, or context are required, the system can’t always see what a human can.
That’s when a missed factor becomes a crisis, and a crisis becomes a headline.
Automation doesn’t fail.
The people behind it do — in design, in governance, in care.
The Risk Rebel Perspective
Automation isn’t evil.
It’s not a threat.
It’s a mirror.
It reflects the mindset of the people who build it.
It magnifies the culture of the organisation that implements it.
It reveals the cracks in leadership long before the system breaks.
When leaders approach automation through Unearth’s PROTECT lens — People, Risk Lens, Origin (of Risk), Trust, Environment, Collaboration, Toolkit — they stop automating symptoms and start addressing systems.
They design technology that supports human judgment instead of replacing it.
They lead with intent, not impulse.
That’s when automation becomes a strategic advantage — not because it replaces people,
but because it empowers them.
Pause for Reflection
Automation can make us faster.
But only people can make us wiser.
The question isn’t how much we can automate — it’s how consciously we choose to.
Because automation, at its best, doesn’t make us less human.
It frees us to be more human.
When we build from that place — with care, accountability, and alignment — risk becomes more than something to manage.
It becomes something we can learn from, grow through, and lead with.
Because, as every Risk Rebel knows:
Risk and opportunity are two sides of the same coin.
And both start — and end — with people.
And yet… if automation begins its life as a project, what happens when the very foundations of how we deliver those projects are flawed?
That’s where we’ll pick up next time — exploring one of the biggest sources of risk organisations overlook: project management itself.
Because when projects are rushed, misaligned, or poorly governed, it’s not just timelines and budgets that suffer — it’s trust, integrity, and the very systems meant to protect the house.
