We are living through an extraordinary period of expanding technological capability. Artificial intelligence is becoming more powerful, machines are assuming increasingly complex responsibilities, and organizations are gaining new abilities to predict, automate, and act. We celebrate these developments as progress, measuring their success through productivity, economic growth, efficiency, and competitive advantage.
But what is all this progress ultimately intended to accomplish?
We often assume that economic and technological advancement will improve people's lives. Sometimes it does. Innovation creates opportunities, medical breakthroughs extend lives, and productive businesses generate prosperity. Yet economic success and human progress are not automatically the same thing. An organization can become more profitable while employees lose opportunities to develop. A society can become technologically advanced while experiencing declining trust, growing inequality, or greater insecurity.
This distinction matters during what I call the Sixth Great Transition, as changes across technology, science, economics, geopolitics, society, philosophy, and the environment interact. We are gaining extraordinary powers to shape the future, but those powers do not tell us what kind of future we should build.
If Not Human Flourishing, Then What?
Consider what organizations typically pursue. Businesses seek profitability, growth, efficiency, and shareholder returns. Governments pursue security, stability, and influence. Technology companies compete to develop increasingly capable systems. Institutions work to preserve their relevance and power.
These are legitimate objectives, but each can become an end in itself.
Perhaps we are pursuing the flourishing of corporations, measured by their profits, size, and market dominance. Or the flourishing of capital, where accumulating wealth becomes the primary measure of achievement.
Perhaps we are pursuing the flourishing of technology, where increasingly intelligent machines, greater automation, and faster processing become evidence of success, regardless of whether human lives improve.
We might instead be pursuing the flourishing of powerful institutions, governments, or particular groups whose continued influence and prosperity take priority over broader human interests.
There is another possibility. Perhaps we are pursuing no coherent vision of flourishing at all. Organizations optimize individual targets, executives respond to incentives, and technology teams introduce new capabilities. Each activity may appear reasonable, yet their combined results may lead toward a future nobody deliberately chose.
This is the danger of confusing the means of progress with its ultimate purpose.
When Success Measures Replace Purpose
An organization may begin with the goal of providing valuable products and services. To measure its success, it establishes revenue targets, productivity measures, and financial incentives. Eventually, improving those numbers can become more important than improving the lives of the people the organization originally intended to serve.
Artificial intelligence creates similar risks. Companies measure automated processes, deployed AI agents, and labor hours eliminated. These metrics can demonstrate technological adoption, but they do not establish whether customers are better served, employees have greater opportunities, or society benefits.
A company can automate an entire process without asking whether the process should exist. It can eliminate jobs without considering how future expertise will develop. It can become extraordinarily efficient at accomplishing objectives that no longer serve a worthwhile purpose.
As intelligent systems become increasingly capable of pursuing assigned goals, the consequences of choosing those goals become more important.
Choosing What Should Flourish
In my book, *The Future of Human Leadership: When Intelligence Is Everywhere*, I propose Flourishing Together as a guiding purpose for leadership. The framework considers the well-being of People, Organizations, Societies, and Ecosystems.
These domains are interconnected. People need economic opportunities, functioning institutions, supportive relationships, and healthy environments. Organizations depend on capable people, stable societies, and natural resources. Societies benefit from productive organizations and legitimate institutions.
Flourishing Together does not mean abandoning profitability, efficiency, growth, or technological advancement. These objectives can contribute greatly to human well-being. It means evaluating their success within a broader understanding of what makes progress worthwhile.
Nor does it eliminate difficult tradeoffs. Organizational survival may require restructuring. Environmental responsibilities may disrupt established industries. Competing interests cannot always be reconciled. Leadership must recognize these conflicts, examine alternatives, and seek outcomes that support as much flourishing as reasonably possible.
The Question Leaders Must Answer
The Sixth Great Transition is expanding our ability to achieve objectives faster than our institutions may be reconsidering which objectives deserve pursuit.
Artificial intelligence can increasingly help us determine how to accomplish our goals. It cannot relieve leaders of responsibility for deciding which goals are worth pursuing, whose interests deserve consideration, and what consequences are acceptable.
This is why one of the central questions in my book is, Whom or What Do I Serve?
If our purpose is human flourishing, then profitability, technological advancement, efficiency, and economic growth become important means toward that goal. If our purpose is something else, we should be prepared to explain what it is and why it deserves priority.
Greater intelligence, wealth, and technological capability do not automatically constitute human progress. Their value depends partly on the purposes they serve and the consequences they produce.
As we build increasingly powerful organizations and technologies, we should continue asking: If human flourishing is not the purpose of our progress, what exactly are we trying to make flourish—and why?
*I use AI in all my work.
***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
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