When do you use cruise control?

Teams are often eager to automate tasks, especially in marketing. Sometimes too soon, based on a promise of leverage and compounding growth.

Like cruise control, it’s helpful when used at the right time:

• We don’t use it in traffic because we don’t know what’s going to happen next. Starting, stopping, turning, we’re “driving”. We can’t automate what we can’t anticipate.
• We use it on the highway because we know what’s going to happen next. Occasional lane changes aside, we’re not driving, we’re “cruising”. We can automate what we can anticipate.

Man comes before the machine.