field note .04
you can't engineer out the human
11th September 2026
Thousands of products. Multiple brands. Stock. Training. Commission/incentives. Customer data. Appointments. Product launches. Promotions. Technology. Rostering. Returns. Supply chain. Brand standards. Retailer standards. To name but a few of the moving parts related to a seemingly simple beauty concierge appointment.
The organisation wants all of that to operate predictably and consistently.
And then into this beautifully engineered machine walks...
a person.
A customer who is insecure about her skin.
Someone buying a fragrance that reminds them of somebody they've lost.
Someone preparing for their wedding.
Someone whose face has changed with age.
Someone who's had a horrible week and just wants to feel good for an hour.
And behind the counter is another person.
They might be brilliant that day. Distracted. Tired. Intuitive. Experienced. New. Warm. Nervous. Having their own terrible week.
Suddenly the customer experience isn't simply an operational process.
it's two human beings meeting inside one.
So how do you separate human emotion from complex operations?
Should you even try?
Businesses spend enormous amounts of effort trying to engineer variation out of operations because variation creates risk.
Human variability can create value. It can also create risk.
Beauty concierge is a perfect example of many parts of an organisation coming together to create a deeply human experience for the customer.
Underpinning it, however, is an operational blueprint designed to create predictability of service and outcome.
So how do you balance the need for consistency with the variability of humans?
Great operations need both.
Getting that balance right is vital.
In engineering and financial services, independent checking is fundamental. When something needs to be mathematically correct, it needs to be checked, to reduce the risk of human error.
But does it?
When working with one of my previous employers, during an engineering project, an engineer produced a drawing using the standard calculations, frameworks and tools provided to support safe design.
What he didn't notice was an error in one of his assumptions.
The drawing went to an independent checker.
The checker had a desk full of work. He knew the engineer. He trusted him. So rather than independently interrogating the work, he gave it little more than a cursory check and approved it.
field note .04
you can't engineer out the human
11th September 2026
Thousands of products. Multiple brands. Stock. Training. Commission/incentives. Customer data. Appointments. Product launches. Promotions. Technology. Rostering. Returns. Supply chain. Brand standards. Retailer standards. To name but a few of the moving parts related to a seemingly simple beauty concierge appointment.
The organisation wants all of that to operate predictably and consistently.
And then into this beautifully engineered machine walks...
a person.
A customer who is insecure about her skin.
Someone buying a fragrance that reminds them of somebody they've lost.
Someone preparing for their wedding.
Someone whose face has changed with age.
Someone who's had a horrible week and just wants to feel good for an hour.
And behind the counter is another person.
They might be brilliant that day. Distracted. Tired. Intuitive. Experienced. New. Warm. Nervous. Having their own terrible week.
Suddenly the customer experience isn't simply an operational process.
it's two human beings meeting inside one.
So how do you separate human emotion from complex operations?
Should you even try?
Businesses spend enormous amounts of effort trying to engineer variation out of operations because variation creates risk.
Human variability can create value. It can also create risk.
Beauty concierge is a perfect example of many parts of an organisation coming together to create a deeply human experience for the customer.
Underpinning it, however, is an operational blueprint designed to create predictability of service and outcome.
So how do you balance the need for consistency with the variability of humans?
Great operations need both.
Getting that balance right is vital.
In engineering and financial services, independent checking is fundamental. When something needs to be mathematically correct, it needs to be checked, to reduce the risk of human error.
But does it?
When working with one of my previous employers, during an engineering project, an engineer produced a drawing using the standard calculations, frameworks and tools provided to support safe design.
What he didn't notice was an error in one of his assumptions.
The drawing went to an independent checker.
The checker had a desk full of work. He knew the engineer. He trusted him. So rather than independently interrogating the work, he gave it little more than a cursory check and approved it.
field note .04
you can't engineer out the human
11th September 2026
Thousands of products. Multiple brands. Stock. Training. Commission/incentives. Customer data. Appointments. Product launches. Promotions. Technology. Rostering. Returns. Supply chain. Brand standards. Retailer standards. To name but a few of the moving parts related to a seemingly simple beauty concierge appointment.
The organisation wants all of that to operate predictably and consistently.
And then into this beautifully engineered machine walks...
a person.
A customer who is insecure about her skin.
Someone buying a fragrance that reminds them of somebody they've lost.
Someone preparing for their wedding.
Someone whose face has changed with age.
Someone who's had a horrible week and just wants to feel good for an hour.
And behind the counter is another person.
They might be brilliant that day. Distracted. Tired. Intuitive. Experienced. New. Warm. Nervous. Having their own terrible week.
Suddenly the customer experience isn't simply an operational process.
it's two human beings meeting inside one.
So how do you separate human emotion from complex operations?
Should you even try?
Businesses spend enormous amounts of effort trying to engineer variation out of operations because variation creates risk.
Human variability can create value. It can also create risk.
Beauty concierge is a perfect example of many parts of an organisation coming together to create a deeply human experience for the customer.
Underpinning it, however, is an operational blueprint designed to create predictability of service and outcome.
So how do you balance the need for consistency with the variability of humans?
Great operations need both.
Getting that balance right is vital.
In engineering and financial services, independent checking is fundamental. When something needs to be mathematically correct, it needs to be checked, to reduce the risk of human error.
But does it?
When working with one of my previous employers, during an engineering project, an engineer produced a drawing using the standard calculations, frameworks and tools provided to support safe design.
What he didn't notice was an error in one of his assumptions.
The drawing went to an independent checker.
The checker had a desk full of work. He knew the engineer. He trusted him. So rather than independently interrogating the work, he gave it little more than a cursory check and approved it.
What he didn't know was that the engineer was going through an incredibly difficult time personally. He'd been distracted at work for some time and wasn't performing as he normally would. He hadn't shared that with his supervisor.
The result was an incorrect design that led to a serious mechanical failure during installation.
The control existed. The process was followed. And yet, the safeguard still failed.
It was luck, rather than the strength of the process or the controls, that meant nobody was killed.
it sounds extreme.
but it happened.
And here's the interesting contradiction.
In engineering, technology can help protect us from human variability.
In the beauty hall, it could help create more room for it.
Technology doesn't eliminate risk. Nor is it infallible. But it doesn't get tired after a bad night's sleep. It doesn't wave something through because it knows and trusts the person who produced it.
Used and designed well, technology can provide consistency where we need consistency — while leaving room for human judgement where it creates value.
Perhaps that is the more interesting role for technology. Not simply replacing what people do, but understanding which parts of being human we need it to protect us from — and which parts we need it to protect.
Through writing these Field Notes, I've realised I've been thinking about beauty halls as operational environments.
But, as a customer I've never experienced them purely that way myself.
At various points in my life, a beauty hall has been somewhere to browse, escape, be looked after or simply emerge feeling a little better than I did when I walked in.
None of that appears on a customer journey map.
Perhaps the challenge isn't how to remove human emotion and variability from complex operations.
It's understanding
where we need to control it,
where we need to protect it, and
where technology can quietly support both.
Because you can't engineer out the human.
And perhaps we shouldn't want to.
What he didn't know was that the engineer was going through an incredibly difficult time personally. He'd been distracted at work for some time and wasn't performing as he normally would. He hadn't shared that with his supervisor.
The result was an incorrect design that led to a serious mechanical failure during installation.
The control existed. The process was followed. And yet, the safeguard still failed.
It was luck, rather than the strength of the process or the controls, that meant nobody was killed.
it sounds extreme.
but it happened.
And here's the interesting contradiction.
In engineering, technology can help protect us from human variability.
In the beauty hall, it could help create more room for it.
Technology doesn't eliminate risk. Nor is it infallible. But it doesn't get tired after a bad night's sleep. It doesn't wave something through because it knows and trusts the person who produced it.
Used and designed well, technology can provide consistency where we need consistency — while leaving room for human judgement where it creates value.
Perhaps that is the more interesting role for technology. Not simply replacing what people do, but understanding which parts of being human we need it to protect us from — and which parts we need it to protect.
Through writing these Field Notes, I've realised I've been thinking about beauty halls as operational environments.
But, as a customer I've never experienced them purely that way myself.
At various points in my life, a beauty hall has been somewhere to browse, escape, be looked after or simply emerge feeling a little better than I did when I walked in.
None of that appears on a customer journey map.
Perhaps the challenge isn't how to remove human emotion and variability from complex operations.
It's understanding
where we need to control it,
where we need to protect it, and
where technology can quietly support both.
Because you can't engineer out the human.
And perhaps we shouldn't want to.
What he didn't know was that the engineer was going through an incredibly difficult time personally. He'd been distracted at work for some time and wasn't performing as he normally would. He hadn't shared that with his supervisor.
The result was an incorrect design that led to a serious mechanical failure during installation.
The control existed. The process was followed. And yet, the safeguard still failed.
It was luck, rather than the strength of the process or the controls, that meant nobody was killed.
it sounds extreme.
but it happened.
And here's the interesting contradiction.
In engineering, technology can help protect us from human variability.
In the beauty hall, it could help create more room for it.
Technology doesn't eliminate risk. Nor is it infallible. But it doesn't get tired after a bad night's sleep. It doesn't wave something through because it knows and trusts the person who produced it.
Used and designed well, technology can provide consistency where we need consistency — while leaving room for human judgement where it creates value.
Perhaps that is the more interesting role for technology. Not simply replacing what people do, but understanding which parts of being human we need it to protect us from — and which parts we need it to protect.
Through writing these Field Notes, I've realised I've been thinking about beauty halls as operational environments.
But, as a customer I've never experienced them purely that way myself.
At various points in my life, a beauty hall has been somewhere to browse, escape, be looked after or simply emerge feeling a little better than I did when I walked in.
None of that appears on a customer journey map.
Perhaps the challenge isn't how to remove human emotion and variability from complex operations.
It's understanding
where we need to control it,
where we need to protect it, and
where technology can quietly support both.
Because you can't engineer out the human.
And perhaps we shouldn't want to.
© 2026 Orchestrate.
All rights reserved
Growth Architecture™
and the Five Conditions
for Growth are
proprietary methodologies of
Orchestrate.
growth. conducted
© 2026 Orchestrate.
All rights reserved
Growth Architecture™
and the Five Conditions
for Growth are
proprietary methodologies of
Orchestrate.
growth. conducted
© 2026 Orchestrate. All rights reserved
Growth Architecture™ and the Five Conditions for Growth are
proprietary methodologies of Orchestrate.
growth. conducted
© 2026 Orchestrate.
All rights reserved
Growth Architecture™
and the Five Conditions
for Growth are
proprietary methodologies of
Orchestrate.