The phrase 'the Ghost in the Machine' has long fascinated me, and occasionally has me exploring philosophical rabbit holes as I try to make sense of it - and test it against real world situations.
In short, the phrase ‘ghost in the machine’ was coined by Gilbert Ryle - a British philosopher - in 1949. He was responding to the ideas of René Descartes (yes, he of 'I think therefore I am', and Cartesian Coordinate fame) who believed that the mind and the body were 2 completely separate entities or substances. According to Descartes, the mind somehow inhabits the body and controls it - like a ghost living in a machine and operating it. Ryle thought that this nonsense, believing that mind and body were existentially dependent on the other - so actually just 2 aspects of the same thing.
So, what got me started on this rabbit hole again? Thinking about a Process - specifically reflecting on how a couple of organisations were trying to go about very similar 'process improvement' activities; how one made great progress very quickly, and one struggled - enormously.
A process is something that is created or designed by people. It can be documented as a set of steps, flowcharts, inputs and outputs, or decision trees such that it can be followed and learned by different people at different times. And in theory, that same process can be followed by different companies to achieve the same or similar results. But in practice, that is rarely the case.
I have always seen a process as a type of 'soft machine'; it can be built, run, added to, improved, and it can deteriorate if not constantly cared for. And, people are very much an integral part of the process; people bring that soft machine to life. And how they do that and what they achieve with it depends not just on training or instructions, but on mood, motivation, interpretation, past experience, assumptions, creativity, responsibility, culture, leadership, power dynamics… the whole human mix.
So perhaps the idea of a ‘ghost in the machine’ isn’t so far-fetched after all. The ‘ghost’ isn’t some separate force controlling the process, but we humans that animate it: our collective mindset, our lived culture, the way we interpret what’s written and how we behave in the grey areas. That’s why two organisations can use the same process and get wildly different results. It’s not just about what the machine does—it’s about who is inhabiting it.
So What? The moral of this story is that no matter how simple or complex the process you want to implement, change, or improve, you cannot afford to ignore the people who bring that process to life. Studies suggest that around 70% of process improvement or change initiatives fail—not necessarily because the process itself is flawed, but because the human soul (culture, communication, leadership alignment, and employee engagement) of the process is overlooked. That matters now more than ever. In an environment where competitiveness is critical and organisations must deliver only what creates real value—whether in marketing, customer service, or internal operations—processes need to work not just on paper, but in practice. And that means recognising that every process is powered by people.
And a final thought - hopefully a comforting one for those that fear machines will take away our jobs. Automating a process often exposes just how much it relied on invisible human judgement, bridging, or adaptation. What looked like a clear flowchart turns out to have relied on someone’s ability to 'just know' when something was off. AI and automation can really struggle here; not because they’re bad, but because we didn’t realise how haunted our processes actually were.
Ad Futurum
Graham
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