adopting AI is the same as adopting anything new

by Chris PehuraC-SUITE DATA — 2024/10/22

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How do you adopt something new within your company?

How do you make it stick within your company so people don’t toss it out?

That’s a hard question to answer. And that’s a question you need to ask yourself when you’re talking about AI. New things. Companies have been adopting new things for decades. ERPs, client-server, smartphones. There were points where during all of those where companies just wanted to toss them out. That they didn’t want anything to do with it because it just made things more difficult, more painful. And the same thing can happen for AI if the adoption is not successful and it’s not supported.

ADOPTION

So how do you adopt something new, something complex and has nuances like AI? There’s a program you can follow, a series of approaches of the way you’re asking questions, what you’re focusing on to make sure that AI is successfully adopted. Now the thing is, you just can’t throw AI within the company and expect people to work. You can’t mandate people to use AI. It doesn’t work that way. People may use AI, but may use it incorrectly. They might fudge the results and say they are using AI when really they’re not. You can’t really mandate people.

MOTIVATIONS

There are things you need to consider when adopting something new. The first thing to consider is the motivations that people have regarding the new thing, regarding AI. If people are resistant against AI, then you’re going to have a hard job having people use AI within the company. Motivations have to be internal. Does AI motivate people to use it? Are people internally motivated to use AI? This means you need to get in line what your philosophy is, is as of a company. What the common ground people everyone have in the company. That we’re a team and that these are our core principles. You need to know all that stuff for a successful AI adoption cause that’s really what’s coming into play.

ENVIRONMENTS

When you’re wanting to adopt something new then you have to consider when that new thing is helping or hindering people when they’re going through their work environment. Is it causing more trouble? Is it causing less pain? Is it making life easier? Faster? That’s what matters when adopting something new. I’ve seen ERP systems shut off because they made things too complicated, too painful. Now the next part is when people navigate through the environment, is there a mechanism? Is there a way for them to understand how they can make the tool better, how well the tool, how well the AI is working for them?

LEARNING

Are they able to understand it? Are they able to learn from it? Are they able to articulate it? Because they need that, because then they can make recommendations to the powers that be on how to change the processes, the procedures, the technologies to make life easier for everyone. And that’s pretty key, the learning activities involved. You don’t have that, the new thing, the AI, is not going to stick. People are just going to stop using it after a point.

SYSTEMS

You’ll find that you’ll need to change your processes, your procedures, your technology, existing technologies. Well, that’s pretty straightforward. That’s pretty predictable. You pick your battles, you pick your scope. But the rest of that cycle in terms of the motivations, the navigations through the environment, then the learning — that is much harder to understand and get through and hash through.

REPUTATION

Now, the key to doing something new is that reputation is a major player. People do not want to look bad when doing something new or adopting something new. They don’t want to look foolish. Some places you could lose your job for doing something new and it fails. In some places you can lose your job when you do something new and it works. I’ve seen that. But when doing something new, you’ve got to consider the reputation. And when you focus on that cycle, especially around the motivations, reputation, people will be willing to risk their reputation because of those motivations. If they align with those motivations, they have those motivations, then they will risk doing something new.

IDEAL

Now here’s the thing about doing something new. Every article you read, every expert you listen to, every book on this new thing, especially about AI, that’s the ideal. You’re not the ideal. You’re gonna have to change how you’re understanding and what you’re reading based on how your company works and how your people work. There is a delta between what people are talking about and what people are presenting and the solutions they provide based on how things actually work in practice, how they work practically. So be prepared to see that delta and try to bridge it and transition it so that AI works for you.

DAMAGE CONTROL

Now here’s another secret to AI being successfully adopted. What really anything successfully adopted. You deal with damage control, like you deal with risk management, you deal with change management, you make sure those are nailed down. But, the other thing you need to consider is the people factor. When you’re adopting something new, you need a poster person, a poster boy, a poster girl. Someone whose a symbol of that new thing that gives people a relationship with that new thing. They see that person as that new thing. They don’t want that person to fail because that person is very engaging. They’re friendly, they’re helpful. They give the impression they can walk on water and do almost anything. It’s very easy to back a person like that than not and help them so that they don’t fail. People have no problem having ideas and approaches failing. But once you get a person involved and they’re sort of the avatar for that new thing, people do everything they can to make sure that new thing doesn’t fail. And because you have a person, a face, that helps build in this relationship and internal motivation to be using the new things and to make sure that the new things work.

WRAPPING IT UP

It’s very important that you have this thing, this internal motivation set up. You should watch it like a hawk because it is the leading indicator when things are going to be tossed out of your company or stop being used. The take-away for this is that don’t be distracted by all the latest brands of practices and approaches about manipulating culture and adopting new technologies and all those maturity models. Just focus on the tried and true practices that have been around for all this time. That cycle, focus on that. The new things, especially AI, is the ideal. They’re always talking about the ideal. You’re going to have to focus on your reality and connect the two and make sure that you have a face doing some damage control, making sure that people have a relationship with the new thing so that they’ll be much more eager to support it and make sure it’s successful.

And that’s how you adopt something new.


Email us at contactus@csuitedata.com to see how we make your plans work.