Companies and business leaders are once again facing the uncertainty of how to manage the unknown, just as they have overcome the pandemic and the resultant remote/ hybrid work. AI has all the trademarks of requiring business leaders to think afresh and prepare the organisation culturally to embrace AI.
The pace of work has increased in recent years and so has the volume of work. many employees worry about not having enough time or energy to complete the work they have taken up. Also, employees spend almost 60% of their time communicating – emails, chats etc., leaving them just 40% or less in doing the required work. In this scenario, AI-based systems seem to be just the solution required to manage the increased workload and get the work completed on time.
AI-based systems can surely help in increasing the productivity of the employees by taking up the repetitive work to begin with and also help in doing more creative work that could make the employee more effective. Incorporating AI-based systems in regular day-to-day work would require employees to learn new ways of working. Leaders should focus on the following 3 factors to ensure that the organisation is ready for an AI-based workspace.
Curiosity over fear.
Interacting with AI-based systems is different from the way we interact with computers. With a computer, we ask questions and get an answer. But AI is more like a copilot learning how to draft questions and at the same time verifying the responses we receive from these AI systems.
Every change in the work routine is met with fear. Employees become uncertain about what the changes would entail and so is the first reaction when AI-based systems are introduced.
Employees are more concerned that AI would replace jobs but at the same time realise the promise of Ai assisted work that could help lighten their workload.
Leaders should focus on removing this fear from the employees’ minds and empower them to understand how AI can benefit them. The focus should be both on its capabilities as well as its limitations. Encourage employees to experiment with AI tools and challenge them to rethink how AI could help transform their work and identify new ways of working with AI.
Accept failures.
AI-based tools would surely change the way we work and nearly every work process would benefit from AI automation. Encourage team members to be creative in adapting AI-based tools to their work and adopt a test-and-learn strategy to help meet the needs of the work.
Understand that there would be mistakes or failures to begin with. Anything that goes wrong should be viewed as a learning opportunity to understand better the way AI systems work and how to adapt our work to get the best results.
Celebrate wins and share lessons learned with a wider audience so that everyone learns from the experience and does not waste time duplicating the work.
Become a learn it all.
The value one can get from AI-based systems is only as good as the effort you put in. Complex questions can help bring about more complex analysis and bigger and better ideas. It is important to learn to ask the right questions to get more relevant answers.
It is important to adopt a learn-it-all mentality instead of a know-it-all. It may take time to learn how to interact with AI-based systems but the effort would be worthwhile in the long run.
It is best to establish guard rails to help people experiment safely. Employees must understand that learning to work with AI systems is a continuing process and not a one-time training.
The shift to incorporating AI-based systems is well underway within organisations. It holds the promise of transforming work and giving businesses a competitive advantage. But, the culture of the company should embrace the new norms of curiosity, failure and learning. This would unlock a better future for everyone.
3 Steps to Prepare Your Culture for AI
by Jared Spataro
June 28, 2023
R2G 