5 BRUTAL Truths About AI Adoption Leaders Don’t Say Publicly

Read time: 2.5 minutes

What Leaders Need to Fix So That Trust Isn’t Lost.

1. Lead With Truth About How Roles Will be Different
Stop being vague with optimism.

Be explicit about:

• What’s changing?

• What’s going away?

• What will be more valuable?

Once someone understands what has changed, their fear of the unknown decreases.

2. Get Rid of Legacy Workflows
If your company is using AI to save time, then you should eliminate some work.

Things to eliminate:

• Duplicate approval processes

• Duplicate work processes

• All manual review processes

• Any low-value meetings

If you don’t do this, then you’re going to see inflated workloads due to the addition of AI.

3. Make Safe AI Easier to Use than Unsafe AI
Shadow AI is the result of having official applications that are slow to use compared to their unofficial ones.

Create governance that enables speed frictionlessly.

4. Train for Processes, Not Prompts
Generic AI workshops will not change a company’s culture.

When your company trains people to use AI, you should train them on:

• Real decisions made with AI

• Real processes utilizing AI

• Real-world examples of AI in use

• How their roles will evolve with the adoption of AI

This is the building of capabilities.

5. Remove Organizational Slowness
AI instantly elevates the visibility of bureaucracy.

Winning companies remove bureaucracy by:

• Streamlining the approval process

• Creating a unified ownership model

• Minimizing the number of alignment cycles

By removing the bureaucracy from your organization, you will see quicker value creation.

💡Key Takeaway: 

AI does not expose tech gaps, only leadership gaps.

Winning companies at AI are not the smartest, but the most effective at removing friction from the process.