Your people are already using AI – but they might not be telling you about it, because they are worried you will think they are lazy, incompetent, or cheating! If they are afraid to tell you, that’s YOUR fault – and a huge missed opportunity.
Somebody recently asked me whether I thought there’s too much hype about AI. I said yes, and he immediately jumped on that and said,
“So you admit AI is all hype!”
No! That’s not what I said.
Yes, there’s too much hype about AI. But there’s also real value you can get from AI. Both of those things can be right – there’s no contradiction.
It’s like Katy Perry going into space and then claiming it as a milestone for feminism. That’s hype! But equally, you could praise Amanda Nguyen – a real scientist, advocate for women’s rights, and nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize – who also went on that same trip to space.
Hype and value aren’t necessarily contradictory.
A lot of technology is over-hyped – especially something like AI, which pushes a lot of emotional buttons. It’s also hyped by the American tech bros (or “broligarchs”) trying to talk up the value of AI to push up the value of their own companies.
At the same time, millions of people are rolling up their sleeves, using AI, and getting real value from it.
And this is true of your employees, too.
Some recent research from Google and Ipsos found that in Australia, 74% of people – that’s three out of four – are using AI at work. But some other research from Slack done at about the same time found 42% of them don’t want to admit it to their manager!
Why? You can guess at the reasons – the top three were:
- Their manager might think they are lazy
- Their manager might think they are incompetent
- Their manager might think they are cheating
So what are YOU like as a leader?
Are you open to AI? And more importantly, are you publicly open to it?
Do you make it clear to your team they can use AI and should be using it? And are you giving them the tools, resources, environment, and guidelines on using it well?
As you bring your people on the AI journey, it’s more important than ever that you have clear, open, transparent conversations with them – about how they feel, what they want from AI, what they are already doing with it, and what worries them about it.
AI is here. It’s not going away. And you might already be in a lucky position with your people embracing it.
Just be sure you support it, facilitate it, and help them go further with it.
Download my worksheet here for some questions you can ask in these AI conversations with your team.
