Ok, it's going to be big. What should I do now..?

And... it's our final day together*. I know it's a lot 🤯. Today we're going to break down what you can do next so it feels 100% doable. 

*Stand by for the bonus guide - day 6 is the most powerful of them all! 

 

Regardless of your organisation’s position on AI for collaboration, over half your employees are likely to be using it as part of day to day work already(1).

Right now, they're using it mostly for basic idea generation, content drafting and summarising. They are curious and they are tinkering. But this will grow and change as the marketplace for GenAI applications explodes.

But, as we've established in this series, AI for knowledge workers is not just another productivity tool. Clearly it won't help if organisations just whack GenAI on top of existing processes to try and make them better and faster. Whilst this will almost certainly be the approach early on, ultimately this will give way to a complete redesign of ways of collaborating from top to bottom.

There will be new capabilities, new norms, new practices, new rhythms of work. You will need to help shape and create these. AI will not do this for you :-)

As we've discussed extensively in this series, the arrival of GenAI is not like other waves of technology.

It’s not just IT and data analysts who will need to figure this out.

GenAI will be transformational, not transactional (multiplying possibility by many factors, not just automating stuff).

It doesn’t fit well into corporate structures, capabilities and boundaries - and in fact the best use cases are being created by individuals, not companies.

Ethan Mollick explains: “There is no way for companies to harness this kind of power and creativity without, in some way, democratizing control over AI.”

These are all things you'll need to hold in mind as you explore possibilities (and risks).

 

Of course, it doesn’t only matter what you think.

Your teams will be full of people with the full range of emotions about AI.

Everything from:

• Rejection (it's wrong, I don't need it)
• Disgust (it's cheating)
• Denial (it will never take my job)
• Panic (it’s gonna take my job!!)
• Stubbornness (I don’t want to be quicker)

For most people, there will be a mixture of many of these going on.

ChatGPT has created a benchmark which is both high and low.

High - wow, incredible that a machine can do this!

Low - yes, but it’s not accurate or original enough to be useful!

 

And of course, though ChatGPT is new, AI chat assistants on retailer websites have been around for several years and are notoriously not very useful!

Our consumer experiences shape our perception of workplace AI capability.

But AI’s sophistication and our own skill at promoting and interacting will transform over the next 3 years.

It’s not going to be optional

Even though GenAI is technology and capability your people haven’t asked for, it WILL become the default - integrated somehow into almost every part of how you meet and collaborate.

Adoption of and approach to AI assisted collaboration will become an important factor in your employee value proposition. In the early days, it will divide people - oh I definitely DO or I definitely DON’T want to work for any organisation that is using AI! Later, it will be a minimum entry requirement. It will be difficult to hire people if you’re not using it well.

Yes, you’ll need a central team to be the custodians of AI from an organisational perspective, helping surface and shape the major technical and ethical considerations. But change will come through experimentation and discovery - often at an individual level. Kent Beck advises we don’t need to worry about duplication: “two teams trying ‘the same’ idea are still creating value through their inevitable differences". 

 

So what do you need to think about right now?

Here's what I think you should be working your way through.

What is your organisation’s position on AI? Do you understand it? Do you agree with it?

• What's their current position?

  • Ignore it? (almost certainly employees will use it anyway)
  • Ban/restrict? (again they’ll just use it at home)
  • Corporate-ise it? (create a central team to wrap and manage the whole lot so that it’s ‘safe’ - nice idea, but they will find usage will still go underground and into 'shadow IT')
  • Create some guiding parameters?
  • Discuss and explore together?
  • Encourage experimentation?
  • Upend and redesign the whole business tomorrow with AI at its heart? (I have seen this!)

• Who’s looking after it? Is it a cross disciplinary team? Or essentially your data scientists? Find out.

• How are they handling the many issues AI will throw up. Are you being invited to contribute? Find out.

• What tests, experiments proofs of concept are happening? Find out.

• Has the organisation understood the individual and democratised nature of GenAI or does it see it as a 'business as usual' technology it can regulate and own - basically a productivity tool?

• Is the organisation communicating where it's thinking is going with teams more widely?

• Has the organisation set any initial guidance on use of open source tools like Chat GPT?

What’s YOUR position on AI for collaboration in your own teams?

What approach do you want to take?

• Where do you see it making the highest valuable contribution to how you meet and collaborate?
• What tone do you want to set?
• How will you collaborate with and contribute to the organisation's approach?

What are people already using and doing?

What are your teams thinking about - AND DOING! - already using AI in their current role?

• What are they experimenting with outside of work?
• What are they optimistic about - and anxious about? 
• What tools are already available in your company and who is already using them?

 

What is the organisation saying to your teams about AI?

All the evidence(1) is that employees want MUCH more communication on AI: how the organisation will use it in a structured and safe way, what they will be expected to / allowed to do with it and how it will affect their job and role.

They want to know how it will impact their role, they want guidelines for using it officially (e.g. within Microsoft Copilot) and unofficially (e.g. prompting ChatGPT to help with a presentation) and they want to know what new skills they are going to need and what training will be provided.

If there is a central AI team and it’s not you, you might want to find out their general direction of travel and how they are planning to communicate next steps.

This is a good foundation for what you’ll say to your own team.

What will you say to start the conversation in your own teams?

Regardless of whether your organisation is providing answers to their questions, you need to be saying something to your own teams. Now is not the time to be silent.

You might start with something like this:

• Acknowledge AI exists!
• Scope the space, explaining the area of GenAI you have influence over (and that which you don’t e.g. a big question might be: “will our compensation be determined by AI?” - this may be outside your zone of genius!)
• Set the tone e.g. this is going to be significant, ethics and safety are my top priority, no one owns this wave of technology, we're doing it together, I will act in all our best interests.
• Share your own hopes and concerns for specific changes you see coming down the track.
• Explain you are collaborating from IT/HR/Transformation etc.
• Start a conversation across your teams about their own hopes and concerns and what they need to know.
• Talk to your own boss or fellow leaders about their thoughts on using AI as part of knowledge work

 

How can you democratise and nurture a learning on AI for collaboration?

You can set the tone for an experimental and decentralised approach by:

• Encouraging your teams to explore, experiment, learn and share back what they find.
• Creating a time or slot where people can share these learnings and discuss some of the many issues we've covered in these five emails (particularly email 3).
• Making links to wider organisational involvement
• Connecting your group into whatever central team or person is owning the organisation's transition. 

 

We’re in a transition phase. The clay is not set - and won’t be for a long time.

 

Next:
Bonus article - Exactly how I will be using it for my own clients in 2024 

 

References
1) Taking the Reins on Managing Generative AI from Betterworks