Change Management Has Changed Forever

September 23, 2024

Marcy Schwab

Do you remember the exact moment the Internet became an integral part of your life?? Yeah, me neither. There wasn’t one single point in time where you went from nothing to IoT. The steps that brought the Internet into our lives were incremental, enabling us to learn along the way. It started with an AOL disk in your mailbox with painfully slow speeds. And now… practically ubiquitous Internet access, WiFi everywhere, Alexa, Uber, work from home…and AI. Who knows what comes next??

AI Value Creation Came on FAST

We incrementally integrated the Internet into our everyday lives and reaped increasing benefits over time.?

Unlike the evolution of the Internet, AI and especially GenAI, is coming into the daily lives of many, and many more every day, and it’s creating tangible value immediately. Very few other inventions in the last 100 years can make that claim.

Ask your kids or any Gen Zers that you know how they use AI. It’s fascinating to hear about their creativity and quick adoption. According to ChatGPT (yep, I’m using AI just for the stats)? Upwards of 50% of Gen Zers use AI at work or to complete school assignments. And surprisingly, Millennials are adopting it even faster with 89% saying that AI Tools are helping them perform tasks at work.

Takeaway: AI came into our lives fast and strong and is changing rapidly. The next technology revolution could be just around the corner. Adoption isn’t likely to get slower, only faster. Don’t be surprised when the next game-changer is here.

Now What?? Stay up-to-date; don’t ignore trends and new ideas. Find trusted resources that ensure you know what’s in development and how it might impact your business and how it is organized. Be prepared for one or more of those new ideas to become a central part of your daily life.

We Can No Longer Rely on Old Models of Change Management

When I spoke of proven Change Management practices in the past, I emphasized six components:

1. Provide Context: What is the change?? And what happens if we don’t change?
2. Inspire: What does great look like?? Nothing moves forward if you stand still.
3. Listen: A lot. And Listen Some More
4. Get Personal: What’s In it For Them?
5. Empower: This isn’t happening TO people, it’s happening FOR people.
6. Communicate: Again. Again. Again.

Rinse, repeat.

With the speed of technology adoption in inventions like AI, these six steps still remain relevant, but they will need to be executed in completely new ways with additional considerations. So, we need to reconsider change management practices - using a consistent step-by-step process will no longer prove effective. Our new change management will include considerations from additional sources, internal and external, and as a result, will be much more complex.

Who is using AI today in your organization? Honestly, practically everyone. With bottom-up inputs that inform fast tech implementations, every component of your business changes in flavor, tone, and execution. For example, context is no longer a top-down conversation; being inspirational may no longer be the right move; impacts are harder to convey.

Instead of looking at change as a process, let’s look at change as a shift in business ethos.

I built a model for contemplating and examining business ethos. At their core, businesses are seeking continuity and growth requiring a focus on intention.?

As stated before, successful, substantial change in organizations has traditionally followed a well-worn path. As recently as last year, experienced managers would agree that something needs to change in order to reach a certain strategic goal. “Strategy” on the diagram below represents this component of organizational success and the setting of goals to achieve that success. The rest of the graphic encapsulates how the organization prepares itself, project manages, and communicates to support progress. Intent is represented in the middle, but now “intent” may no longer be generated by the senior executives of the organization. Intent, and therefore strategic decision-making, is coming more and more from every part of the organization.

Takeaway: Turn old thinking about change as a process into new thinking that change is core to your business and an ethos.

Now What? Listen to what’s going on in your organization at all levels with more alacrity and openness. Strategic changes are no longer top-down decisions alone. Instead, change is coming from every corner of your organization and will inform your strategy and progress going forward in new ways.

Part I: Intention

Intention in this case is something you’ve decided to pursue as a response to an action or to achieve a certain outcome

Change Will Impact Everyone and From Many Directions

While this may be news to you, GenAI is already being used in various ways in nearly all organizations, even and especially yours. People are employing various AI tools in many different ways without much oversight or many rules. The intentional use of these tools hasn’t originated from any single part of the organization - the bottom, middle, or the top, or all three.

Most executives do not understand the great extent to which AI can be utilized. Today, right now, your teams could be loading and analyzing internal data on the latest version of ChatGPT, creating meeting summaries in Claude to craft formal communication, building a business case and proforma P&L for a new business idea in Perplexity, or some other AI tool that just came on the scene. There are so many possibilities and so few rules.?

Due to fear and uncertainty, strategic and leadership-driven change will manifest in various forms, often departing significantly from past implementation methods. The impacts of change will be different. Hence, the importance of working from a place of intention.

On one side, senior management may yank AI out of some teams’ workflows, and those teams may lose high-value results. New rules and guidance could reverse benefits already gained or require expensive rework. Measuring the impact of AI implementations and the cost of reversing them will be difficult, if not, impossible. Some teams will immediately experience decreased efficiency while others will see an increase in effort to revert or change to fit the new rules. Jumping too quickly and reacting could be extremely detrimental.

In other cases, AI implementations and rollouts could feel slow compared to one’s ability to use AI for immediate benefit.

Takeaway: Understanding the impact of reversed and newly planned AI implementations will be hard to measure. Being super intentional will be more important than ever.

Now What?: Intentional change in new realms means thinking differently. Do not just gather the typical team to manage through change. While including your HR teams and leaders will be helpful as before, including users of the new technology and more junior staff will ensure all perspectives are included in the planning.

New Tools May Replace “Old” Ones Very Quickly?

Flexibility and rapid adaptability will be critical even in jobs in which it wasn’t a critical competency before.?

Tools implemented just months ago may be replaced with new tools practically overnight. Or new restrictions will be placed and what you were doing just this morning is no longer supported or allowed by the organization.?

Many existing jobs will be very different. Let’s consider auditors and tax teams. They run (hopefully!) a consistent, organized, and often fairly manual process each cycle. The relevant regulations, policies, and procedures are known and have been developed over time. While, today, people in these roles need to be flexible and agile in some ways, adapting to many new processes all at once has not been historically necessary. Enter AI.?

It’s hard to know exactly how roles will change, but we know they will. For the auditor example, AI can see patterns and identify anomalies faster than a well-trained auditor. AI can prioritize the highest value and risk areas with more accuracy. And AI is likely to reduce audit cycle times and provide data that will require fewer auditors and those with new skill sets.?

Executives are not going to be able to keep up with what’s available and what AI can do, so it may take a long time until employees can utilize it as they would like or even in ways that improve results.

Takeaway: Pervasive change is happening far faster than it ever has before and role requirements can change very quickly or even wholesale overnight.

Now What?? Recognize that people who have been in steady jobs for a long-time may no longer possess the competencies now required and may not have an interest or ability to learn. Determine if and how you want to incorporate training, and be intentional and thoughtful about workplace voluntary and involuntary turnover, without sacrificing efficiency and productivity.

Our new normal is here and will require far more intentionality and new models for change. Don’t assume that the way you’ve done things in the past will work going forward. Spend more time thinking about moves and consequences than ever before as your decisions will require you to think differently about the Strategy, Design, and Leadership required to move your organization forward and keep up with competition.