Technology works for people

Hi, Randolph here.

Writing for HBR, Verizon's Sowmyanarayan Sampath has a great article out today (04-30-2024): Your Teams Should Drive AI Adoption, Not Senior Leadership.

I very much agree with the sentiment, and I want to build on something I think is implied but merits more discussion: human acceptance of technology and change.

Way back the Xbox One launch in 2013 I worked closely with Microsoft’s customer support agents to ensure they had the tools and knowledge necessary to support the new console. One of the topics we knew they struggled with was HDMI passthrough - the ability to plug a cable-box into the console and have it manage live TV functions (which, eleven years later, sounds like a very old-timey thing to do).

My team and I at corporate brainstormed the problem and conceived of a new agent toolset that could take the guesswork and complexity out of the problem by recommending a software configuration and wiring layout unique to whatever devices the customer had. We worked with the support agents to develop the features and UI, modeled customer journeys and golden paths, even started a roadmap on how we could refine it into something customers could use themselves.

Towards the end of this design process, just before we committed budget and developers, one of the support agents said something invaluable.

“You know we’re never going to use this, right?”

One by one, the other agents agreed. We’d been working together for weeks on the design and all of us were excited by the tool and delighted with our own ingenuity, but only that one agent had the courage to say what everyone else on the front-lines knew from the start: this thing wasn’t just unhelpful, it was going to be a burden in an already cluttered system. We scrapped the project.

Why do I share this anecdote? Because it’s analogous to how some companies introduce AI to their employees and customers: top-down, disconnected from real needs, and full of buzzwords and overconfidence.

Introducing AI - or any disruptive new tool - requires organizations to take a servant leadership approach. Employees and customers are the people who are going to use these tools and drive them to succeed or fail. If they see the tool as an unwelcome tax on their time - or worse, a threat - then you risk spending time and money, lowering morale, and creating friction. Maybe even inviting backlash and sabotage.

As just one example of “solutions” disconnected from the reality of user needs look at NEDA’s disastrous rollout of their Tessa AI chatbot.

If your goal is to create value - real value that leads to customer and employee loyalty, sustainable business growth, and meaningful advances in technology - remember: technology works for people.

Our approach at Racconto:

• Understand the need: what are the pain or friction points your people are feeling, what are their unmet desires? Back it up with objective (e.g., behavioral telemetry, KPI performance) and subjective (e.g., interviews and surveys) data.
• Conceive the solution: This is usually the easiest part. What change - technology, process, training, etc - solves those needs, and how can it be built and deployed?
• Engage the users: Bring in the people who will feel the change the most. This is a little bit traditional UAT, a little bit design and requirements gathering, and a whole lot of confidence and acceptance building. We don’t just want the users trained and ready, we want them champing at the bit for a solution they’re confident in.
• Make it better: Launch doesn’t mean done. Now it’s time to monitor KPIs, check in with users, squash bugs and refine features. We like to communicate this process in advance so the people using the tool understand it’s happening, are encouraged to communicate their feedback, and have clear expectations on what comes next.

Good luck out there.