“We are fully committed to AI adoption,” the CEO told me, proud of the company’s recent employee training initiatives.
“But is AI just another tool in their toolbox, or a new way of working?” I asked.
Silence.
“Your number one enemy is the lack of an answer to this question,” I continued. “Your employees are hearing doomsday predictions about how AI will soon eliminate their jobs, so they resist and reject these technologies. Most importantly, they have no idea who they will become after AI is adopted,” I concluded.
This isn’t the first time I’ve witnessed this overly enthusiastic, roll-the-dice approach to AI. Once again, technologists are scaring business leaders into embracing the latest technology—without any business context or strategy. The results are always the same: high resistance, early failures, disappointment, and no real return on investment. Gartner has rightfully crowned this as the “hype cycle.”
The AI world is now divided into fans and foes. The fans cite endless statistics, insisting that adopting AI is absolutely critical—otherwise, extinction looms. (Case in point: the CEO who famously fired 80% of his staff for failing to embrace AI. A masterclass in fearmongering.) The foes, meanwhile, wave a recent MIT study as proof that the benefits of this technology are overstated. That study found only 5% of task-specific AI tools were successfully deployed in organizations—clear evidence of the challenge in specialized AI rollout. In contrast, 40% of generic generative AI tools (LLMs) succeeded, often driven by employee initiative rather than top-down directives. The foes’ refrain: “Leave us alone. We’ll get there when we get there.”
URGENCY WITHOUT STRATEGY
Both camps wield data devoid of context or direction. They pursue technology for technology’s sake, forgetting that organizations do not exist simply to use the latest tools. Tools are just that—tools. It’s strategy that should be steering the company’s investments and efforts. But what if we don’t have the answers yet? What if we are navigating uncharted territory, still assembling the puzzle? Sometimes, the unknowns far outweigh the newly discovered. Welcome to the world of real strategy.
Strategy, by definition, is not an insurance policy. It comes with no guarantees. A real strategy embraces risk—the possibility of failure from both external changes and internal missteps. Competence in strategy means being able to say, “I don’t know,” and still move forward. Strategies do not need all the answers up front; they need built-in flexibility to adapt as the unknown becomes known, and to guide the organization toward its goals. Absent a strategy, AI becomes a patchwork of experiments with no clear success metrics. With strategy, every effort is framed by the possibility—and definition—of success.
BEYOND CORPORATE STRATEGY: PERSONAL STRATEGY
Given the fear AI stirs among workers, organizations must consider an additional layer: personal strategy.
The World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, 39% of workers’ core skills will be different. The most important—and fastest—growing skills include:
- AI and big data
- Analytical thinking
- Creative thinking
- Resilience, flexibility, and agility
- Technological literacy
- Leadership and social influence
- Curiosity and lifelong learning
- Systems thinking
- Talent management
- Motivation and self-awareness
- Networks and cybersecurity
With so much reskilling ahead, employees need their own personal strategy, a thoughtful approach to letting go of outdated skills and embracing new ones. They need to design their roles in the context of these new capabilities and chart a path to their next career milestone. Just as companies challenge employees to automate tasks with AI, they should also challenge them to envision how they will evolve, and what new talents they must develop.
THE 3 PERSONALITIES
While technology changes rapidly, the human response to change remains remarkably consistent. I am not referring to resistance, but to the varied ways people adopt change. Looking back at past transformations, we can identify three distinct personalities of change adoption:
- The efficient adopter: “Do less, better”
This employee leverages new technology to reduce routine workload, focusing on accuracy and quality. They use technology to deepen their organizational competence. - The effective adopter: “Do more, faster”
By embracing automation, this employee increases both capacity and output, positioning themselves as creators of greater value. - The evolving adopter: “Do differently”
This employee uses the technology not just to improve, but to redefine their role completely. They explore new responsibilities and avenues previously unavailable.
The technology may be identical, but employees will utilize it according to their comfort and strategy, each seeking a different outcome. All three types enhance performance and contribution, but through individually tailored strategic approaches.
Giving employees a choice reduces fear, fosters control, and allows progress at their own pace—within the company’s broader AI adoption journey.
FROM PERSONALITIES TO A JOURNEY
In my experience, empowering people to select their personal path accelerates adoption. Often, these three “personalities” become a sequence of milestones. Employees may start as efficient adopters, progress to effective adopters as confidence grows, and ultimately become evolving adopters. Freedom from fearmongering about job loss fosters a human-centric, resilient approach to technology—and to change more broadly. In Next Is Now!, I argued that the true measure of competitiveness is not in skills or products, but in the speed and scope of adapting to change. Recent World Economic Forum reports reinforce these as essential skills for thriving in our new reality—capabilities that transcend AI and will remain relevant through future upheavals.
When steel-based construction emerged in 1890, cities like London and Paris limited building heights to 10 stories, clinging to the old world of concrete-based construction. New York City, on the other hand, had the vision—and the strategy—to embrace skyscrapers, accelerating technology adoption and surpassing its European rivals.
The fear of change, and the hype surrounding new technologies, is nothing new. The lesson: Provide strategic context and human compassion; skip the unnecessary fights and harvest the benefits faster.
Lior Arussy, author of Dare to Author! and chairman of ImprintCX.
