Technology

AI leaders and organization

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For decades, business writers and experts have provided business leaders with a variety of ideas, theories, and processes to help them manage and lead change in their organizations. These recipes, while invaluable at the time, can challenge leaders who are planning and implementing changes to AI today. The difference between business leaders must be to be able not only to implement change, albeit constantly, but to seek ways to transform their organizations.

The Merriam-Webster definition of transformation is:

… change composition or structure; to change the external shape or appearance of; to change character or condition: convert.

For leaders, this means significantly changing the way their organization operates. Strategic transformation is necessary in a workplace where AI applications function as deployment tools alongside human skills. As Fast Future authors Rohit Talwar, Steve Wells, and Alexandra Whittington state:

As AI becomes commonplace, employee soft skills will become even more important. As rules-based thinking and automation proliferate in companies, skills such as sensitivity, creativity, verbal reasoning, and communication, empathy, and spontaneity may become increasingly desirable. HR or a new Humanities Department can facilitate this aspect of personal development to ensure that companies take full advantage of the interaction between personal and artificial intelligence.

If these authors are correct, what behaviors should we expect from leaders as their organizations embark on this journey?

Motivated to continually learn.

In Deloitte’s 2019 Insights report, Leading the Social Enterprise: Reinvent with a Human Focus, the authors found that,

Faced with the relentless acceleration of artificial intelligence (AI), cognitive technologies, and automation, 86 percent of respondents to this year’s Global Human Capital Trends survey believe they must reinvent their ability to learn. After nearly 10 years of economic growth, and despite a pervasive corporate focus on digital transformation, 84 percent of respondents told us that they need to rethink their workforce experience to improve productivity. And in the face of new pressures to move faster and adapt to a much more diverse workforce, 80 percent believe they need to develop leaders differently.

As the demographic composition of the workforce evolves and the boom generation leaves, there is a considerable need for the transfer of leadership skills. Add in the advent of AI and the leader’s skill challenge multiplies. Leaders must continue to improve their own skills while exposing their teams to ongoing training and development.

Being exposed to challenge-based learning will provide leaders with innovative experience opportunities to enhance their capabilities and increase flexibility and adaptability.

Leaders must continue to network, invest in courses, and do research to stay abreast of trends and new developments in their areas of expertise. Reverse mentoring trusting that younger team members can know more than they do is key. All of these practices are critical to building relationships within the organization, as well as with external AI contacts and colleagues.

Willingness to share.

Dynamic leaders understand the value of teamwork, knowing that as the skills of some team members decline, others increase. This happens in the world of AI. Technical skills that were once considered critical may disappear, but the need for emotional intelligence skills will be the strength of the leader and the team. AI lacks empathy and compassion, but human skills involve leaders who take care of their teams and colleagues.

Chatbots will need to be accepted as new team members and can be used to guide and train new team members and help them with some of their processes and activities. This will provide more time for human team members to tackle more complex problems with critical thinking, creativity, and innovation.

Leaders must share their passion for AI, demonstrating commitment to new processes and practices, communicating effectively with all stakeholders so that everyone moves forward together. As a courageous change agent, they trust and rely on others and continue to support team members and colleagues from other disciplines. These leaders expand their team to include a broader range of skills and participants, reducing the silos that currently exist in the organization.

Desire to create and innovate.

To foster an innovative environment, leaders must be flexible, adaptable, and agile. Adaptable leaders are not afraid to commit to a new course of action when the situation warrants it, and their adaptability allows them to face challenges. This is what is needed when strategies include AI applications. Leaders must stay engaged, not only with their teams, but also with other members of the organization, customers, and the communities in which they live and work.

As leaders develop their innovation skills and experience, they ensure their team is building theirs, too.

Agile organizations need adaptable leaders. When leaders stay informed about changes in the competitive landscape and community, trends in the value chain, and trends in customers or customer bases, they also train their teams on how to be agile.

The confidence to challenge current assumptions.

To be successful in the world of AI, leaders must continually question / change their mental models, challenging assumptions about the business, customers, and the future. By focusing on purpose and strengths, they accelerate performance. They should focus on those actions and processes that unleash the creative potential of the team and therefore the power of AI. This will aid in decision making and problem solving ability for challenging situations driven by customer needs and wants.

Ability to identify and overcome barriers.

It’s about keeping everyone engaged. Keeping the talents and strengths of the team connected to the vision and purpose of the company is key. Engaging them in collective decision-making, exploring creativity tools like brainstorming, or implementing pilot groups, project teams, and member rotation will provide teams with opportunities to contribute in other ways. Using chatbots and virtual feedback platforms reduces the amount of time humans spend on repetitive, non-value-added tasks.

What does not change with the introduction of AI is the importance of having clear objectives. Leaders and their teams must work together to develop performance goals and then let go to meet or exceed them.

Without the right environment, the effect of this leadership development will be minimal. The right environment is needed for transformative actions; organizations also need to ‘change in composition or structure’.

Organizations must be filled with diverse teams; multidisciplinary, multifunctional and multipurpose collaborative teams. No silos. All members of these teams must participate, participate in the design of new processes, procedures and practices in a culture that supports decision-making and first-line problem solving. These teams are encouraged to be creative and innovative by applying a continuous cycle of test-test-measure-review-learn. Organizations filled with leaders who appreciate and embrace the value of AI will be able to transform the culture of their organizations; a culture built on a foundation of complementary AI applications and human strategic expertise.

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