[ Larry begins: The following guest article was submitted by Joe Hart, President & Chief Executive Officer of Dale Carnegie. While this fails to address concerns about copyright infringement, replacement of creative tasks, or employee fears about job loss, it still provides guidance on the significant role management plays in making AI successful in the corporation. For that reason, I requested and received permission to reprint this. I made two edits to his comments.]
Written by: Joe Hart
In today’s fast-paced and technology-driven world, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force that holds the potential to revolutionize the way we work, make decisions and interact with technology. AI promises greater efficiency, data-driven insights, and enhanced productivity, making it a valuable tool for businesses across various industries. Yet, despite the promises of this cutting-edge technology, many leaders find themselves grappling with the challenges of effectively implementing AI in the workplace.
While AI offers a plethora of advantages, from automating routine tasks to uncovering hidden trends in data, the road to successful AI integration is far from straightforward. In recent years, the struggle to harness AI’s full potential has raised a critical question: why are so many leaders failing with AI implementation, and what avoidable factors contribute to these setbacks?
According to a Harvard Business Review report relating to C-Suite AI failures, too many companies “are set up to fail by poor alignment, lack of trust, not enough focus on business opportunities, and how their job is understood internally.” Perhaps these are among the reasons McKinsey’s State of AI survey found that less than one-quarter of companies using AI realized a significant bottom-line impact—deficiencies eluding impact at scale it suggests might be caused “not only because of the technical challenges but also because of the organizational changes required.” Changes that many leaders simply are not making—whether intentionally or unknowingly.
Businesses are increasingly understanding AI’s utility for many of their more mundane, or even complex, tasks yet are struggling with effective and scalable implementation—particularly in a fashion that fruitfully engages employees in the process.
In an ideal world, AI does the brunt of the menial tasks, leaving humans to creative and critical thinking tasks. An AI program might collect and analyze data, supplying it in understandable ways for a worker to interpret, present, and make decisions on.
This requires buy-in from employees, something that requires work to produce and is far easier said than done. In fact, the inability to achieve or optimize this staff sensibility is further undermining successful AI utilization across industries. One survey [conducted by Dale Carnegie] showed that the best way to get employees excited about AI—three times as excited, to be exact—is to inspire trust in leaders, help employees understand how the tech works and increase workers’ soft skills to help them feel relevant to the company and their position.
Towards this end, here are eight key truths about AI that every leader must know, and heed, right now in order to help ensure successful AI and machine learning adoption in the workplace.
Here are six big ones.
Personalized Learning
AI systems can create personalized learning experiences for each employee based on their needs, preferences, and learning style. This helps increase engagement and retention of the information, making the learning more effective.
Adaptive Learning
Programs for employee training may have options to adapt a worker’s training on the spur of the moment. Dynamic and complex systems can adjust the difficulty, change up the sequencing of content, and keep employees learning at a steady pace.
Skill/Knowledge Gaps
AI programs can easily use simulations, automated grading, and adaptive questioning to test employees’ knowledge and proficiency at their work tasks and suggest customized learning solutions to help fill gaps.
Content Curation
When it comes to knowing what to study, AI programs can help curate content for workers for their particular needs. These algorithms can sift through thousands of articles and web pages to suggest only the most up-to-date and relevant sources for continued learning.
Virtual Assistance
Workers learning and developing skills through AI programs might run into problems or questions. Other AI coaching can supply answers by way of automated chatbots or virtual assistants.
Data Analytics
AI programs are great for processing data—large quantities of it. When you look at the data from L&D activities, you can see where employee performance or knowledge is lacking the most. You can also see learning patterns and judge the effectiveness of the training.
Managers and learning and development professionals can build strong partnerships between humans and new AI technology by focusing on three key areas of development for employees: fostering resilience in the face of change, building an agile workforce, and recognizing and rewarding emotional intelligence.
Fostering resilience means overcoming obstacles, hardships, and failures that inevitably come with change. Recognizing and rewarding emotional intelligence means finding and training potential leaders and putting them in empowered positions to manage others. There are many benefits of artificial intelligence in learning and development—if you know how to harness them.
It is indisputably true that how AI will change the world depends on how we as humans approach it. AI is meant to be a tool for human use, not a replacement for ingenuity, creativity, or rationalization. As such, humans need to remain relevant to the workplace because they aren’t going anywhere. Increasing employees’ soft skills and integrating them with AI technology can mean maximizing beneficial results.
No matter how you feel about AI, it’s the truth that those who utilize AI for work will slowly outpace those who don’t. It all comes back to the integration of humans with machines. If you want to prepare for success in the AI era, then you need to concentrate on the human element of the equation.
It’s essential to recognize that the challenges surrounding AI implementation are not insurmountable. Instead, they serve as valuable lessons for leaders and organizations to refine their strategies and better prepare for the AI-driven future. By heeding the above truths and adopting a more informed and holistic employee engagement approach, leaders can unlock AI’s true potential and pave the way for a more productive and innovative workplace.
Joe Hart is the President & Chief Executive Officer of Dale Carnegie – a global training and development company with operations in over 75 countries and a worldwide leader in professional development, performance improvement, leadership training and employee engagement. Participants can build skills through in-person, live online, and hybrid programs. He is also the author of the Wall Street Journal Best-Selling book, “Take Command: Find Your Inner Strength, Build Enduring Relationships, and Live the Life You Want.” Joe has a unique understanding of how leaders can inspire trust, create an environment of psychological safety, drive employee engagement and instill a culture of creativity and resilience toward change.
