People.
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Everything is easy but people get in the way.
Every leader and every Board of Directors have strategy decks, PowerPoint slides and press releases about how they will forge into the future and transform themselves.
They will AI this and AI that.
They will re-organize this and downsize that.
They will buy this, divest that and merge this with that.
But the best laid plans fail to come to fruition
Because between the idea and the reality falls the shadow.
And the shadow are people.
People we define as employees, customers, partners, suppliers, stake-holders, users, members or audiences.
But they are people.
People like you and people like me.
And we sometimes forget to keep some things about people front and center.
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1. Companies do not transform people do.
Any transformation strategy that does not incorporate why the transformation is good for the various people involved is unlikely to succeed.
Just because it is good for the company does not necessarily mean it is good for the people. The change involved is often described as good when reality is that change that is imposed on anyone is scary and sucks.
The key questions that people ask is not how the strategy will allow the company to grow but how will it help them grow?
Grow their skills, opportunities, income, and options.
Spreadsheets are cool and calculating.
People are warm blooded and feeling filled.
People are messy and many folks do not want to deal with messiness.
But to transform a company is to transform people.
So aside from Strategies and M&A and Re-org plans the key are constant communication, aligned incentive plans where people are incentivized to do the new versus the old and significant training investment to close the gap from the skills of today to the skills of tomorrow.
Companies do not transform.
People Do.
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2. People will be the differentiator not the technology.
While technology is key to competitiveness and no company can remain relevant without embracing, adopting and incorporating technology very few companies have superior technology since most technology is developed by a few dozen companies that every one has access to and can utilize through licensing agreements.
AI is like electricity in that every company will need it to compete but it only a differentiator if one is competing with companies that do not use AI.
Just like no one goes around saying they are better because they have access to electricity since no company they compete with uses candlelight the same will be true about AI.
Having an AI strategy is not the point.
Determining how AI changes the strategy of the company including how to re-imagine itself in a world of new competitors and capabilities should be the focus.
That re-imagining unlike the efficiency and effectiveness deliverables that AI brings ( which every company must leverage to stay competitive and is primarily driven by technology) is dependent on the quality of the talent including that of the leadership.
The Internet required media companies to reimagine their business and very few of them like the New York Times crossed the divide. Most others moved slow and just ported their current business over to the Internet.
If the New York Times had decided to use the power of the internet only to gain subscriptions to the newspaper, find ways to make their printing presses work faster and used mobile to better manage the movement of their trucks they would not be where they are today. The future does need printing presses, trucks and paper and in such a world one had to reimagine.
In a world of AI and HI where HI is Human Intelligence. Human Inspiration. Human Interaction. Human Insight. Human Ingenuity. Human Imagination it will be people that will be the difference.
The impact of AI on people and organizations and leadership are key.
Every business may or may not be a technology business.
But every business is a people business.
Creator: Ralph A. Clevenger | Credit: Getty Images
3. People change slowly and therefore organizations need to start earlier to be ready.
Transformation is not like an expresso coffee but much more like slow percolating tea.
It takes its own time because it involves people and people adapt slowly.
To transform people go through a stage of transition like a caterpillar as it becomes a butterfly must go through the pupa stage.
Transformation are stages of transition, adaptation, and finding fit.
This takes months and often years and so a company that believes their industry might change dramatically two years from now should start adapting now.
Because people change slowly.
And if companies are to transform it can only happen when people do.
People.
They are what matter.