There are few things that can benefit or disrupt the culture of an organization like the influx of new technology. Technology changes the nature of our work and how work gets done. It can also impact when and how we interact with others.
The initial assumption is that technology should make everything easier, particularly in cases where the technology in question is designed to expedite or even eliminate administrative tasks and free us to do things that are more creative in nature, or at least more in line with our skills and training. But that isn’t always the case. Organizations tend to make a lot of the same mistakes when it comes to the implementation and rollout of new technology. These can provide some important lessons to leaders as they move forward with or expand the use of new technologies, including artificial intelligence.
Without trust there is no buy-in. In more egregious situations:
- Employees will question the rationale behind the change, assuming that most or all the benefit will go to “corporate” or to other functions or departments.
- They will be hesitant to accept some of the inconveniences that come with change, and to dedicate the time and effort needed to make the adjustment.
- They will also complain or look to abandon the change altogether at the first sign of difficulty.
Organizations can’t necessarily build a culture of trust overnight. Knowing that there are trust issues, however, will raise the bar in terms of communication during implementation and support during the rollout of the new technology.
Organizations spend a lot of time talking through the ‘what’ of the change. To help build trust, they should also take time to explain the ‘why’. If people understand and accept the motive behind a change, they tend to be much more open to the change itself. Absent an explanation of the motive, they’ll often make up their own story – and that story is usually far less favorable about the change than the story the organization is looking to tell.
Sometimes in attempting to explain the ‘why’ the organization may realize that it doesn’t have a full grasp of the underlying problem. A healthcare organization was recently implementing a new talent acquisition system, to increase the speed and efficiency of its hiring function. It came to realize there were a lot of problems with the underlying talent acquisition processes that technology wouldn’t fix, including a slow and inconsistent process for approving new job descriptions. The organization put the technology implementation on hold as it sorted through those problems.
It is often the employees who have the best grasp of the situation on the ground. They may not know all the inner workings of the new technology. However, they will have highly informed opinions as to what will or won’t work from an implementation standpoint or will ultimately help to address the problem.
Leaders don’t have to take the employees’ opinions at face value. But they ignore them at their own peril. This is particularly true at the outset of the process when there is still time to consider changes to the implementation or rollout. I have conducted post-mortems of various failed implementations, where employees have lamented, “if they had only asked me, I could have told them this wasn’t going to work (or it wasn’t going work the way they thought it would).”
It also jeopardizes employees’ trust and buy-in when they don’t feel like they’ve been heard by leadership or had the chance to even offer their comments. They are likely to hold that against leadership if future (and what they might consider inevitable) course corrections are required.
The adoption of a new technology does not happen in a vacuum. There will invariably be changes to the underlying business or work environment that will make the implementation harder or more complicated than expected. There are also bound to be glitches that cause rework or delays.
The organization can’t anticipate every change or glitch. What it can do is set up the infrastructure to deal with these issues as they occur. That includes having mechanisms in place to assess the progress of the implementation and having ongoing dialogue with any impacted staff members to gather their impressions and feedback (or to simply allow them to vent about the process). This dialogue will also help to maintain employees’ trust in the process.
This may be the biggest challenge with any new technology adoption. It creates issues for employees before it can solve them.
- Employees must go through training in the new technology/system, which takes them away from their other work.
- There is often confusion on the floor, compounded by any glitches to the new technology/system, as the organization tries to grapple with the change.
- During the transition, there may be some double work required, with people using the new technology/system while still engaging with the old technology/system as “backup.”
- Other longstanding processes will change across the organization, requiring further training and adjustment.
There is also the displacement that occurs with the rollout of new technology. While new jobs are created, other positions are eliminated. In some of the more impacted areas, a broader level of reskilling may be needed for those that retain their jobs.
This is where leaders must demonstrate empathy to team members – to let them know that the organization appreciates what they are going through and is ready to provide the necessary logistical and emotional support. Empathy will take on heightened importance during the rollout of AI, given the rapid level of advancement of the technology and the many questions it raises around future operations and employment.
The action plan will cite a beginning and end date for the implementation and rollout of the new technology. But the changes will continue, as will the need for emotional support. It may take months or years to assess the full impact on employees and the culture. Periodic check-ins can help to provide a stress test on the culture and identify areas where further interventions may be required to address or minimize disruption.
Carpe Diem as Your Trusted Partner in Change Management
At Carpe Diem, we recognize all of the underlying challenges that arise before, during and after change and work with organizations to optimize their change efforts.
Carpe Diem offers a breadth of services across three pillars – leadership acquisition, leadership development, and leadership advisory. We help clients to drive and adapt to change by finding the right leaders, onboarding and coaching those leaders to make them more effective with their teams, and defining and enhancing the organization’s culture.
We find that organizations don’t always have a firm grasp of their culture. So, our work in that area begins with a timely but comprehensive assessment of the current state. Rather than just looking for the presence or absence of different cultural traits, we rate each trait along a spectrum – e.g., proactive → reactive, collaborative → competitive, empowering → controlling. This allows us to highlight key cultural strengths, but also to more readily identify cultural barriers that may be getting in the way of change
We will also look at past change efforts. A heavy equipment manufacturer had updated its safety protocols, in response to recent safety incidents. But these and other changes were met with skepticism from the staff, as previous initiatives had led to more write-ups of staff members without necessarily improving the organization’s safety record. Coming out of the study, the organization focused on improving its communication with staff members. It also began moving away from a command-and-control structure, hiring leaders who could better relate to their team members.
These market insights from Carpe Diem Global Partners are gathered from the firm’s extensive client work with Board, CEO, CXO, and CHRO leaders in public and private multinational companies. For deeper, custom insights, contact Craig Kamins at ckamins@carpediempartners.com.