Latest / The Daily Reset Podcast / The part of AI adoption that doesn’t appear in any vendor deck

Transcript

The part of AI adoption that doesn’t appear in any vendor deck · The Daily Reset Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, everyone.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Laurel Quinn, and thank you for giving me some of your Friday.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: We are here to talk about the part of AI adoption that doesn't appear
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: in any vendor deck, your people.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because most organizations are under pressure to adopt AI quickly,
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: and most are discovering that providing the tools and the training is the easy half.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: The hard half Is human.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's today.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: So a quick shape of the session.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to do it in five parts.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Why tools and training don't automatically create adoption.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Five warning signs that your people may be getting left behind.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd encourage you to quietly score your own organization as we go.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: What apparent resistance is really telling you and the conditions responsible
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: for responsible human-centered adoption and three questions to take back
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: to your leadership team.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that slide is worth a screenshot.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Just some housekeeping.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is being recorded and everyone registered gets the recording by email.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Drop questions into the chat as they occur
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: and I will message each organization individually at the end.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: So 90 seconds on whose hands you're in, then we'll get to work.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've spent more than 20 years in financial services, fintech and digital transformation.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I had senior roles at Aberdeen Asset Management and Lloyds Banking Group,
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: where I helped scale digital into 30 countries.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: My daughter and I founded Sustainably, which became Richard Branson's startup of the year.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: More recently,
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've delivered AI strategy and ethics sessions for leadership teams,
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: including at the data lab,
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: and I've built and shipped my own AI product with
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: a published responsible AI framework to go with it.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I've also burnt out, failed, and started again.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Both parts of that CV matter today because I've seen Transformation from
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: the boardroom and from the receiving end.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the core belief.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the belief that runs through everything today.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: AI adoption isn't a technology challenge.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's a leadership and people challenge.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I use this technology every day.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've built my whole business with it.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: AI will make your organization faster.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: That part is already done.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's not in question.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Speed is being solved.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Direction is not.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And direction is a human job,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: which means the organization that wins with AI won't be the one with the best tools.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: They'll be the ones whose people actually came with them.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So why doesn't the standard playbook work?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what most organizations provide licenses,
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: training sessions,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: a policy document, adoption targets, all necessary and none of it sufficient.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's what people actually need.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And notice these are not technical requirements.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Clarity on what AI means for their role.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Certainty about what's permitted.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Evidence that leaders see the human impact.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And trust that this is being done with them, not to them.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: The gap between those two columns is where adoption quietly fails.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can close it with another training session because it isn't a knowledge gap.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually a trust gap.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be really clear about something because it changes how you read everything
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: that follows.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Your people are not failing.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're navigating a new era using systems,
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: habits, assumptions, career models that were built for the old one.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And underneath almost every adoption problem I've seen, there are three unanswered questions.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean for my role?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uncertainty about the future reads as a threat and the nervous system responds accordingly.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's not weakness, that's biology.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: What am I actually allowed to do?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Where the rules are unclear, people either freeze or improvise without guardrails.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Both are problems.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do my leaders see the human impact?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: If people believe the answer is no, trust erodes quietly and adoption goes with it.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hold those three questions.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: They're about to become the warning signs.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Part two.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Five warning signs that your people may be getting left behind.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And none of these show up in a dashboard.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: All of them may show up in the X interview.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: As we go through, score your own organization quietly, honestly, out of five.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: So warning sign one, number one, compliance without adoption.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So usage looks healthy in week one,
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: everyone logs in, everyone completes the training, then it quietly flatlines.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: People demonstrate the tool when they're watched, then revert the moment no one is.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the rollout succeeds on paper only.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: The tell, your usage data peaks at launch and never recovers.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: If your adoption metrics all point at the launch week,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: you're measuring the announcement, not the adoption.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Warning slide two, silence in the room.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: You run the town hall, you present the AI strategy, you ask for questions and get none.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's tempting to read that as alignment.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: It almost never is.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Silence usually means one of two things.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: People don't know what's permitted, so they don't know what's safe to ask.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or, and this is the one leaders underestimate,
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: they're afraid that asking a question makes them look more replaceable.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the tell here is the questions you get do come privately afterwards, one-to-one.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: When the real conversation happens in the corridor, the meeting isn't working.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Warning sign three, shadow use or no use.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Two opposite behaviors and I see them in the same organization.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are using AI unofficially,
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: personal accounts, no guardrails, potentially company data going who knows where.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Others avoid entirely waiting for permission that never explicitly arrives.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Opposite behaviours, same root cause.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody has made the rules of the game clear.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the tell, your policy exists and nobody in the room can tell you what it says.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: A policy nobody can recite is a document, not a boundary.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Number four, and this is the expensive one, your best people are going quiet.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Capable people rarely resist loudly.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: They keep showing up,
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: they keep delivering,
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: performance holds steady and underneath they're quietly concluding
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: that this change isn't being done with them and quietly deciding what that means
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: for their future.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then one day they hand in their notice
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: and everyone's surprised except they shouldn't be because the signal was there
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: for months.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: It just wasn't loud.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: The tell.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Performance holds steady while discretionary effort disappears.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: The extra ideas stop.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: The sort of volunteering to offer help stops.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: The delivery continues right up till the resignation letter.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And number five, change fatigue dressed up as a resistance.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: As resistance.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: For many of your people, AI isn't the first transformation, it's the fifth.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's too many demands, too little recovery.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Their nervous systems are stuck in constant activation.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: What looks like stubbornness about AI is often exhaustion from everything that came before it.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: The tell, its resistance, it's not specific to AI.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: It just meets every new initiative the same way.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: If that's what you're seeing,
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: you don't have an AI problem, you have a capacity problem, and no tool fixes that.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So how did you score?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you recognize two or more,
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: part four is for you, but first, let's decode what resistance actually means.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Part three, here's the reframe that changes how leaders handle this.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Resistance is information.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: The behavior is the symptom.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: The unanswered question is the cause.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: So they won't engage with the tools is usually nobody has answered what this means for my role.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: They've stopped raising concerns.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's a dangerous one is usually I've concluded that raising them changes nothing.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And when you treat resistance as an attitude problem, you manage it.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: When you treat it as information,
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: you can actually resolve it because now you're answering the real question instead
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: of pushing the same message harder.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the stakes, briefly, because this is why it belongs on the leadership agenda, not just HRs.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Left unaddressed, these signs become four expensive problems.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Poor adoption, the investment never converts.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Loss of trust and every future change programs start from further behind.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Change fatigue, your capacity for the next transformation quietly shrinks and quietly exits.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Your most valuable people leave and take the knowledge with them.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: None of these appear on the AI budget line and all of them come out of it eventually.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So part four, this is the constructive path.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Five conditions.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is where I'd spend your energy.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Clarity before capability.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Before anyone's asked to adopt anything, they need to know three things.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: What's changing, what's not, and what's permitted.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Most organizations lead with a tool.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Lead with the clarity.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Trust as infrastructure.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Humans in the loop.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Transparency about where I is being used.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Honesty about its limits.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: I hold a strong view here.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Trust is earned by the builder.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not owed by the people.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you want your people to trust AI, show them the ways you've made it trustworthy.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Direction over speed.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: AI makes everyone faster, your competitors included.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Speed is being solved.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: The advantage goes to organizations that know what actually matters and where
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: the technology should point.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's a leadership question and no vendor answers it for you.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Protect what stays human, connection, creativity, curiosity, compassion, judgment.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Notice what those are.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: They're not features of a productivity system.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: In your organization, they're the differentiator.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Decide explicitly what stays human and say so out loud because that answer is also
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: the answer to what does this mean for my role?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And leaders go first.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Visible, honest use at the top.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And model questioning the tools, not just deploying them.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you a personal example.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I have a standing instruction in my own AI.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Question me at all times.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Don't agree with everything I say.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: That one prompt changed my relationship with the technology from something
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: that flatters me to something that sharpens me.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when leaders model that kind of discernment,
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: they give everyone else permission to use AI thoughtfully rather than fearfully.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Part five, three questions to take into your next leadership meeting and screenshot this slide.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: One, do our people actually know what they're allowed and encouraged to do with AI?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Not does a policy exist, do they know?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Two, if our best people were quietly disengaging, how would we know?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: What's our early signal other than the resignation letter?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Three, what must stay human here and how are we protecting it?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the meta point.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: If any of these questions produce silence in the room, that silence is your answer.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's a warning sign, warning sign number two, live at your own leadership table.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: So where we've been,
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Tools and training are necessary, but the human condition decides adoption.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Five warning signs to watch out before they come expensive.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Resistance is information.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Read the question underneath the behavior.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Five conditions that make adoption responsible and human centered.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And three questions for your leadership team this week.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And one last thing before your questions,
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: if you want to drop them into the chat,
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: like I said, or message me privately, I will be responding to everyone's emails.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you recognized your organization in those warning signs,
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: the last three questions are your starting point,
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: but they'll surface things that deserve a proper look.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's the work I do with leadership teams.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: A full organizational diagnostic,
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: a tailored adoption plan, and a responsible AI blueprint for your organization.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: The simplest way to start that conversation when the recording email lands, reply to it.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me which warning sign you recognized,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: I read every reply, and I'll tell you honestly whether a session would help.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's it, just one email.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just put your questions in the chat.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to thank you
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: for your time today, genuinely.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: The recording, the links, and the three questions will be in your email.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever stage of adoption you are at, bring your people with you.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's slower at the start and faster everywhere after.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And have a lovely weekend, everyone.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.