Establishing a Culture that Enables Gen AI

Imagine that in your organisation, the recently hired knowledge worker has just begun their newly created role. How do you engage the team in embracing the potential of this new role and what it has to offer? How do you equip that person to be an effective member of the team, engaged in the team’s activities, and making a contribution as early as possible? 

Many people in newly created roles like this share significant hurdles they face that can quickly kill their productivity. They may experience that new ideas aren’t welcome and that the best way to get  ‘cut through’ is to play to the status quo.  Or they may experience a lack of coherence and alignment with existing roles and processes.  

What may be required of leaders to ensure that this knowledge worker is embraced, engaged and productive as soon as possible?  

In the same way that effectively embracing a new role or person in a team requires particular cultural attributes (openness, curiosity, support, engagement), embracing significant or radical new technologies, processes, or ways of working requires similar culture qualities to foster acceptance. 

 What is the role of leadership in establishing a culture that enables effective application of Gen AI? Some things to consider, borrowing from Ed Schein’s research into what influences culture, could be: 

• What a leader pays attention to, measures and rewards 

• What a leader role models 

• How a leader responds when things don’t go according to plan (as they inevitably will in complex environments where cause and effect aren’t clearly linked) 

In the context of Gen AI, a leader would need to: 

• Pay attention to, measure and reward the take-up of Gen AI to enhance productivity and strategic thinking within the team. For example, acknowledge a team member applying Gen AI to drafting new policies in a style that aligns with the organisation’s desired culture (perhaps more principle-based and less prescriptive) 

• Demonstrate an active interest in and application of Gen AI. For example, apply Gen AI to assessing the pros and cons of a particular strategy and inviting the Gen AI application to ask further questions about the strategy 

• Establish learning rituals where the team can share insights, new applications, and limitations of the Gen AI tool. For example, allocate a dedicated 30 minutes each week for team check-ins on their experiences with Gen AI and what might be beneficial for other team members.  

• Implement fact-checking and reasonableness testing rituals when applying Gen AI for summarising thought leadership (does this make sense, are these references credible, are there other data sources?) 

 With Gen AI, we are on the exciting cusp of an extraordinary leap in potential productivity. Regardless of the productivity tool, the biggest factor that can enable or inhibit reaping the rewards remains the same – culture. 

You can learn more here https://www.adaptivecultures.co about Adaptive Culture’s work in enabling organisations to progress on their many challenges and opportunities through transforming their culture. 

Our development programs Practitioner Development Programs | Adaptive Cultures support practitioners to build the capabilities to lead organisational culture transformation.