Managing AI transformation requires addressing the identity threat to employees

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Managing artificial intelligence is managing change – big time, given the explosive, uncertain potential of AI. Managing change boils down to managing people. That means managing AI is not about managing sophisticated machines but about managing people – big time.

Research by Harvard Business School professors Das Narayandas and Shunyuan Zhang highlight the tensions arising because AI could change the professional roles of the individuals who use it, making employees feel less expert or visible in their jobs. That identity crisis comes in three forms:

• Role compression: Employees may find themselves with less to do over all and the duties they retain may seem lower in status as judgment and expertise is automated.
• Control shift: Supervisors may have less discretion over the choices that once defined their expertise as decisions are delegated to algorithms. The judgment that made the role feel like theirs now sits with the system, even if they retain their title.
• Span erosion: As people begin to rely on AI for answers, managers’ influence over people, budgets and processes may decrease. Again, their title may remain but they will feel a weaker sense of status and power.

It adds up to a triple threat to their identity that can’t be ignored by senior management. And reassuring words won’t suffice. Instead, Professors Narayandas and Zhang insist top leaders must deliberately show employees how adoption preserves or enhances their identity, expertise, influence and the future value of their role. Here’s how:

• Recharter roles: You can’t merely promise them they will “do more strategic work.” You have to be specific about which forms of judgment, customer knowledge, interpretation or relationship expertise becomes more prominent as routine work is automated.
• Build decision guardrails: As AI takes over some decision-making functions, companies need to ensure managers and other employees retain the power to override and question choices. Clarifying those guardrails can also help fight the identity threat.
• Create analytical overlays: While AI can provide input to enhance decision-making processes, the individual’s expertise must be kept crucial. “It’s like having a research assistant who can do the background work, but you are still the one bringing meaning to it, so you can feel good about that,” Prof. Narayandas told Harvard Business School’s digital publication Working Knowledge.
• Develop redeployment pathways: Companies must commit to workers that they will be retained – and retrained – in new roles should that become necessary. Those roles must be respected and meaningful, so it feels like growth rather than diminishment.
• Ensure executive sponsorship: When such redeployment occurs, senior leadership should publicly stand behind the redesigned role and the people stepping into it to counter the sense it is a demotion. And they must similarly ensure the retraining is sufficient. “You can’t just turn salespeople into consultants,” Prof. Zhang noted. “You need the training to provide those pathways, and executive sponsorship to make that happen.”

In the background, of course, is the human fear of losing skills. But that deskilling doesn’t just affect the individuals; it might well determine the organization’s future. In a global study of 70 C-suite leaders and senior executives across multiple industries, the BCG Henderson Institute found that half are already observing de-skilling in their organizations and more than 60 per cent believe that de-skilling will pose a material threat within the next three to five years.

The BCG consultants advise that organizations must actively shape how employees can use AI in ways that strengthen human skills. “This involves defining which AI systems are approved for use, how output verification should be conducted and when human review is mandatory,” Sagar Goel, David Martin, and Charikleia Kaffe write in an article on the BCG web site. Concrete guidance should detail how to use AI in specific contexts and also outline tasks where AI won’t be used because originality, ethical judgment or synthesis is most critical.

The organization must redesign how work gets done, addressing what tasks should be delegated to AI, what tasks should remain human and where humans and AI should adopt an ensemble approach, working on a problem independently and then combining their outputs. “As organizations redesign their workflows, resistance to skill erosion needs to sit alongside efficiency and effectiveness as an explicit design criterion,” the consultants stress.

Human skill development should be made visible in employee performance reviews, promotion criteria and development pathways. This involves illuminating how an employee achieves their outcomes as well as what they deliver. What skills were used? What skills were built?

The consultants also urge leaders to actively establish routines that will help employees rebuild cognitive and creative muscles. “Just as organizations have norms for different meeting types, they need norms that exercise different human capabilities: Cognitive warm-ups, AI-free problem-solving sessions, structured debate moments and reflection prompts,” they say. They point to a leading bank in India that runs a structured AI-free session on the first Friday of each month across all business and support functions, combining case study discussions, design-thinking assignments and sector briefings.

AI transformation is about the humans – and their skills.

Cannonballs

• Career consultant Alan Kearns believes Canadian leaders can learn from Monty Roberts, The Horse Whisperer, who recently died. His trust-building, Join-Up approach to training a horse flipped the traditional question of how to get the animal to do what I want into what do I need to do so this animal chooses to be with me?
• A new study found that managers regularly choose candidates who respond quickly to job posts even when a higher quality option is available. The jobs were temporary and freelance, but Mark Royal, a partner with Korn Ferry Advisory, warns it’s still a shortcut that can lead to higher turnover at the other end. As well, while response speed certainly can be a sign of keen interest in a role, it also can just be a sign that someone is using AI.
• Consultant Michael Kerr shares this icebreaker question for networking or opening meetings that can also illuminate what’s missing from your own career if you answer it: “If you could experience or do any job for just one week, what would it be?

Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.