By Amy Jacobson
Adopting artificial intelligence in workplaces isn’t always easy. There is often a divide within organizations with people that embrace AI versus those who resist it. The key to managing both is to embrace emotional intelligence and change intelligence and meeting your team members where they are before guiding them forward.
Is it really AI that your teams are pushing back on, or is it the extreme level of change that comes when we start automating tasks? With 96% of organizations undergoing some form of transformation or change right now, only 34% of change initiatives succeed. To make positive changes stick, it’s integral to not just focus on the actual change, but also on helping people understand the relationships their minds have with overall change. This is standard with any form of change, especially large-scale, intense changes like automation and AI implementation. Emotional intelligence, specifically change intelligence, is integral to adopting AI or any other new system.
There are three key messages to mastering change intelligence:
- You don’t have to love change.
- Change is never perfect.
- The mind is always losing something.
You don’t have to love change
Being forced or told to love change doesn’t work and doesn’t help anyone. Each one of us has a relationship with change that has been embedded in our neural pathways throughout our lives, complete with different ideas of what change looks and feels like and what is “normal” when it comes to change.
Picture our change relationship as a scale from 1 (“I loathe change and prefer consistency”) to 10 (“I love change and sometimes will voluntarily change for the sake of change”).
In every workplace, we need those people that are happy to do the same thing and do it well every day. Those team members consistently deliver quality results and aren’t knocking on your door asking for a new job — they’re content to do what they are good at and continue like this for years to come. These people are going to be found closer to the 1 on the change relationship scale. These people likely won’t be great with change.
We also have team members that always come up with new ideas, innovations and ways to improve. They have a fast-track career plan or are always looking for the next shiny object. These people will be around 10 on the change scale. We need these people too! They’re great with change and likely already have ideas to help facilitate the change.
Everyone else generally will fall somewhere between those extremes.
It may help leaders and staff to hold an exercise in which the team physically moves and stands along this scale of change when faced with different simulations, opening real conversations to understand how people were wired for change and why they are so good at their chosen skills. When we understand why we do what we do, the way we are wired and that no part of the change relationship scale is right or wrong, the battle eases and we can work together more effectively.
A successful workplace isn’t about loving change. It’s about having a balanced team. Help people to understand their relationship with change and work with it rather than against it. Don’t force something that goes against their wiring. Instead, leverage their wiring to implement changes effectively while making it clear that change will happen regardless. They don’t have to love it, but they still have to do what it takes to understand and keep up with it.
Change is never perfect
Acting like the change you’re trying to implement will be life-saving, magical and perfect won’t work, and you’ll quietly hear some of those that are resistant to change get ready to show you downsides to the new methods.
The truth is, change is never perfect. When we decide on a change, we do it because the pros outweigh the cons. We focus on pros in order to sell the change to others, but pretending it will be perfect sets unrealistic expectations. There will always be things that don’t quite go according to plan and things that might be better the old way.
These people may take pleasure in pointing out kinks in new methods and tools, which adds another layer of defense to their pushback against the overall change. It’s important to not shy away from these hiccups or sweep them under the rug. Be up front, own the fact that there are bumps in the road, and be transparent along the way when things aren’t going to plan or are being tweaked, while also sharing the brilliant wins of the change.
The mind is always losing something
With every single change, the mind loses something. Whether it is simply losing the habit that has been embedded in our mind or losing something like our purpose and drive, there is always a loss, and this loss must be owned.
Even with what seems to be the best changes comes losses. It’s amazing how teams fight to let go of a rundown, leaking old building that they have complained about every day in the past year when they move to a shiny new high tech building, simply because their mind is struggling to let go of all of the memories, habits and familiarity that they lose when they begin the transition into the new building.
Now think about the last change in your workplace. What did the team lose? Introducing AI has so many benefits, but there are obvious losses: processes, jobs, human interactions, once-valuable skills and time are just a few examples. When our mind loses something, alarm bells go off in our amygdala and trigger fight or flight responses. Our mind must create new neural pathways to align with the change, and our willingness to and relationship with change will determine how quickly we adapt and create those new pathways.
Owning loss is the first and most important step to change intelligence. If we don’t let people own their losses, face their emotions, and find closure, their minds will remain in battle mode, desperately clutching the past neural pathways and familiar comfort for as long as they possibly can.
About the Author
Amy Jacobson is an emotional intelligence specialist and speaker who helps individuals, teams, and companies harness EQ in order to excel. She is the author of The Emotional Intelligence Advantage: Mastering Change and Difficult Conversations and Emotional Intelligence: A Simple and Actionable Guide to Increasing Performance, Engagement, and Ownership.
