AI comes along with words such as disruption, unprecedented and game changing, plus a few hundred more. Undoubtedly, we have not seen the rise of a technology of this magnitude before. A bit of a miracle, it seems, that suddenly there are thousands of experts who offer you unique wisdom in the area. Usually a how-to wisdom. Wisdom that often comes in the form of a word salad produced by AI itself.
There is little doubt of the impact. Dismiss it at your peril. If you still need convincing, may I suggest you come back from that Sabbatical on Mars, fast. AI will change anything from the way Medicine or Law are practiced to how performance and operational excellence in organizations will look. The change will probably be logarithmic.
This is the robotic side. What about the human side?
The human options
There are two options. We wait for AI to change us, or we change ourselves so that AI is the Emissary, not the Master, borrowing from Dr Iain McGilchrist’s concept and the title of one of his groundbreaking books. Paraphrasing him, the brain’s right hemisphere and its ability to work on abstract concepts, see the whole, synthetize and provide meaning, was supposed to be the Master. The left hemisphere of the brain with its capacity for detail, execution, order and love of certainty, was supposed to be the Emissary. Somehow, in recent times of our civilization, the Emissary grew in its arrogance and took over, giving us the prominence of the mechanistic, efficient and predictable. Just perfect incubation for AI.
There is a profound philosophical discussion underneath all this, but well outside the borders of this article. However, I’d like to suggest that a colossal growth of the algorithmic capacity which AI will provide, is an opportunity to rescue the truly human in us, becoming a Master again. For example, AI will make the mechanics of organizing ideas, seeing alternatives, providing historical perspective, or, say, digesting mega data in front of us, something that can be done in the blink of an eye. AI will provide diverse and alternative ideas in a second. You can even ask AI to provide you with contradictory positions, from simple statements to complex logic. It will do it for you, and it will do it very well. But it will be left to humans to choose, how to use them, how to judge them.
Curiosity, respect, psychological space, excitement, compassion, motivation or leadership itself will still be a human choice, a choice for the Master. In fact, this Master should be liberated now because the Emissary has done all the groundwork. This is very good news for humans. It’s our chance to be less robotic, (we already are) but only if we choose to be.
Leadership and change
It’s also the best time to rethink and humanise leadership and change and therefore, the best time to imagine first, and then shape the organizational conditions for success. AI will leave no room to hide with false appeals to complexity and the need to ‘reflect forever’. A few alibies will go out of the window. It will be for the humans to play human; other roles will already be taken.
Change and transformation will be less of a project and more of a state of being. In large scale cases (culture change in a medium or large size organization, for example) the project management mechanics will shrink so much that they will force humans to look at each other in their eyes and use a fascinating, evolutionary forgotten capability: talk. What an unintended consequence! What a fantastic side effect!
There is no change unless there is behavioural change. The key question on the table is not what AI will do to us but what kind of culture is the one that will take full human advantage of it? What is the behavioural fabric we need to support all the new possibilities? What kind of organizations, relationships, learning environments and fundamental values?
When exploring, processing information, testing decisions, assessing risk, creating workflows, and a myriad of other things are done at unimageable speed and precision, humans will be ‘forced’ to focus on what they really do and don’t. I used to joke that time in organizations went like this: 90% on thinking of doing, getting a mysterious status of ‘readiness’ to do it, having a meeting about the merits of all of the above, and then, 10% doing it. That will not survive. We will be confronted with the reality of having to use our judgement and test our values, beliefs and morals. Not doing so will result in a complete outsourcing of responsibility to the robots.
My business is one of creating large scale behavioural and cultural change in organizations. I love the idea that there will be less and less places to hide for those who have zero skin of the game. I believe in humanity. I believe in making ‘bullshit jobs’ (as the late anthropologist David Graeber called them) an artefact of the Museum of ‘What Has Been’. I believe AI can make us more human.
A recent Gartner report said that AI-first organizations will destroy productivity in their search for it. It’s a very good point. As a neuropsychiatrist, I say out loud: We need the Master back.
About the author:
Dr. Leandro Herrero is the CEO of The Chalfont Project, a pioneering international firm of Organizational Architects specializing in large-scale behavioural and cultural transformation. With a distinct fusion of expertise in psychiatry and leadership, Dr. Herrero has authored several influential books on mobilizing change, including Viral Change™, Homo Imitans, and The Flipping Point. His work has consistently shaped the landscape of leadership and organizational dynamics across sectors.
