The one question that reveals your AI readiness
And five leadership moves to make AI adoption feel safe and real.
Have you ever capsized in a kayak?
Rowena Slattery and her partner flipped their double kayak during their second outing.
And she described it as a lesson in balance, resilience, and respecting the swell.
Honestly, that’s how AI change feels in organizations right now.
I am co-authoring this week’s piece with Rowena. She works with leaders and teams navigating change, especially as AI and new systems reshape roles and ways of working.
She is deeply people-centered in her approach to this work, and she’s developed the PASA Frameworks to help organizations navigate change with clarity, confidence, and genuine care for their people.
Rowena loves engaging with people, sharing ideas honestly, and helping leaders make sense of complexity before rushing into action. This year, her focus is on building her dream work, which is helping teams achieve safe, strong outcomes as they adopt AI in practical, human-led ways.
And a quick credit where it’s due: this article was inspired by an episode of Beyond the Prompt featuring Prosci leaders Tim Creasy and Paul Gonzalez, which hits hard, because it put words to what I keep seeing too often: organizations keep underestimating the “human” side of AI change.
Many leadership teams are rolling out AI strategies right now.
Big vision. Big promises. Big urgency.
And I keep thinking about the moment that follows…
The moment an employee asks:
“Okay… so what changes for me next week?”
That is THE one question..
And if leaders can’t answer that clearly, the vision doesn’t inspire people.
It unsettles them.
We keep treating AI adoption like a rollout:
Pick a tool. Train people. Send comms. Done.
But AI change doesn’t behave like regular change. It moves fast, shifts constantly, and lands emotionally:
Fear. Pressure. “Am I behind?” “Is my job safe?”
So here’s the reframe:
When AI moves faster than people, leadership becomes the work.
Not the deck. Not the announcement. Not the hype.
Leadership is the work that happens when real humans try to change how they work.
The 5 steps people actually go through (whether we plan for it or not)
This part matters because leaders often assume: If we tell people, they’ll do it.
But change is still a sequence.
People usually move through five steps:
They understand what’s happening
They decide if it’s worth engaging
They learn what to do
They try it enough times to feel capable
They keep doing it because it’s reinforced
AI didn’t remove these steps.
It just shrunk the timeline.
Which means when leaders skip one… adoption stalls.
The 5 Leadership Moves That Make AI Change Stick
If you are leading HR, a function, or a team through AI change, these are five moves that consistently help.
Move 1: Make “next week” clear
Big vision is fine. But people need the next step.
Say it plainly:
This month, we’re standardizing 3 use cases.
This quarter, we’re stopping 2 workflows that don’t make sense anymore.
This is what we’ll measure (and what we won’t).
When the present is clear, the future feels less scary.
Move 2: Stop cheerleading. Learn alongside your team.
Teams don’t need leaders to sound excited.
They need leaders to sound real.
The trust-builder is a leader saying:
“I tried it. I got a weird result. Here’s what I learned.”
When leaders learn out loud, it tells everyone: it’s safe to be new at this.
And then something powerful happens:
uncertainty gets normalized
fear of getting it wrong drops
experimentation becomes “what we do,” not “what the brave do”
adoption becomes cultural, not compliance-based
Presence creates momentum.
Move 3: Protect time for practice
Experimentation doesn’t happen “in spare time.”
If people are already at capacity, “just try AI” becomes:
rushed
performative
avoided
So protect time. Even small. Even imperfect. But consistent.
Adoption needs repetition.
Move 4: Lower the stakes
People won’t experiment if mistakes feel expensive.
So lower the risk:
“Start with low-risk tasks.”
“We’re learning, not judging.”
“Share what worked and what didn’t.”
No safety = quiet avoidance.
Move 5: Reinforce it every week
AI change doesn’t stick because of one training.
It sticks because managers keep it alive:
they ask about it
they share examples
they reward the attempt
they normalize the learning curve
Without reinforcement, people revert — not because they’re resistant, but because old habits are comfortable under pressure.
The questions I’m sitting with
Where are we asking people to move fast without making it feel safe?
Where are we selling a big AI future without explaining the next step?
Where are leaders cheering from the sidelines instead of learning alongside their teams?
And which of the five human steps are we accidentally skipping right now?
Because when AI moves faster than people…
Leadership isn’t the speech.
Leadership is the environment.
Stay curious :)
Rowena and Priya
 | A guest post by
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