When AI Hype and Non-Existant Change Management Collide
A couple of months ago, I opened my work computer and saw a new icon in my Outlook ribbon. I recognized it immediately as the Copilot icon. This was confusing to me.
As a Federal worker, it’s no secret to me that the current administration loves AI. Specifically, generative AI. Several other agencies had already adopted various AI tools by the time the Copilot icon appeared on my desktop. What was confusing to me was that, to my knowledge, we had not been notified that Copilot was launching.
If you find yourself suddenly equipped with organization approved generative AI capabilities, read on for tips to determine how to integrate this (or not) into your workflow.
Things to Consider and a Cautionary Tale
Copilot Chat is Subject to FOIA
Before you start playing around in Copilot and asking it to write hypothetical emails for you, remember that you work in public service. Which means that Copilot chat can be requested in a records request.
We have this top of mind for our work chats and emails but it can be easy to forget when a new technology appears on the scene. The temptation may be strong to just play around in Copilot to see what it can do. Just remember that that approach creates more and more records. I chat about a better approach below.
Generative AI Will Scale What You Give It
This is going to sound counter intuitive but it’s important to ignore the technology for a moment here. I want you to remember that AI is the tool, not the solution. Less – how can we insert Copilot into our work. More – we’ve thought critically through our existing processes. Here are our priorities and how Copilot can help us achieve them.
If you feel your work is going smoothly you probably don’t need to be an early Copilot adapter at your org. This gives you time to watch tutorials and get up to speed on different use cases before you have to apply it to your work.
If you feel that work is a bit chaotic or confusing, I still want you to ignore the technology. Yep. Have you tried everything on your end with the previously available technology to improve the workflow? Is it truly a tech issue or is it a human issue?
You cannot scale what does not work in the first place. AI will make it seem like you can. An unfortunate side effect of AI is that it can help you do more but not better. It can only scale what you give it.
You Will Need to Prompt Your Brain
Whatever you are generating using AI, you will need to review. At the end of the day, you will be accountable for the work you produce, not Copilot.
A recent Harvard Business Review article highlights this additional step:
There were knock-on effects of people expanding their remits. For instance, engineers, in turn, spent more time reviewing, correcting, and guiding AI-generated or AI-assisted work produced by colleagues.
A Cautionary Tale
From the same Harvard Business Review article (with it’s cautionary title “AI Doesn’t Reduce Work – It Intensifies It”)
All of this produced a self-reinforcing cycle. AI accelerated certain tasks, which raised expectations for speed; higher speed made workers more reliant on AI. Increased reliance widened the scope of what workers attempted, and a wider scope further expanded the quantity and density of work. Several participants noted that although they felt more productive, they did not feel less busy, and in some cases felt busier than before. As one engineer summarized, “You had thought that maybe, oh, because you could be more productive with AI, then you save some time, you can work less. But then really, you don’t work less. You just work the same amount or even more.”
Wait, haven’t I seen this before?
In his book, A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload, Cal Newport describes a similar phenomenon happening with the adoption of email at IBM in the 1980s.
The company had budgeted enough processing power for their internal email system by accounting for their typical interoffice mail volumes. Employees quickly blew through that processing power. Communication exploded because the friction of interoffice mail was removed and, well, they could.
Email is the way it is today simply because when people could communicate more they did. Nothing more, nothing less is behind the insane email volumes we see today.
The same thing is already happening with AI adoption. Promises of productivity and little else are leading us down a road to even more work overload if we don’t catch ourselves.
The solutions to the problems posed in the HBR article have nothing to do with AI and everything to do with working like a human. Grounding in our humanity will always be the right answer. I’m here to help you do just that.
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