Don’t rush trust
Speed is lifted up as a core virtue in the business world. Win the race; deliver faster; secure first-mover advantage. After all, time is money! And with AI-powered tools ready to provide answers and even complete work products with a well-phrased prompt and click of a button, our productivity is continuing to accelerate.
As an engineer, I do hold efficiency in the highest esteem. But however speedy our software is, we remain human. That means that when you’re creating something new or implementing a change in the organization, there will be times when it makes sense to set down your favorite LLM chatbot and build with your team the old-fashioned way.
A few of the benefits you gain from working through problems step-by-step as a team:
Developing trust among the team members - top-performing organizations are built on strong relational bonds between the people who work there. Building those bonds can’t be achieved in a single weekend retreat; they are forged in the course of doing great work together.
Developing trust in the work product - even if it’s “right,” your people will have immensely more faith in and sense of ownership over something that they were part of designing because they understand each decision made along the way. This makes a big difference when success is dependent on…
Developing trust across the organization - a very effective tool for driving adoption of new tools, systems, or ways of working is to have champions in each department or business unit to be internal evangelists. Are your champions going to be most invigorated by something they helped to build, or by something they asked the machine to build for them?
AI can do amazing things. I personally love it for quickly finding information, poking holes in my own assumptions, and summarizing or reformatting documents. But I recommend that teams be very intentional about how tasks are shared between people and machines. You can’t rush trust!
If you are looking for somebody to lead your excellent people in a human-centric (and where appropriate, AI-powered) approach to solving problems or pursuing opportunities, reach out for a no-strings discovery conversation, and let’s get you moving toward your goals!
