When it comes to artificial intelligence (Ai), a dangerous oversimplification is making its way into boardrooms and strategy sessions: the belief that Ai is transforming all jobs at the same speed and to similar magnitudes. It's not.
Despite this, assumptions of worker productivity gains are being made with little understanding of the true implications Ai is having on the very nature of work in specific job families. The reductions in force we're seeing in many organizations are thus adversely impacting the work experience of those who remain, and there are significant short, mid, and long-term costs to this.
To debunk the myth and move past it requires an appreciation of nuance that few leaders have the patience to understand. "We just gotta go," they say. While I appreciate that leaders have to move fast in a fast-moving world, the question arises: When making quick decisions that'll have big repercussions, what are you and your fellow leaders basing those decisions on? Hopefully, you're setting up a process that provides the insights and ideas that will enable wise decisions that will reduce risk and increase the probability that the decisions reap the desired return. Have you?
If such a process is set up, it'll undoubtedly address what I call the "dimensionality" of change. In essence, this means that change—for example, the impact of Ai—will be different in different job families, locations, regions, etc. Making broad assumptions does not appreciate this dimensionality. Particularly as we explore the impact Ai will have on humans at work, measuring, analyzing, and understanding the nuances down to the job family—if not the specific role itself—is critical.
Just as no two roles are identical in scope, creativity, or context, no two roles are experiencing Ai’s impact in exactly the same way. Some job families—like those in data entry, customer service, or legal review—are being changed quickly and significantly. Others, such as roles in the trades, healthcare, and business strategy, are experiencing a slower, more subtle evolution. In such roles, day-to-day tasks are evolving rather than their work disappearing.
This reality matters. Leaders must stop asking, "What jobs will Ai eliminate?" and start asking, "How is Ai reshaping work within each job family, and how can we build a sustainable, adaptable organization that leverages Ai while honoring the human experience of our employees?"
Dimensional thinking recognizes that organizational change is not simple. Sorry leader, your job is to deal with complexity. Dimensional thinking appreciates this complexity, works to understand it and, in turn, makes wise, well-informed decisions. With this in mind, from an executive level, there are four primary layers to consider when employing dimensional thinking:
While People Analytics and Talent Intelligence can provide valuable macro-level trends, the richest insights often come from the people actually doing the work. What a thought, right? Listening to and learning from frontline employees, team leads, and functional experts will reveal where the friction lies, what tools are helping, hindering, or simply not relevant, and what is believed to be most helpful moving forward.
To navigate this complexity amidst ongoing external change, forward-thinking organizations are going beyond People Analytics, Workforce Planning, Talent Intelligence, and EX/Employee Listening strategies. They’re bringing these together to do the following:
In an era of exponential change, the speed of Ai adoption should never outpace the depth of human understanding. Leaders must embrace the dimensionality of work, of change, and of the human experience. This is required if leaders and leadership teams are going to create sustainable organizations that adapt and thrive over time.
We’re not facing a single future of work. We’re facing an infinite number of futures, each shaped, if not outright created, at the intersection of technology, humanity, and leadership.
To learn more about the other Myths click here. And to learn how to assess your organization’s adaptive readiness and, in turn, build executive decision-making processes rooted in timely, relevant, and actionable insight, follow and connect with me here on LinkedIn. Finally, be sure to subscribe to the Future of Work Advisors Newsletter.