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Writer's picturePriya Venkatesan

The Art of Self-Disruption: Embracing Change for Leadership in the Age of AI ~ Part 1

Updated: Aug 10


disrupt

The predominant storyline around AI has shifted from risk to opportunity.

In a study by Egon Zehnder and Kearney on100 Executives across four countries and six sectors, more than 85% of them viewed AI as an opportunity for their role and organisation.


However there is disruption coming around the corner. What blocks our perception are:


  • Our mental models around how we view our jobs that makes AI a threat

  • Unwillingness to change to new paradigms of working with machine-human ecosystems

  • Our leadership behaviours that includes bias for certainty


So even though "business" appears as the seat of disruption, the epicentre of disruption is the human psyche. The leader who is going to thrive through the seeming chaos is the one who can disrupt their own thinking, patterns and behaviours. The devil resides within and not outside.


What is the art of self-disruption in the age of AI?


  1. Educate yourself

  2. Go back to the fundamentals

  3. Question all assumptions

And More...


We will explore them in parts across multiple blogs.


  1. Educate yourself


educate

The love and fear surrounding AI are both the result of not knowing what it really is.


Treating it as a black box is surely making us irrelevant.


Do read about it, take a class, what you have to do, but know what it is and what are its current and emerging capabilities.


While the technocrats can go into jargons, it is important for everyone to know the latest developments and how they would impact self.


Its also pertinent to note what machines & humans are good (and not good) at:

Machines: Infinite memory for Frameworks/ knowledge, Large data processing quickly, 24*7 availability

Humans: Creative thinking, Fuzzy logic processing, exception handling, Decision making, empathy, values and ethics.


This not only keeps our emotions in balance and raises our relevance, it also helps us create use cases for the right use of AI.


2. Fundamentals


Fundamental

There are fundamentals of every aspect of our life including the business we are part of.


When we strip off the bells and whistles, we then understand the bare backbone without which the business would not exist.


Whichever domain (industry) you operate in, learn the fundamentals of the domain - not just your locus of work.


This will help you seamlessly integrate into a "human-machine" ecosystem. In fact it will help you ace it!



3. Question the assumptions (hypothesis)


assumption

The most important update to us - driven by AI - would be our beliefs and assumptions.


Always check your beliefs:

  • Do I need to win over a machine?

  • A machine will always be faster than me

  • This is the way business can be done

  • Customers always prefer a human to interact with

  • I am close to retirement, AI is not going to replace my work

  • It's not my cup of tea

  • AI can't copy my thinking

  • People will still come to me

  • I like stable repeatable jobs

  • I am not creative


Most of it could be true only in your head!



What is your strong suite in the above?

What can become better?


To be continued in Part II


















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