Leading the human side of AI: From resistance to readiness
AI transformation starts with your company’s structure and culture, not with the technology. Your culture should be safe, built around curious people who genuinely want to make a difference. If it’s not safe, if there’s no involvement or readiness among your employees, it will fail. And that makes perfect sense.
Take the U.S. national basketball team as an example. They had the best players in the world but still failed to win the Olympics, even though every player was a superstar. The reason? There was no real team culture or collaboration. A lack of trust, responsibility, and shared effort caused the 2004 team to fall short, until a new culture of collaboration and accountability transformed them into the “Redeem Team” four years later. Talent alone isn’t enough—what matters is how people work together, built on trust and a shared goal.
Safety first
Is your company a place where people truly dare to speak up, share their mistakes, and experiment? Do they have the time and space to do this? If not, that’s where your work should begin: creating an environment where curiosity is encouraged and supported.
AI is new. Most people don’t yet know what it can really do for them. If they feel pressured or fear making mistakes, they will avoid using it. The result? AI becomes “something that doesn’t work” or even “the enemy.” This safe environment starts with leadership. When leaders show that they are constantly learning, share when things go wrong, and support people who try new things, the first step is made. Show, don’t tell!
Turning resistance into readiness
Resistance often appears when employees don’t understand the “why.” Not because they’re lazy or unwilling, but because they’re not included. When people feel part of the process, they become more engaged, but that requires a clear vision from leadership, and the space to collaborate and experiment.
A top-down rollout won’t stick. Start with small pilots that encourage cooperation. Just like the U.S. basketball team, everyone has to work together to reach gold. To build a learning culture around AI, start with a pilot and follow it with a learning debrief. Separate the personal from the process: be soft on the person, hard on the subject. That’s how you create a learning environment without fear.
Step by step include one or two AI-related tasks in daily work, and grow from there into redesigned workflows. That’s how an organisation becomes AI-ready.
What is AI readiness?
Readiness starts with understanding what AI is, how it can help, and how it can be used. We don’t all need to be experts, but we should have basic knowledge to work with it responsibly. Because AI evolves quickly, readiness depends on a culture where you keep learning.
AI readiness means the willingness to learn, experiment, and adapt. To redesign processes and roles, take responsibility for risks, and continuously measure and improve. Only when you understand the basics can you truly look at your own processes. Map them out. Identify every task. Then redesign them with an AI-first mindset, combining the best of machines with the best of humans.
This approach leads to real integration: starting small, in pilot form, but ultimately resulting in permanent change embraced across the company.
From pilots to permanent change
How do you make sure pilots don’t just stay pilots? Start with the workflow. AI pilots should be embedded in daily tasks and company rhythms, not added as a side project.
Keep learning. Evaluate not only pilots but also how changes perform over time. AI evolves fast; staying relevant means continuous learning.
Don’t treat it as a project. Treat every AI initiative as a product or process, not something to finish and forget. Assign ownership, set goals, and keep optimising. That’s how progress stays alive.
Change begins with curiosity. The moment people feel safe enough to ask questions, try something new, and learn from what doesn’t work—the point where transformation starts to happen. That’s where readiness lives: not in code or data, but in courage.