I write for owners and leaders of design, construction and service-based firms. My posts cover strategy, leadership, culture, and where AI actually fits. D4 Concepts is the firm I started with Mike Witt. Subscribe if you want them sent directly to you. A little over 2,000 people already do.
Not everyone on your team meets the future at the same speed
|
A handful of people on your team have already tried AI twelve different ways in 5 different tools. And that’s just this month. Others have not opened it once, and they won’t unless you ask them to. Both reactions are normal. Last week we talked about giving your team a story about AI. This one is about why the same story lands so differently depending on who’s hearing it. Your team hears the future differentlyOur People Development practice is built on the 5 Voices for Teams methodology, and one pattern shows up in almost every group we work with.
Neither is better. But they receive your announcements in completely different ways. This is not new. Rogers called it in 1962.Everett Rogers mapped the diffusion of innovations more than sixty years ago, and the curve still holds. Early adopters go first. The majority waits for proof and evidence. The last group needs the change to feel safe before they move. When you know the 5 Voices and lay it over that curve, you can predict how your own team will respond. (Reply to this email with the word “Voices”, and I’ll send the “Communicating Vision” tool to you. Then you can see where the Voices on your team fall on the adoption curve.) What to do with each group
Who on your team is already running ahead? Who went quiet? What would change if you asked the quiet ones what they’re actually afraid of? Micah P.S. Want the “Communicating Vision” chart? Reply with the word “voices” and I’ll send you the 5 Voices laid over the adoption curve. It’s the one-pager Mike and I use when we walk a leadership team through where their people actually sit. |
Micah Ray
I write for owners and leaders of design, construction and service-based firms. My posts cover strategy, leadership, culture, and where AI actually fits. D4 Concepts is the firm I started with Mike Witt. Subscribe if you want them sent directly to you. A little over 2,000 people already do.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve talked about the ceiling, why the last fix didn’t stick, and what the other side looks like. Here’s the short version of how you can assess yourself across all of it. Four questions. What this is It’s called the Clarity Check. Four questions, about ninety seconds. It shows you how much of your business still runs on you. The four questions Answer the way things actually are, not the way you’d like them to be. Score each one from 1 to 3: 1 means “absolutely not,”...
Two weeks of this series have been about the problem. Fair enough. So let's switch gears. What If Tuesday Looked Like This Your leadership team gathers for the weekly meeting, and the entire meeting runs according to the agenda, not against everyone's inbox or escalated, last-minute issues. Somebody submits a decision that will require a hard call. The team hashes out the pros and cons, in front of you, and then decides. Nobody looks at you twice for permission. You find out later in the...
Somewhere in your office there's a binder. A business operating system install... or a facilitated offsite... or a strategy deliverable from a consultant who was genuinely smart. It's got a nice cover on it. Real work went into it. And it has been sitting there long enough that you've stopped noticing it. Last week, I talked about the ceiling. This week, let's think about the thing that makes the ceiling so hard to move. It wasn't the framework's fault That's the part almost everyone gets...