Artificial Intelligence is transforming the workplace faster than ever before but for many employees, that transformation comes with uncertainty, anxiety, and resistance.

In this episode of The Made For More Podcast, Ally Nitschke explores one of the most overlooked aspects of AI adoption: the human side of change. While leaders are often focused on technology, tools, and implementation strategies, successful AI integration depends on something far more important—trust.

From fears about job security and being left behind, to concerns about making mistakes or losing control, Ally unpacks the common challenges employees face when organizations introduce AI. More importantly, she shares practical strategies leaders can use to create an environment where people feel safe, supported, and empowered to embrace new technologies.

You'll learn why communication matters more than ever, how to normalize the learning curve, and why celebrating small wins can dramatically improve engagement and adoption.

If you're leading a team through digital transformation, introducing AI tools into your workplace, or simply looking to create a culture that embraces innovation without fear, this episode is packed with actionable insights you can implement immediately.

Timestamps

[00:02:40] Fear of being replaced.

[00:04:16] AI adaptation and resistance.

[00:09:04] Importance of transparent communication.

[00:11:45] Leader's role in reducing fear.

[00:15:25] Coaching vs. Teaching Dynamics.

[00:20:44] Celebrating small wins in learning.

[00:23:03] Protecting jobs while redefining roles.

[00:26:59] AI's impact on workload.

[00:31:00] AI ready cultures are built on trust.

Connect with Ally Nitschke

Madeformore.com.au

Connect with me on LinkedIn.

Connect with me on Instagram and Facebook.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Hello and welcome to today's episode of

the Made for More podcast. Today, we are

talking about a very hot topic and that is how to build

AI ready cultures without fear. Now,

I've been having so many conversations over the last couple of weeks with

my clients who are screaming out for AI literacy

and my question has been, what is your strategy? And they're going, well, We

don't really have one. We know some people are kind of doing it. We know

some people are using it. We don't really know where to go

next. And I really wanted to talk a bit more about this because

we know that AI is here to stay. It is moving rapidly,

more rapidly, in fact, than we are capable of as

human beings. And I think it is causing a little bit

of fear. in your teams. So I

think this is at the center of almost every leadership

conversation that is happening right now. Of course, our

favorite friend in the web, it's called AI. And

I'm a huge fan of AI. I think there's a lot of opportunities around,

which we haven't yet utilized. I also think there's a lot

of opportunities for things to go poorly and for it

to cause more stress than is actually necessary in

the workplace. So today's episode is not at all

about which AI tool you should be using. If you do want recommendations

on what I use and love, just flick

me a message, send me an email and I'll let

you know what some of my favourite tools are. Today

is not about whether ChatGPT or Copilot or

Gemini or Claude or whatever you've heard online or

whichever one is brand new and shiny. This is

not about those tools at all and it is definitely not

about making leaders feel like they're already behind because

That's not helpful for anybody. And I think it's

an easy gap to close right now. So today,

I wanted to really talk about what are some of the real

barriers when it comes to AI adoption inside organizations

and what I'm seeing. because some of the things that I'm seeing

is really, it's not necessarily about the tech or

the tech stack or which AI tool we're

going to use. It's more around that fear

of, and I'm sure you've heard it, and if you haven't heard it, you've probably thought

it yourself. It is that fear of being replaced. I think there's

a lot of media hype. We're seeing organisations that

have made huge teams redundant to

implement AI tools as a replacement. And

I think we just need to be, lift under the hood a little bit and have

a look at that. So there's a lot of fear around the place, fear

of obviously being replaced and being made redundant. I

think there's a huge fear of not understanding what it all means because

all of a sudden, you know, everyone's a tech bro and we're talking about

clawed code and what's happening in the back end,

air quotes, back end. I think there's a lot of fear around

looking stupid and not knowing what someone's talking about, that fear

of being left behind, making a mistake, losing

that control. And for people inside so

many of those organisations, AI doesn't necessarily feel

like an exciting opportunity. yet. I think I'm

kind of having these conversations like two distinct streams. One

of them is with my clients who are in, you know, larger organizations.

They are slower to implement, but obviously the risks are

much higher. And then I have the other track, which is, you know, a lot

of my community and my friends and colleagues that are in that entrepreneur

space that are like, this is amazing. Let me add it.

And I think both realities can be very true. But for so

many of those people that are in organisations with a J-O-B,

it does feel a little bit like AI is a potential threat.

So most people I know do not love change and

AI is a looming change cloud that

is being, air quotes again, imposed on people. So

I really want you to think about what your resistance is to

AI adaptation, adoption, and whether

it is fear-based or whether it is something else.

Because for you as a leader, you really need to

understand that fear is such a big driver. for

the hesitation, the reluctance, the downright heel

digging in that could be happening. And I think we are

in one of the most amazing times in the history of

the world, where we have got some incredible technology.

In fact, one of my friends, Chris Helder, has written a book called The Useful Belief.

Highly recommend you get behind it. But essentially, it's

like this is the best time in the world to be using AI and

technology. This is the best time to have this available

at our fingertips. So if you are looking to kind of shift your

mindset, highly recommend it. The Useful Belief by Chris

Helder is an absolute. Knocker.

It's so good. It is so good. It's got the audio version as well, which

is great if you're on the move. But I think when

it comes to AI, we do. We have the best technology

right now. We can invest in incredible platforms. We

can have really slick training programs and great

implementation plans and beautiful project timelines. And

it all looks lovely. And it's all very robust. And there's every

good intention. under the sun when it comes to

creating some of these artefacts and documents. But if your

people are afraid, it doesn't matter how pretty it

is, it doesn't matter how slick your PowerPoint

is, or if you're a Gen Z, your slide deck or just your deck

is, they are going to avoid it. They're going to resist it. They are

going to undermine it, potentially. And

it's going to cause some problems along the way. So

what I want you to really be thinking, excuse me, about

is that your people aren't being difficult. It's because

they're actually human. They're human and they're having a human response to

some things that are not necessarily being forced upon them, but

it does feel like the walls are closing in.

So what I want you to be doing is thinking about how you can create

trust, how you can increase your communication, and

confidence if that's required and for how people can

really engage in AI in a really meaningful

way. So one of the things and one of the patterns that I've seen

playing out so many times across organizations is that new

tools get announced and it's so exciting and it's shiny. Leadership

is excited but project teams are

probably excited but also quite worn out. The vendor, definitely

excited. There's a launch email, there's a launch party, there

might have been a town hall, there could have been an all hands, it's happening, it's

all looking good. And before the email has even

been forwarded twice, the rumour mill starts to

kick in. and they sound something a little bit like,

you know, does this mean there's going to be job cuts? Are they trying to replace us?

Is this going to track what I do? Or my favourite, yep, I'll

believe it when I see it for all of the cynics out

there. And I think this is an opportunity that is often

missed for leaders to really take

charge, take check, take stock of the emotional landscape

of change and what that is going to mean for their people. So

having a look at what it might mean from a productivity perspective,

what it might mean from an innovation perspective, is

there a cost optimisation, which is always a nice

find along the way? Is there an opportunity to

have better service delivery? Or, you know, is there even

a competitive advantage? And when we start shifting away from

fear and into, hey, what could be possible, that's

when that excitement can start to build. So really communicating

that with your staff, ideating that with your staff, having some preparation.

Preparation examples, I think is always a really good, excuse

me, a good way to go about it. Now,

as a leader, of course, your job is communication,

communication, communication. And when they have started to

say, oh, here we go again, it is finally getting through.

And communication matters so much. So it's not just the

announcement communication that's coming through. It's not

the old staff email. It's not the launch. It's not all of

the things that are prepared. It is that continual conversation that

you are having, the ongoing one, the honest one, the human communication

that is so important because we need to make

sure that we are being really transparent as

leaders with what is going on. Because when we don't communicate or

forget to communicate or feel like we already have and we don't want to repeat

ourselves, people start making up stories.

And I do say that with love and kindness. It's not a malicious thing.

It is the human brain trying to make sense and

make meaning of what is going on around them. And

when we don't have enough information, we're very good at filling in

the blanks and often the blanks are from a negative bank.

And we rarely fill it in with the best case scenarios. It's

always the worst case scenario. We're very quick to jump to

it. And I am absolutely guilty of this as well. I'm very good

at coming up with worst case scenarios and having to

kind of talk myself out of that as well. Now,

if you are a leader that is okay with change,

or perhaps you even love change, this is going to be a

harder thing for you to understand, a harder

piece for you to understand. But I want you to be really mindful

of the language that you're using with your people and making

sure that your body language isn't giving you away as well. So

if there is people who are expressing fear about what could

be happening and it could be out loud or it might be

in more subtle ways, being really aware of, you know,

not eye rolling. We don't want to shame anyone into the fear that

they're feeling. And please, please, please do not ever

say Oh, everyone just needs to get on board or

my favourite corporate lingo, get on the bus and onto the

journey. Because when we dismiss fear, it does not disappear.

It just gets quieter and quieter and

quieter. And that can become a problem. So

really having a think about what is happening in real life with

your people and how you're responding to that. But more importantly, going,

where are the opportunities? Where is the innovation that

we could be capitalising on? And making sure that

with any of those negative remarks, you know, that'll never

work here. We've tried that before. Or is this like the big implementation that

happened in 2023? Going, OK, let

us have a look at how it's different, how it's better, how

it could help you to do your job. better or give you

more time back to do the things that you like as well. So

really any kind of AI that is being implemented,

you have to pay attention. You have to pay attention to it and pay attention to

how it is impacting people because resistance that

goes unchecked is going to become a corrosive problem

later on. Now

it is no mistake that a leader's

role is in reducing fear. Leaders set

the tone always. You are the weather. So if you treat AI

as a threat, your people will too. If you treat AI

as a magic wand that will fix every organizational problem,

your people will probably come a little bit suspicious or

as my children call it now, it's a little bit sus. If

you ignore concerns, let those fears fester

and communicate poorly, the rumor mill will take over. So

please keep yourself in check when it comes to all things

AI, because you set the tone for the conversation. And

I wanna be really clear that you get to choose that every single day.

You get to wake up and go, hey, What am I

going to be demonstrating today? What kind of mood am I

in? If you've ever seen me speak on stage or in any

of our workshops, I will often share the story about, you know, it's a

good day to have a good day. And I truly believe that. I

think so often we have a bad five minutes that we let turn

into a bad day, which can sometimes turn into a

bad week. And then, you know, it goes and goes and goes. So check

yourself and say, is it a bad day? Is

it a bad five minutes? And are you choosing to wake up with

happiness and joy and have a good day?

Because that I think is a good starting point. point. So

you might be going, how do we actually do all of that? I think there's a few practical ways

that leaders can build AI cultures without fear. So

the first one is all around starting with purpose.

Before you introduce the tool, explain the why.

What is the purpose of it? And please, For the love of

all things leadership, make it meaningful for the people

that you are speaking to. So make it meaningful for your team. What

is going to change for them from nine till five, Monday to

Friday? How is their life going to be better?

How is their work life going to be better? Not

just a throwaway statement on, we're introducing AI

to increase efficiencies. No one

cares about that. Like, they care, but not enough for change

to happen. Now, efficiency might very well be the

reason, and absolutely, that is a very commercial reason.

However, in terms of day-to-day activity and getting people on

board, it's not going to be enough. And when

most people hear the word efficiency, they immediately think

job cuts. And when they hear the word productivity, they

immediately think here, sorry, they immediately think, and they also

immediately hear do more with less, which

is not a great starting point as well. So when we hear things

like optimization, it's around, you know, how do we squeeze more out of you? So

you can see that there's all of these negative connotations that

we have when it comes to some buzzwords around optimization and

efficiency and productivity. They've got a

bad rap. We're going to need a new PR campaign for these, I

think. So please be aware of what, be

aware and be thoughtful of what your language is and

what the language is that you're using. So what is

the human purpose? What is the organization purpose? What is

the customer or the client? Purpose and what is the team

purpose? And are we using AI to reduce some of

that administrative load, which is what I do a lot of

with the AI that I use in my business. Are we using it

to improve response times, which I think is wonderful. Get

people access to information faster. How good's that? Create

more consistency, which can be fantastic for any of those process

rich or governance rich types roles.

And are we using it to free up leaders for better coaching conversations? Now,

I heard a really interesting statistic, and I

cannot remember where it was, but it was around teachers and

what's going to be happening with the future of teachers. Now, it was a very ambiguous article.

And please, if you're a teacher, keep your, keep your hair

on. But it was essentially looking at the shift in the

role of teachers and how it's going to go less, sorry, more from

teaching and more, sorry, less less

teaching and more into coaching students on

how to learn because they'll have access to everything much

more readily than what we do now and what we did when I was at

school as well. And I think that's really interesting that coaching from

a leadership perspective is going to, we know, you know, we've known for years it's

important. But it's going to be actually creating more space

for that coaching to happen. So when we're talking

about the purpose and the reason and the why, it's really making

sure that we're answering any of those unasked questions

and recognizing that fear is going to change a lot for

a lot of people, how they show up, how they navigate any kind

of AI. implementation within your

space, within your remit. So really recognising that

there is a big difference between saying, you know, don't worry, everything

will be fine and saying, we know that this raises quite

a few real questions and we're going to work through them openly and

we will keep communicating as we learn more. And

as a side note, important to make sure that you keep to those dates and that schedule

as well. Now, the second thing that

leaders need to really be thinking about is normalising the

learning curve. Now, I've been on a rapid learning curve when it

comes to all things AI. I tend to quite enjoy learning,

so love learning quickly and love being on

a steep learning curve. But not everyone is the same. And

recognising that is a huge piece when it comes to leaders

because some of the biggest fears that people have around AI is

just not what will replace me. It's also

like, what about if I'm bad at this? What about if I can't, if

I don't get it? What about if everyone else

learns it much quicker than I do and I am left behind? And

for high performers, this can be particularly confronting, particularly

if they have been exceptionally, doing

exceptionally well at what they do for quite a long time.

This whole idea of old dog, new tricks. But I think

we really need to unpack that with the individual to

recognize that, hey, you're on a learning journey and learning is

incremental. And that's absolutely okay. Because most of

your high performers, they're used to being competent and they're used to

knowing what they're doing. And that's really safe and that's really comfortable. And

they're used to being the person that others come to for answers. And

I think when that starts to shift, if it is going to shift in your team,

then that can cause a little bit of disruption as well. So

when that new technology lands and suddenly they feel

like back in the beginner stage again, it

can be really uncomfortable. It can cause a lot of discomfort for

people. And we really want to make sure that not really

want to make sure that your workplace isn't one of the ones that isn't

great at letting people be beginners. Because sometimes if someone has

been in an organisation for a long time, we forget that

they're learning new skills as well. So keeping that in mind, we

say, you know, that we really value learning.

And I think most people do. But you know, we need to reward that certainty and

recognising that people are going to be a little bit hesitant,

a little bit shy when it comes to learning new things.

And what I'd really want you to think about is, you

know, how can you support those people? How can you recognize the different learning

curves, the different pace that people are going? You'll have some

that adopt really early and easily and others

that don't. And that requires the culture where people

are allowed to learn. So how are you going to create that space within your

team so that it is okay to learn and more importantly, okay to make

mistakes and have a little giggle about it and move along. And

one of the worst things that leaders can do is create this performative AI

culture where everyone feels like they need to pretend that

they're already across it and they're actually not. And I

think that. that can be really problematic. I've seen that with some of the teams that I've

worked with as well. And the third

one, the third thing I think we want to really be thinking about

and doing is to celebrate the small wins. You

know, we have the ta-dahs, at Made For More. And

this sounds really simple, but it's also incredibly powerful because

I think we're caught up in this busy cycle where we

are go, go, go, go, go. You know, we finished one project onto the

next, finished a piece of work onto the next program,

project implementation onto the next thing. Very rarely

do we stop, turn around and say, Hey, that was amazing. Like

let's celebrate that for a little while and also learn so

that we can replicate the good stuff over and over again. Because

when we are talking about larger transformation, and that's where most organizations are

right now, often kind of wait until the

end of the transformation period to go, hey, let's have a big

celebration rather than going every week, every month, incrementally

celebrating those smaller wins. Because AI as

a concept can feel really huge and it can feel quite abstract,

I think, for some people. It could be something that's kind of happening over there. It

can feel like this giant kind of wave is coming towards

us. I know certainly all of my social media

is now full of AI and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's everywhere. But

when I actually talk to people in real life and

not on my tiny screen, the story is quite different.

So recognizing some of those small wins really

help people to say, oh, This could actually help me. Oh, that's

really interesting. That's got me thinking about something else. Let's

go from there. So rather than only talking about the

future of AI, let's start sharing the practical

examples with each other across teams. with individuals,

that's going to be really powerful. Things like, you know, where did AI

save someone 30 minutes? I think is a wonderful place

to start. Where did AI

summarize meeting notes? I use a great AI

tool that helps me summarize meeting notes. And it's wonderful because it's like, Ali,

here's all the things you need to do. And then it connects right

through to my project management tool, which is wonderful. Is

there an AI tool that someone is using that has reduced

duplication, made a process easier? Has it helped

someone move from blank page to a first draft? I

think that's always a good starting point as well, because that

is where the adoption starts. It's not with these huge

elaborate promises and strategic plans is with the lived

usefulness and the shared experiences from individuals. And

people are far more likely to engage when they can see a direct benefit,

and especially when the benefit is connected to reducing that

friction, which is what we talk a lot about at Made for More as

well. And I think that that's where leaders need to pay close

attention, not necessarily on How

do I make it better? But what's something that's kind of grinding your gears at the

moment that potentially could be a tool that AI can

handle for you? Because we always want less friction in our day

to day. Now, the fourth thing

that leaders need to think about is how we are

protecting jobs while also redefining roles,

because this is one of the most sensitive parts of

the AI conversation that is happening around the world right

now. And it's the part that requires the most maturity when

it comes to leadership, because we can't, with any credibility, stand

in front of our team and say AI is not going to change work.

Of course it is. It already is happening. You

might not be aware of it fully, but it is already changing the way that

people are working. And it's already changing the way people are doing tasks and

workflows and expectations and speed and skill. And

that Those things are valued and the places where

the human contribution is most needed is becoming

more and more prevalent. I think we definitely need human

in the loop, as the cool kids say, and recognising

that is really important because so many of our

people are worried about what is happening to their job. So

pretending that work will stay exactly the same does

not build trust, it actually erodes trust because people

can feel it when we're avoiding the obvious but there is

a distinction for leaders and that is that they need to keep

making it really clear the difference between

changing work and devaluing people There's

a difference between automating parts of a role and reducing someone's

worth and really having that robust conversation around that. There's

also a difference between redesigning work and discarding the

human part who have been doing that work for a long

while. And I think this is where leaders need to be very

intentional with the language that they use, because people

are not just listening for the operational update, they're

listening for what this change means about their

value, about their future, their role, their place and

what is happening with the organisation overall and into the future as

well, so not just the short term. horizon, but

what is happening in the next 3 years, in the next 5 years, what about

in the next 10 for the business or the team?

And one of the most trust building things that a leader can say

is something along the lines of, we are not introducing

AI to make people less important. We're introducing AI

to elevate the work people are able to do. We are

introducing AI to give you more space to work on all of those nice-to-haves

that get put on the back burner when everything is busy, busy.

But this is a very big but. The statement has

to be backed by the behaviour. It's no good saying that if all of a

sudden people's work is being automated when

we haven't had that conversation as well. Because if

we say something like, AI is here to support people,

but then every conversation behind closed doors is about cost cutting,

people will feel that disconnect. They'll understand there will be the

rumor mill that happens all over again. If we say

AI will free people up for higher value work, but we

never actually define what the higher value work looks like

or what it means, people will actually recognize that

as well. And this is where as a leader, you need to really

move from that message and sending that message out into

the mechanism of how it's going to unfold and

how it's going to look and feel and sound for people. Because

it's not enough just to have the right intent, although that is very important. We

have to now turn that intent into something people can actually see

and actually experience for themselves. And

one of the biggest questions, which I think there's a lot of organizations need

to be really honest about is how do we make,

sorry, how does AI make sure that

we are simply not adding on another pile of

work more on more on more to already stretch teams? And

I'm seeing that a lot. I'm seeing teams that are exhausted, overwhelmed,

they are overworked, overworked, overwhelmed, all

of their O words, none of them good, because that's becoming

a very real risk. You know, we'll do your business as usual and your workload. Also,

there's an AI implementation project or can you try this out

on the side. And before we know it, people are working longer

and longer hours. with the same output and

less enthusiasm and excitement than before. And if

AI saves someone two hours, but we immediately fill that

space with four more hours of output expectations, that's

when it becomes a problem. And people will very quickly learn that

AI does not reduce pressure, it just raises the bar. And

that's not a good place to be. So I think we need to

think about that. So

if you're a leader listening to this and you're thinking, okay, Ali, where

do I actually start? I would start with a few of

the really honest questions. The first one is, have we clearly explained

why we're introducing AI? And I

don't mean, have we sent an email? I mean, do people actually

understand the purpose? Can someone on the frontline explain

in plain English why this matters, what the problem

is helping to what problem is being used

to be solved and what opportunity it creates and

why it's relevant to the work that they do every single day.

Because if that is not clear, people will create their

own story and usually that story will be shaped by fear, which

we talked about earlier. The second question that

I think we need to be looking at is have we named the fears that

people may be holding? Sometimes the most powerful

thing a leader can do is say the quiet part out

loud. To say we know that some people may be

wondering whether this will be replacing jobs.

We know some people may fall and feel behind. We

know some people may be unsure how this actually applies to

their role. And we know that some people may have concerns about

privacy, accuracy or ethics. We want to talk

about the elephant in the room. And when you name that fear, respectfully,

people feel seen. And when people feel seen, they are far more

likely to listen. The next question that I think

you need to be asking is, have we made learning safe?

Because if people feel like they already, if

they have to already understand AI in order to ask questions about

AI, we have a problem. If the culture punishes

uncertainty, people will hide that uncertainty. They'll

pretend to understand, they'll avoid the tools, they'll ask questions quietly.

inside conversations instead of bringing them up in the open

where the real learning can happen. And also it helps the rest of the group as

well if we create an environment of learning. So

leaders really need to ask, are people allowed to ask the basic questions?

Are managers equipped to support their teams? Is experimentation

encouraged? Are mistakes treated as part of learning or

are they treated as incompetence? And I think we need to get

really clear on that. And, you know, you as a leader, you're

not required to know all of the answers either. So you don't need to know everything

to be able to support your team. It can be a learning journey altogether. Another

question that I would ask is, are we sharing those practical wins,

not the vague success stories, not the The shiny statements like

AI is transferring the way that we work. I

mean, the, like the practical, the specific examples

that people can understand, things like, you know, this

saved our team 40 minutes. This helped us summarize 200 survey

responses, or this improved our first draft of

a client email, or this reduced duplication or duplication

in our reporting process, which I think is really some cool stuff

that's happening out there in the world. And those kinds of examples matter

because they're specific wins that helps people see how AI

can help them with what is going on in the world. And that is

so, so important. And

at the end of the day, technology does not transform organizations,

it's the people that do. So people using technology well, people

trusting the process, people understanding the purpose, people

feeling confident enough to try and people feeling

safe enough to learn and seeing themselves in the future of

the organization and being okay with that and watch That's

what really creates the transformation within any organisation and

how they're adapting AI. So the real final thought,

the real piece that I think I want to leave you with today

is that AI ready cultures are

not built on tech, they're built on trust. If

you've enjoyed today's episode, let me know,

share it with a friend and I'll see you again soon.