We are here with Mary Elizabeth Bory to explore the human side of AI change. So let's dive right in.My first question to you, Mary Elizabeth, is we know AI and agentic capabilities are hot topics in organizations today. From what you see and from your experience, what do people find hardest when AI becomes part of everyday work?

You know, I would say as a technologist, I identify as a technologist, but, actually, the hardest part isn't the technology. If you think about change, it rarely is the innovation that is the challenge. It instead is the behaviors that surround it. And the behaviors can make up a mindset. They can make up a cultural situation. They can make up processes. So it's really around, thinking about how your behaviors need to change and how your work itself changes. How are you now adding value in this new AI era? So questions like, okay. What's expected of me in this new time? What am I accountable for versus what might an agent or an agent workforce be accountable for? How do I work alongside these AI tools and agents? And and how do I explicitly add value to the organization?

So it it it is AI is changing how we work, but it's also changing the roles in which we do our work and how we perform them. And so, you know, I think that people really want to understand what that is, but they need clarity to understand what are these new behaviors and how is that going to happen. So, certainly, you know, we see some uncertainty. I think that from my personal perspective, it's best to look at this with optimism and look at it as a new tool in the toolbox, if you will, a new way of working that you maybe haven't done before, and you might be surprised at how much fun it can be. So I think it first and foremost, it's behavior. It's not the tech. Yeah.

That's a great insight there, Mary Elizabeth, that it's not the tech. It's not the tools. Technology isn't the hardest part of AI transformation. It is behaviors. It is clarity. How how clear people are about their their roles in the AI world. We've heard previously that adoption succeeds when leaders remove fear or when they create psychological safety, not when they add more tools. Practically, what can leaders do to achieve this?

I think I alluded to this in the last question, but I think one of the most important things that leaders can do is lead with a sense of optimism. Leadership after all is really about followship. It's not about the leader. It's about people going somewhere with a leader. And so if you wanna create fellowship, you have to have some sense of optimism and some sense of true north. I know I often say, you know, no one wants to follow someone when you say, how's your day? Fine. How are you doing? Okay. Right? You wanna you wanna follow someone who's going somewhere exciting. And so the first part about it is really just having a mindset of optimism and letting people know authentically that we're in a time of change and that we're not gonna have all the answers.

A key phrase that we can talk about is we're learning this together. We're going to make mistakes. I said that to our organization recently. Please have some, you know, some patience with us. We will make mistakes, but we will be better because of them. And so the experimenting and the learning is really important. And when you allow people to experiment and to learn and to fail safely, you do create a sense of psychological safety. So, you know, I think that that mindset is very important. I would also say that this isn't a change that leaders can say, okay, everyone else, you need to lean into this. Leadership needs to lean into it as well.

So that means kinda walking the talk. It means experimenting and using AI tools yourself. It means being willing to change how you work. It means recognizing that sometimes these new habits, just like other new habits, you're gonna fail. You're gonna have to pick it back up again, and you're gonna have to to share what you're doing. And one thing that I would say is really great is that, you know, it's really critical in this period that people do feel psychologically safe because change does bring anxiety, and it can and anxiety can then bring fear, and fear can bring paralyzation. And that's probably the worst thing that can happen in this part of of change because it's moving so quickly. You can't afford to be paralyzed. So we need to lean in, I think, with an optimistic mindset and a hands on attitude to really see, okay, what's working, what's not working.

So optimistic mindset and hands on experience because when people see their leaders role modeling or walking the talk, they will also feel safe to learn and experiment. Yeah. So leaders use schools themselves, share authentically what worked, what didn't work with people. Yeah. So we just discussed that leaders, they need to role model. Now leaders because they need to role model and walk the talk, they feel pressure to be AI experts themselves. Yeah. How should leaders think of their role when they're also still learning? It's we we all are in that phase of learning.

Yes. I I completely agree, and I will confess, you know, even though I identify as a technologist today, you heard in my my introduction from Anna. I'm, by background, a business person. Right? I come from the business side. And so it was intimidating to me to try to lean into cloud as it came along and other things and now in the AI era. But you do have to lean in and think about, you know, what has to happen. But at the end of the day, a leader's job is not necessarily to be a techno technological genius. Right? I'm not the smartest person in the room on AI specifically and technology, and I never will be. But a leader's job is to provide consistency.

Consistency about a vision, where we're taking people, where we're going, how we're going to get there together, defining the boundaries or the guardrails that we work within, removing barriers to achieving that, and allowing people to thrive. That really still, even in these uncertain times, your leadership mantra, if you will, doesn't really change. So I think one of the tendencies that leaders may have is because there's so much unknown, there's a need to kind of exert control. Like, if I have more control, I can feel better about this. But, actually, the opposite is true. It's about empowering people. It's about giving them the sense that they can experiment and fail. It's about saying you're in it together and still providing that consistency as people go. And you'll see then that I think more people will be able to change, right, and to adopt these new behaviors and that the teams will feel safer to try these things if they know that you as a leader have their back.

So you are walking the talk, but you're not trying to be the expert in the room. You know, one of the things that you have to embrace as a leader and the more senior you are, the more this is true, you will never be the the expert in the room again. You really need to rely on the team. And so your job is to take care of that team whatever the circumstance.

Yeah. Great thought there, Mary Elizabeth. So leaders focus on creating an environment, enabling and empowering people. They may not have all the answers, but at least they're creating that environment where people can can look for the best answers. So the best answers can emerge.

And I would add on maybe you know, we we talk a lot certainly at about having an inclusive mindset so that through diversity, there's power. I think one of the most important things that leaders can do in this time period is listen, and really understand what people's experiences have been. How have they found it to be positive? What is causing them to have, you know, any negative feelings that they might be having, and how do you as a leader allay those or or acknowledge those and have empathy to the change that people are going through? You and I have often talked about, Niti, that, you know, ever since the post COVID period, it just feels like nothing has slowed down. Right? And there's not time to breathe and and time to have space.

And one of the great things about AI and the productivity that it brings is what I hope for all of us is that it creates some space again for us to think and to focus on our wellness and to use some of this AI tooling to create that space for us to spend more time, frankly, on our core leadership skills.

Sure. Sure. Absolutely. I move to my next question. Now AI is becoming more and more embedded in our daily workflows and some of the work that you're doing, Mary Elizabeth, in in in in in in client technology. From your experience, where do teams tend to get stuck or slow down around responsibility and ownership?

Yes. It's a really good question, and we talk a lot with our clients about this. I think, you know, some clients and stakeholders are kind of stuck in a pilot mode, if you will. So they're trying new things, and pilots are great. We wanna pilot. You wanna try new things. But, really, it's about moving to scale, right, and moving into scale from this perspective. And so what's important in in order to do that is, again, to give people personas and guidance about how to use these tools, what tools are used for what, and really importantly, you know, what are the right tools to use and then how to be responsible with those. You know, at at we talk about AI for good. This is a very important concept. This is not just a, you know, a value we write down on a sheet of paper.

So it's about really helping our people understand that if you're trying to solve this use case, you might use this tool, etcetera. And it's a very tricky time because with so many new tools coming out, new large language models, you know, one week the flavor might be one large language model and the next it shifts to another. And it is very easy to get caught up in what I kind of call, you know, the shiny toy or that swirl mindset where something new is coming and you dart over to that. But in order to get pervasive results and results at scale, you need to lock in. Right? You need to settle on a few of these tools, understand what they're for, and then drive value at scale. And so, obviously, at we've set up a lot of guardrails. We've set up training.

We've set up personas to help you understand that if you're trying to create, a certain outcome, these are the types of AI tools you will use. And we believe, of course, as you know, Nitty, it's very important to give access to tools. We need to use them responsibly. We need to understand the cost that it is incurred. We need to understand the risks that may happen, particularly with regard to data and protecting that data. And at working in a regulated market, that's very, very important to us. This concept of of having both trust and confidence is very, very important. Everything we do is underscored with that. But, we need to be able to give people access as well. So it's it's a balance, right, to give access, give guidance, but also to use responsibly and for good.

Yep. Yep. Why do you think, AI works better when team teams engage with it together? Now we know we have a lot of teams that are working together on a lot of aspects of AI. And this is broadly something we've seen that when people engage with AI as teams, they do they do better than when individuals are experimenting in isolation. Why do you think that happens?

I mean, I think, clearly, at we work in teams every day all day, and we believe that the power of the team is is so important. I mean, no one individual can get it right all the time. And so it's great to have the team there to consult, to bounce ideas off of, to validate, to ask questions, to see a different perspective, particularly in in diverse and inclusive teams, and to really be able to apply judgment more effectively. I also will say that, you know, certainly in post COVID when we're working in a hybrid environment, I know I've spoken to many people who feel a deep sense of loneliness that they're just it's just the screen in themselves. And in some cases, AI can sort of perpetuate that feeling. Right? You can go pretty deep. I I myself have gone in with Copilot or other tools and just research something hour after hour after hour just for the sake of curiosity, but you can easily look up and be like, wow.

I've been working by myself for four hours. Right? And I didn't even realize it. So I think it is important that we talk about that. And one of the ways that leaders can do this is to create communities. I know, obviously I mean, this conference itself has many, many different communities and many different facets that we can learn through. The same is true in an organization. I think setting up teams that people can join where you can bounce ideas off of. So for example, you could set up a community about the pros and cons of cloud. I'm I'm making this up. Right? But it's a way for you to have dialogue. And at the end of the day, human dialogue is what brings context. It brings richness.

It brings meaning to the work we do. So, yes, we're gonna be working alongside AI for the rest of our professional careers, but that doesn't mean that the power of the team has diminished. Conversely, I think it's become more important. And if you think about kind of the EQ side of work, so executive presence or gravitas or certainly how you team and how you get work done. To me, that's become more and more important because the what is largely gonna be solved by AI. So this concept and ability to work in a team and and to make a difference there is going to really push collaboration forward.

Yeah. So this whole new reality that is still evolving is actually strengthening the need and the whole set of foundation of teamwork because we spoke about psychological safety and working in a team, being able to challenge assumptions, being able to get diverse perspectives would just strengthen that psychological safety, aspect as well.

Exactly.

And, you know, I'd say too, a lot of times we think things happen to us and we're the only one. But, actually, when you have a conversation, you find out, me too. That happened to me. And then you feel a little bit safer, a little bit normal, a little bit, you know, more like, okay. I'm not the only one that's having this challenge, and and you can find some confidence in that as well.

Yeah. Very, very true. And, Mary Elizabeth, to close, if leaders and teams were to take one thing away from today's session, what would you want them to focus on right now?

Oh, that's such a good one. There's so many things that I would say, but I think the most important thing is really the theme of our discussion today, which is that AI is a human journey, not a technology journey. Right? It's all about people. So it's setting consistency. It's setting a vision. It's also recognizing that that vision or that North Star could change and that we're an adaptable period, and we need to be agile and nimble and and realize that where we think we're going, while it might be largely correct, it could change a little bit because things are are changing.

So it's really about this human journey and making sure that we're bringing everyone along and that, we're giving people the confidence to discover these new behaviors and new ways of working and therefore to then pay it forward to others as they come along as well through the apprenticeship model.

So I think there's some new ways to do that, but at the end of the day, technology is rarely about the technology. It is about the human journey. That is what I would say is the key point.

That's that's great. Thank you so much, Mary Elizabeth. Very, very, enlightening insights, great thoughts, great tips. I think, people and leaders can take away from you. It's always extremely inspiring to to have conversations with you particularly around technology. And today, specifically focused on the human side of technology. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Niti. I enjoy the conversation as always.