I’ve listened to John Helmer’s conversation with Erica Farmer on The Learning Hack and am lucky to say I know them both, so declare an interest, but it’s a VERY good episode.
Erica makes a point that we’re rolling out AI much as we’ve rolled out HR systems before it: project plan, town hall, launch day, move on. Effectively, we treat people like tech users, rather than people. Now, if you’ve been telling people AI is coming for their jobs for the last two years and are now telling them to learn how to use it, what’s the reaction going to be?
I was interested in John’s question about working styles. Does the tool end up making you work its way rather than yours? Erica argued that you need to be explicit, as if delegating to a colleague who can’t read your mind. She also made a strong point that explicitness can be fairer than corporate read-between-the-lines norms.
But what happens to people who do their best work by improvising?
That’s an organisational design question, not a prompting one.