Evolving Workforce
Work is changing. That's not a prediction anymore. It's just Tuesday. And the leaders doing it well, aren't the ones with all the answers. They're the ones asking better questions.
I'm Dave Kenyon, and this is Evolving Workforce.
Each episode I sit down with the people who are living this stuff, AI strategists, compliance experts, cybersecurity leaders, marketers, and workforce technology practitioners. The ones on the front line of how work is being redesigned right now.
If you're a leader trying to guide your people through change, and let's be honest, we all are, this one's for you. Let's get into it.
Evolving Workforce
Why Most AI Strategies Fail
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Why do so many AI strategies fall apart the moment they meet a real team?
In this episode of Evolving Workforce, Dave sits down with Dirk J Primus, Associate Professor at UNSW's Australian Graduate School of Management, where he researches strategy, innovation and technology adoption. Dirk spends his time inside organisations watching where AI strategy actually breaks down, and most of what he sees comes straight from senior leaders in his MBA classes.
This conversation covers a lot of ground: why AI adoption looks nothing alike from one team to the next inside the same organisation, the rise of "AI theatre" (where AI gets talked about a lot more than it gets used properly), and Dirk's cake analogy for how organisations are layered and why that matters for anyone rolling out AI across silos.
Dirk also plays two quick rounds with Dave: Humans vs AI, on what leaders should never hand over to a machine, and Change Your Mind, on what he's rethought recently about preparing a workforce for AI.
The line that sums up the whole episode: protect your brain. AI can do the grunt work. The higher order thinking still has to be yours.
Chapters
00:00 – Introduction to Dirk J Primus and today's topic
01:00 – What's actually changing as organisations adopt AI
03:00 – Which industries are more resistant to AI adoption
04:00 – Medicine as an example of confident, low-resistance adoption
06:00 – The cake analogy: layers, silos and organisational architecture
10:00 – Why organisations are still siloed on different AI tools
11:00 – Why most AI strategies fail once they hit real teams
12:30 – AI theatre, and the gold rush of shortcut-sellers
17:00 – Dirk's background and courses at UNSW AGSM
19:00 – Game: Humans vs AI, what leaders should never outsource
22:30 – Game: Change Your Mind, what Dirk has rethought recently
25:00 – Manipulation, AI companionship, and where the ethical line sits
29:30 – The environmental cost of AI, data centres and responsible use
32:30 – Prediction: the "Apple route" vs the prompt-everything route
36:00 – Warning: fear-mongering, shortcuts and protecting your brain
38:00 – Closing thoughts and what's next
Links
Connect with Dirk J Primus: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirk-j-primus-b79a6710/
Connect with Evolving Workforce host Dave Kenyon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davekenyon5/
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033OH8uj9vTjmlkscl692l?si=a6a9050ff4964b5b
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EvolvingWorkforce
More on OAHI: https://www.oahi.io/
Evolving Workforce is brought to you by OAHI, the workforce management platform helping organisations across Australia, New Zealand and Asia Pacific get rostering, time and attendance, and payroll compliance right, without the manual guesswork. If award interpretation, BOOT compliance or shift scheduling is still eating up your week, learn more at https://www.oahi.io/