5 ways to manage your team more effectively in the AI-enabled enterprise

Experts agree that artificial intelligence (AI) will change the workplace forever, but there’s little consensus on how employees will cope with this transformation. 

Research suggests only 30% of C-suite leaders feel confident in their change capabilities, and even fewer (25%) believe their teams are ready to embrace change.

Also: Is your business AI-ready? 5 ways to avoid falling behind

So, how can senior executives embrace the AI transformation successfully? Five business leaders share their strategies for managing teams effectively in an AI-enabled enterprise.

1. Develop staff resiliency

LinkedIn’s chief product officer Tomer Cohen urged managers to ensure their staff can cope with the rapid pace of AI-enabled transformation.

“Ultimately, you must be able to learn fast enough to be OK with an ever-changing landscape, realizing that whatever best practices you learn, they’re only true for that moment in time,” he said.

Cohen told ZDNET that managers must help their staff build resiliency to deal with almost constant change.

“At every given moment, you might need to unlearn and relearn again,” he said. “If you have that capability, I think you’ll be ahead of the group in terms of success.”

Also: The rise of AI PCs: How businesses are reshaping their tech to keep up

However, significant challenges lie ahead for those who don’t develop resiliency. Cohen urged managers to prioritize this area of learning and development.

“If you don’t have that ability, the world of work will be a frustrating and hard experience for you because change is not just coming, it’s unpredictable,” he said. “In many ways, change is coming at a pace we’ve never experienced before.”

2. Embrace the changes

Bev White, CEO at recruiter Nash Squared, said AI needs to become part of everybody’s toolkit — and that’s not a reality to fear.

“Encourage people in your team to see it as a potentially game-changing resource for them to explore and experiment with,” she said. “Foster an environment where people in your team share how they’re getting on and what they’re learning so that the team is co-coaching each other.”

White told ZDNET that managing people successfully in the AI-enabled workplace is a bit like dealing with ready-to-assemble furniture.

“If you build it yourself, you’re likely to feel satisfied when it’s done and like the piece much more than if it was just presented ready-assembled,” she said.

“So, with AI, it’s by using it and accomplishing small tasks that people will start to build their confidence and appreciate how the technology can help.”

White also encouraged leaders to be open about AI. Share experiences with people and be honest about your challenges.

Also: Nvidia dominates in gen AI benchmarks, clobbering 2 rival AI chips

“Recognize that some people will feel threatened by AI or dislike it simply because they don’t like change. That’s a natural reaction. And there’s no doubt that some jobs will go because of AI and automation, but other jobs will be created,” she said.

“Have the discussion, encourage debate, and embrace AI personally, so that you’re leading through your actions not just your words.”

3. Show the benefits

Tobias Sammereyer, team lead for performance engineering at furniture retailer XXXLutz, suggested managers must educate their staff about the benefits of the AI wave crashing into the enterprise.

“Educate them. Try to get them up and running. Start a community. Let them know, ‘Hey guys, how are you using it, what’s the benefit?’ And try to accelerate everything they do,” he said.

“AI will not stop humanity; it will just help us. If you look at the workforce, it’s getting smaller as baby boomers are retiring. We have fewer people, especially in the IT industry. So, we must do more work with less resources. We must be as efficient as possible.”

Also: What is Enterprise General Intelligence? How the next stage of AI affects you

Sammereyer told ZDNET that AI could be a boon, helping people be more productive across their work tasks.

“When crafting an email, for example, it takes me five minutes. If we use AI, it generates a response. I change the text slightly, and it takes me one minute. That trick saves me four minutes. But if you do 100 emails daily, that’s 400 minutes a day,” he said.

Sammereyer also gave an example from his organization, using AI to write Dynatrace Query Language (DQL) statements for IT observability.

“I can write that on my own as I’m a techie. But with AI, I can use a prompt to get a pretty good DQL statement, which is about 90% ready. I can then make some minor changes, and I’m good to go,” he said.

“So, I think the key thing is how we look at AI and how we can make the everyday work of our teams quicker and more efficient.”

4. Make people comfortable

Adobe CIO Cindy Stoddard said managing teams successfully in the age of AI is about dealing with the people change management process.

“You must get people comfortable. And you must allow them to understand the topic. So, you must bring them in and educate them in whatever way works for their style, because everybody learns differently,” she said.

“Some people are hands-on. Some people need to read. Some people want to learn on their own, but you must help them get over that hump. Show them that AI can help. Educate them, and help them cut through the hype, so they can see what’s true and what’s not.”

Also: Anthropic launches Claude for Education, an AI to help students think critically

Stoddard told ZDNET the AI market is characterized by an oversimplification that robots will replace human workers. The onus is on managers to show their people how to use AI to create value.

“Companies must adapt to market change,” she said. “But it’s also about individuals adapting. Those who do not adapt, unfortunately, will probably lose their jobs. Human creativity, in my view, is not going to go away. And it needs the heart to connect.”

5. Measure your successes

Jeff Palmiero, Raymond James’s technical vice president, said managers should only use AI if they prove it helps staff rather than replace them.

“Get some metrics to show how the technology is helping to boost the productivity of your teams,” he said.

Palmiero told ZDNET that quantitative measures are crucial because they help ensure automation isn’t introduced blindly without recognizing the contributions of human developers.

Also: 5 ways to boost your team’s productivity – without relying on generative AI

Palmiero suggested that keeping the human developer in the loop helps ensure software quality remains high in an age of ever-increasing automation.

“I want the technology to augment the skill of senior developers,” he said. “So, if they’re doing something routine, at that point, they can ask the questions, get feedback, and incorporate that output back into the program.”

Want more stories about AI? Sign up for Innovation, our weekly newsletter.