Hello Reader !

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2 months before the end of the year 😅. And the KPI and end-of-year goals review. One metric might not look good: GenAI adoption. You've rolled out tools, sent the emails, and maybe even done a training session. But nothing's changing. Sound familiar?

Here's the problem: Most leaders in non-tech industries like healthcare have the wrong focus and are asking the wrong questions. Leaders feel pressured to "do something with AI," but they often skip the critical step of diagnosing where their team is and defining where they need to go.

Today, I'll show you:

• The wrong questions leaders ask about GenAI adoption
• The right lens to think of where GenAI could help your team
• How tech companies define GenAI fluency levels—and how you can adapt this to set clear adoption goals for your team

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Get comfortable for your 5 minutes of sparks to hack.

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Before we begin, how can I help you?

• Before we begin, how can I assist you?
  • Coach you to build your team GenAI system : skills and mindset here​
  • Coach you and your team to design and pressure test your new strategy or product here​
  • Audit and improve your innovation, customer centricity, and ability to adapt to a complex and ever-evolving environment here

Get comfortable for your 5 minutes of sparks to hack.

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✨ Spark

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✏ Wrong question leader asks about GenAI adoption

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Leaders have the mandate to ensure their team uses GenAI, but despite training, adoption often stagnates due to a lack of time or motivation (and fun). So here is a question I often see pharma leaders asking, and they should stop. 😡

“Have you used GenAI to do that?”

It may sound like curiosity. But it has subtle and very negative implications.

• Pushing top-down a “be GenAI-first” policy
• Lack of trust in the team member's expertise
• No confidence in the person's ability to improve the work

I will share with you a framework and example outside Healthcare as inspiration: show your team direction and create alignment.

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✏ Cut vs Create with GenAI

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To help you frame the right questions, keep these two polarities in mind.

• Offload = CUT: remove repetitive tasks, improve workflow, project management , possibly replace some activities outsourced to vendors and contractors, and ultimately save money and headcount.
• Onload = CREATE: onloading competencies for your team with more in-house expertise, easy access to data and deep research, complex problem-solving, creativity, and a coach and trainer to help your team improve in communication.... It is also a new way to create products or services as well as new revenue stream.

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The more senior you are in an organization (you are managing strategy, growing teams, negotiating and influencing), the more the right part of Onloading / Create GenAI will support you. For example, strategy work - use AI as your thinking partner for complex decisions or as a coach to help you lead your team

But keep in mind that your organization and your team will benefit from both sides of this scale. You can’t guide people through transformation if you don’t understand it yourself.

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✏ The right questions

So, having these 2 frameworks Cut-Create in mind, instead of asking "Did you use GenAI?", you could ask :

• “How have you tried to simplify the work?
• "What could we automate?"
• ” How could GenAI help you do that better?

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So find your ambitious questions 😉.

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✨ Hack

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✏ Be clear on what you expect; what is AI fluency?

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I like to watch front-runners to give us direction and inspiration. Here at Zapier, a tech automation tool company, the Talent Acquisition and Learning & Development teams have revamped talent practices. These are the levels they used to hire and onboard people into Zapier. They map skills across four levels, keeping in mind that AI skills vary and are heavily role-specific.

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• Unacceptable: Resistant to AI tools or skeptical of value—for example, they're skeptical about how AI can improve productivity.
• Capable: Early user of AI tools—for example, they've used one or more AI tools with purpose for personal or professional goals.
• Adoptive: Builds and iterates with AI to augment daily work—for example, they can clearly explain how AI improves their work outcomes or productivity.
• Transformative: Leads AI strategy, scales enablement, and rethinks workflows—for example, they prioritize AI-first solutions when addressing issues.

So, for you, what level of fluency is expected? You need to show what the highest level would be to set a direction.

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✏ Collect use cases for specific roles

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Once you have an idea of the level, help your team get role-specific uses. I am currently coaching a global access team. We built sessions with specific goals and a structured and open exchange. Here at Zapier we're exploring role-specific GenAI adoption in HR recruitment (see the article link at the bottom).

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Looking at companies like Zapier, Duolingo, and Shopify (among others), new candidate selection criteria already screen for AI skills during hiring. It’s not mainstream in healthcare yet. But it will be.

So, as a leader, help your team to be ready when your industry catches up.

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✏ Use the end of the year as a deadline for adoption

The end of the year is approaching, and you could use it as leverage. Maybe make it part of the assessment and rating (most organizations will do that this year). At Moderna, at the end of last year, they had 85% adoption (defined as regular use of GenAI) among their knowledge workers. They added AI adoption to the mandatory end-of-year assessment, and the adoption rate increased to 100%.

I am not saying we should use GenAI just for the sake of a rating, but rather, this is a way to incentivize people to practice so they can see the benefit for themselves. Then, as a leader, you need to help your team define what makes more sense and identify the bullshit use cases of GenAI (yes, there are many; here is a previous newsletter on that) .

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That's it for today. What did you think of this newsletter?

See you in two weeks. Keep the spark alive, and be intentional :)

What's up with me?

I gave a keynote on how SME could innovate in our fast-paced marketplace at the Jura Med Tech Congress. The preparation was an occasion to collect examples of Startups and SME that managed to innovate their business models. I re-read The Invincible Company by Alex Osterwalder and Strategyzer. I love their frameworks, which I use in my practices with clients in healthcare on "how AI will disrupt business".

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Reader, hit reply to let me know if you liked this edition or if you tried these tips. I respond to every person who writes to me!