Leaders: Rethink your workflows before you add AI into the mix

Organisations that bolt artificial intelligence onto existing workflows will not capture its full value until they rethink how work gets done, according to UNSW Business School Dean, Professor Paul Andon.

"There's that transformative piece that I think we need to think about in organisations, given that we've been spending time bolting this technology onto existing workflows," said Prof. Andon, who drew an analogy between organisational AI adoption and the introduction of elevators to multi-storey buildings.

When elevators were invented, architects' blueprints saw them bolted to the outside of existing buildings. However, their full value only came to be realised “once architects started to rethink the design of buildings, the urban architecture that would go around it, and the way in which people could live and work,” said Prof. Andon, who was recently interviewed by Professor of Practice Fahim Khondaker for The Business Of, a UNSW Business School podcast.

“Now that we have this new [AI] technology, which means we could build in much greater density and at much greater scale,” Prof. Andon observed. Organisations now face a similar question with AI. "I think we're at a point now where organisations are moving away from individualised productivity uses, and you're starting to see the conversation turn to, 'Well, how do we generate organisational value out of this tool?'"

What has changed in how organisations use AI?

AI has been around for about three years, and Prof. Andon said that use has moved from experiments to writing and documents, and now to slide decks, qualitative analysis and more sophisticated tasks undertaken by agents.

"Many organisations have allowed their staff to free play, then they've started to introduce enterprise licences. And, of course, you have the added impact of not just the licence but also token consumption," said Prof. Andon, who observed that costs are prompting hard questions about how to extract value from the technology.

Learn more: The human edge: why investing in people is your best AI strategy

"I think that's the uncomfortable middle ground, in a sense, that people are in because they still haven't probably quite realised the full potential of individual productivity. But they don't always know where to take it, in terms of the organisational value extraction. Certain organisations are certainly leading in that space.”

While some larger organisations, such as CBA, Telstra and Fortescue are investing heavily in AI, Prof. Andon noted that not all organisations have the same capacity to invest heavily from the outset.

What happens once the vision is set?

Given that no one can see exactly what the future of AI holds, Prof. Andon said it is important for leaders to set the tone for their organisation by deciding how quickly and how far to move with AI adoption. "If you lead, you may make the right strategic bet, and you're an industry leader. If you wait, then you may be left behind. So, we have to be willing, as organisations, to make mistakes, learn from those experiences, and carry on,” he said.

This work is more than just a technology rollout. Organisations have to build trust and confidence, talk through the risks and clearly explain the reasoning behind their AI strategy. Once this is set, Prof. Andon said the next and potentially most important step involves workers and workflows. Leaders need to ask themselves: "How do we actually rethink the way in which things are done?” he said.

"The first tip we need to make sure everybody bears in mind is: think first, act next"

PAUL ANDON

"It's probably easier for organisations that are new and starting to build their capacity and scale. For existing, well-established organisations with established cultures and ways of working, that's a much harder thing to move,” said Prof. Andon. For anyone building a workflow from scratch, his advice is to keep an open mind and use your imagination, while taking a responsible approach to risk management and mitigation.

How can each function build a competitive advantage?

Leaders should resist starting with AI tools themselves, Prof. Andon advised: "I think the trap is to rush straight into the application. Before you start thinking about the application, people's minds need to turn to your overall value proposition. And is that changing in an AI-enabled world?"

Each organisational function should define its own value proposition, and Prof. Andon used accounting (his home discipline) as an example. "I think maybe what we need to understand in that space is that the value proposition we think accountants provide is actually wrong. It's not about maintaining accurate, complete records and ensuring transactions go through effectively. That's an important function of accounting and finance professionals,” he said. “Their real value-add is how they help organisations understand and run their businesses successfully.”

Accountants supply the intelligence and information that help leaders make informed decisions, he said. Similarly, every other function can establish its AI value proposition, which can then be realised through familiar management disciplines such as value chain analysis, strategic thinking, workforce planning, upskilling and capability development. Prof. Andon said people often forget these when new technology (such as AI) generates excitement.

There are risks in the process: Organisations may over-index on what AI can do and cut headcount too far, or they may believe (too much) in vendor hype. "There are no shortcuts here,” said Prof. Andon. “Organisations do need to think through, and professions do need to think through for themselves very carefully, what the value of AI is, can, and should be for them."

Managing risks of cognitive decline

A common concern about heavy AI use is cognitive decline. “The first tip we need to make sure everybody bears in mind is: think first, act next,” said Prof. Andon. “Thinking first means, before you consult AI, just take some time to think about what it is you want to do, how you want to achieve it, what you know about that particular issue, and how you're going to execute it."

He follows the rule himself. "I have a lot of ideas and a lot of thoughts about a certain issue, and I'll just dump them into AI via voice recording or chat, as in voice chat. Then I use AI to help me organise it, which brings some clarity to my next iteration of thinking about how I take on a particular task." He calls this an "antidote against the concerns for cognitive decline".

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While efficiency dominates most conversations about AI, Prof. Andon said the quality of applied human thought is often overlooked. "This technological change is something different. It brings, and I use this term loosely, intelligence to the table. So people can actually utilise AI to support, augment, and assist with creative tasks, and to carry out work, and that can be done in ways that increase not just the quantity of work you do, but actually the quality,” he explained.

"The quality doesn't come from the technology; it's the way in which you populate it with context, with your own knowledge, your own awareness of what the challenges and opportunities are in the particular application that you're applying it to."

What will AI-enabled work look like in five years?

Looking to the future, Prof. Andon believes that job titles will remain while the content and nature of work itself change. "There will be new tasks,” he said. “We may still have accounting, marketing, and information systems experts. But the nature of their work will fundamentally change."

Some new roles will be transitory; Prof. Andon gave the example of prompt engineering, which he described as "probably the shortest-lived profession in history" – though there will be further iterations of this as AI evolves.

"Organisations do need to think through, and professions do need to think through for themselves very carefully, what the value of AI is, can, and should be for them"

PAUL ANDON

He pointed to broader (often technology-driven) changes in the world of work, such as the gig and sharing economies and changes in how organisations manage knowledge. "I think, in five years' time, we will see similar sorts of transformations in ways of working, the emergence of new business models. So the flavour of it will be different, but I think the nature of the changes will be similar,” he predicted.

"Historically, what we see is greater prosperity, but it doesn't come without significant hard work, and it does come with a structural shift. So we need to be mindful of all those aspects. I think we need to be more grounded and realistic, and think about how much we can shape and how much agency we have in shaping our future. And make sure that we are shaping in positive ways."