Hey Melissa — the "voluntold" framing is painfully accurate. I've watched this happen with AI adoption at every scale— someone gets tapped because they're "the tech person" and suddenly they own a mandate nobody scoped with a budget nobody approved.
The three written commitments idea is smart and I'd push it one step further. Before any of that, the voluntold leader should go talk to the people who'll actually be using the AI tools. Not the C-suite — the ops people, the admins, the customer-facing team. Because the 30-point gap between expected productivity gains and reality usually lives right there — leadership bought a vision, but nobody asked the people doing the work what they actually need automated.
I build AI agents for businesses and the builds that succeed are always the ones where someone talked to the end user first. The ones that fail are the ones where the mandate came from the top and landed on a desk with no context.
Bookmarking this for every client conversation about "where do we start."
Same as it ever was…look where my hand was (Talking Heads) Yes, my pleasure. I love learning about this…although I suspect learning about AI will never end.
The 30-point gap between executive expectations and actual revenue output is the number that should be in every kickoff meeting. The "voluntold" leader inherits that gap with less authority and no protected runway. Renegotiating the mandate before doing the work isn't a soft skill it's the only move that survives 18 months.
I write about production AI systems and distributed backends worth a subscribe here too.
Hey Melissa — the "voluntold" framing is painfully accurate. I've watched this happen with AI adoption at every scale— someone gets tapped because they're "the tech person" and suddenly they own a mandate nobody scoped with a budget nobody approved.
The three written commitments idea is smart and I'd push it one step further. Before any of that, the voluntold leader should go talk to the people who'll actually be using the AI tools. Not the C-suite — the ops people, the admins, the customer-facing team. Because the 30-point gap between expected productivity gains and reality usually lives right there — leadership bought a vision, but nobody asked the people doing the work what they actually need automated.
I build AI agents for businesses and the builds that succeed are always the ones where someone talked to the end user first. The ones that fail are the ones where the mandate came from the top and landed on a desk with no context.
Bookmarking this for every client conversation about "where do we start."
Thanks, Colleen.
@Colleen Avarene thanks for shining a light on the importance of working from the customer back (same as it ever was, right?? 😉)
Same as it ever was…look where my hand was (Talking Heads) Yes, my pleasure. I love learning about this…although I suspect learning about AI will never end.
The 30-point gap between executive expectations and actual revenue output is the number that should be in every kickoff meeting. The "voluntold" leader inherits that gap with less authority and no protected runway. Renegotiating the mandate before doing the work isn't a soft skill it's the only move that survives 18 months.
I write about production AI systems and distributed backends worth a subscribe here too.