You Top-Down or Bottom-Up?
There's celebratory focus on a totemic book this year. It is the 250th anniversary for The Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith's formalised paean to enterprise, competition and free spirited innovation. As necessary now as it was most worthy then.
A reminder that capitalism is not about shameless greed as detractors insist, but reversal of societal immiseration as hard facts since prove.
One tenet of the treatise is that 'chiefs and priests' are incapable of improving the lot of everyday folk. Their path diametrically opposed to those seeking betterment for themselves personally which, as Smithians correctly conclude, ultimately has the happy outcome of improving the lot of all.
It can be extended to perennial centralisation-decentralisation tension. Which in turn brings into play the difference in view from the lofty C-Suite from those at the outer reaches.
As perhaps the issue of our present day builds ever louder, you'd think given the coverage that this fraught tango can be seen in pretty much every sales organisation.
HQ mandating all and sundry to show how they're 'integrating' AI into their tasks. Those at the coal face keen to report a tangible impact they've unleashed from their daily routines.
Yet I read this week some sobering stats.
In the UK, the latest government 'AI Adoption' findings were based last Spring on sampling 3,500. Back then, around 1 in 6 businesses (16%) were using at least one AI technology. The vast majority of these (7/8ths) with chatbots for text generation.
As just a couple of seasons quickly pass, another survey (by Lloyds Bank) now claim that in fact it is two-thirds of the nation's businesses already trying out AI.
That sounds a huge leap. Yet is this deployment having measurable impact?
The head of BCG in London thinks not, yet.
Indeed another recent study, 'of 6,000 global executives by the US National Bureau of Economic Research, found that the vast majority were seeing scant impact on their day-to-day operations'.
And yet, there's a range of anywhere between a third and 56pc self-reporting that they are making fresh AI investments over the coming year.
I sense one issue with the top-down project, is that those foot-soldiers in part feel they are being asked to train themselves out of a job. Tell AI how you discharge your responsibilities and your "reasoning traces" are then taken on by machine.
Another flaw is the obvious disconnect between what you think improves your throughput and what others covet. Accompanied by the distraction of 'testing' leaving you unable to properly fulfill your duties.
Each and all hastening a restructuring that takes place with your services no longer needed.
Yet the hardy and industrious can still shine. You needn't be an 'adventurer' to ply your independent route.
The same Boston Consulting boss trumpeted how she sought deeper use of AI. Integrating people, process and knowledge across their business. Aimed at the holy grail of demonstrable productivity gains. I'd heard before about their plan to be seen as 'client zero'. Hoping to make AI work for themselves then sell this expertise to clients wishing to replicate its wonders in their own organisations.
Interestingly, if the blurb can be taken at face value, they opened the door for AI by providing a tool or two, for front-line consultants to then develop what worked for them.
This did remind me of the dreaded '20 per cent time' of yer Googles a decade or more back. The fatal problem was that targets were never reduced and it became expected such personally chosen pursuits actually took place on top of normal work.
BCG counter. Who wouldn't buy into the thought of menial data drudgery being eradicated? In its place more actual talking with clients. For Boston's big ticket consultants, "the fundamental skills, which is the framing of problems, the curiosity of ‘could you look at the problem in a different way?’"
Maybe though this is the pattern for AI initiatives in our Sales world right now. A stark choice; do more out of hours on AI or your role disappears anyway.
A smidge misleadingly, the BCG honcho also claimed that adopting AI wasn't about asking a chatbot for content then plastering into a slidedeck. Smells disingenuous considering they shout about their own in-house LLMs doing precisely this. Which, let's give it some due, feels a decent use of proprietary yet hidden nous. Not just for insight, but on that perpetual wish of the seller, namely allowing proven Sales Data Re-use.
It is this very trove that I've helped a couple of clients to mine this year already.
Whatever we decide to kick on with, our focus must be on the describable. What can reduce routine drags which currently steals our selling time, and improve output that both finds those willing to buy quicker and, preferably in shorter timeframes, makes them more likely to buy?