Most digital transformations fail, not because of the technology,
but because change is hard.
And now, with artificial intelligence accelerating change
at an unprecedented pace, the resistance is stronger than ever.
How do you get employees to embrace AI instead of fearing it?
My guest today, a veteran business operations leader, shares the hard
earned lessons of making transformations stick, starting with the human side.
My name is Alexandre Nevski, and this is Innovation Tales.
Navigating Change one story at a time.
We share insights from leaders tackling the challenges of today's digital world.
Welcome to Innovation Tales, the podcast exploring the human
side of digital transformation.
AI is transforming business at lightning speed.
But technology isn't the hardest part.
Rather, it is people's ability to keep up and adapt.
Today's guest, Nicole Hilgenkamp, has spent over 20 years
leading major transformations.
She knows that real success comes from more than just adopting technology.
It's about guiding teams through change and making sure companies see
real value, not just big promises.
She's mastered the art of combining AI with smart business strategies
to make operations smoother, more efficient, and future ready.
In this episode, Nicole shares how leaders can help employees embrace
AI, avoid common pitfalls, and create a culture of innovation.
If you want to make AI work for your team, not against it,
this conversation is for you.
Without further ado, here's my conversation with Nicole Hilgenkamp.
Nicole, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Alex.
Thanks for having me.
It's great to have you.
Let's start with your extensive experience in business operations.
What have been the main challenges you've had to navigate as a
change agent in large enterprises?
Yeah, I work for some of the largest companies in the world, and every year
is different from one year to the next.
And I think in transformation of any kind, and which is consistent, in business is
really starting with the people at mind.
And so I, there has been really successful transformations I've been
part of, but it all goes back to the people there and their willingness
to adapt and change themselves.
as a business operations leader, we can bring some of the best
process or technology or operating models to our organizations.
But if the individuals aren't ready to accept it, they don't
understand why the transformation is happening, then you're not going to
get the best return on investment.
So from what is the hardest when we look at transforming and thinking about,
The next transformation really has to start with the people because the people
have to be supportive and on board.
And I think through the transformations that were the harder for the ones
that I've done over the years, it really was the individuals
weren't ready to take that leap.
Okay, so we focus on the people, that's, I think, what the
show is about, that's perfect.
And is there a trend now that is making, it even harder for
people to be on board now that the transformations involve AI technologies?
Do you see an evolution in the way you've had to do change management?
Absolutely, always looking to find better ways to help people through
that change curve, and artificial intelligence, the largest transformation
that will happen within my time, is one of those that is really easy to
start to work with, but it also has a tremendous fear factor out there.
And so when we talk about transforming and meaning the people to understand and
support when they're hearing, the good and a lot of the, bad that can happen through
artificial intelligence, then they're even more fearful to want to transform.
some of the things that come to mind are, it's going to take my job.
It's going to take my information.
It's going to know too much about me.
My privacy will be in jeopardy.
there could be used for non good.
are we going to be a society ran by machines?
Those are the things that you're hearing when it comes to people
fearful of artificial intelligence.
And that is.
Some of those are very real and will make it much harder in this
largest transformation of all time, I feel, as artificial intelligence,
with some of those looming that you wouldn't have gotten in some
of the other transformations that we have been through in businesses.
And what is the role that you see for business leaders um, I think
the term is AI literacy how do they develop their employees AI literacy?
How do they help those employees get familiar with those tools
without overwhelming them?
Great question and definitely a consideration.
Here's my best practice to AI-enable your team.
Your team in the world are, let's just say you have a team of a hundred people.
Some of those hundred people are already utilizing artificial
intelligence in their personal lives and even in their professional lives.
They're just not telling you.
So there's the other portion of that team that doesn't even know
what artificial intelligence is.
As a leader, you have to show up for your team and you have to enable them
all with the tools to help them in their professional, and by the way,
in their personal life as well, that will help them in their personal life.
I think we always think it's business related, but there's a
lot of things that can happen that I use artificial intelligence that
enables me in my personal life that I'm able to do better with AI.
And so we really want to, as a leader, show up and say, I'm here
to support artificial intelligence.
They need to hear that from leadership first, that we are
going to AI enable ourself.
I want to, we as a company want to, because it is part
of how we will have to work.
And so really excitingly.
Be that cheerleader to say, let's learn together as one big team and then let's
train everyone, all hundred people, even the ones that are more proficient
already because they personally chose to do that and others that don't even
know what artificial intelligence is.
Let's give them a baseline knowledge of those parameters and guardrails that they
need to put in place so that they're not putting in personal information into the
AI and they know some of those risks.
Once they know those risks, let's play, let's explore, let's start utilizing
it in their personal and professional life so that we can uncover those use
cases that will really help us from a business perspective or help the
individual become immediately efficient at their workstation and their desktop.
So I heard three things.
Model for the employees, ensure that there is, the right amount of
training and other supporting enablers.
And then focus, I guess I heard on the benefits that the organization and its
people can get out of the technology.
So let's unpack or focus on that for a second.
So if you're not part of IT, if you're not a technical employee and engineer
or something, you're within operations or another function, how do you identify
those use cases, those opportunities to do something better, faster, create more
value if you're a non technical user.
Absolutely.
And so many people are non technical.
There's more non technical than there is technical at every company.
And so what I would say is that, how to start utilizing AI is to allow AI to
help you if you don't know how to use it.
it can, it is your coach, your teacher, your tutor, your
psychologist, your tax, your tax advisor you can use it for so much.
What I love about the exploration piece is that everyone's exploring
together and learning together.
One of the things I didn't mention, you said that the three, was to model,
to train of the risk, and then to allow the team to explore, is to do
it together as a team and to have a way to bring in those use cases.
So that some of those great use cases that are coming from the team
and have been very transparent of those use cases that are coming in
that how we're going to scale them.
That with one person found this great use case, then let's utilize
it across the other 99 individuals.
But if we do it together, and we understand that maybe that use case is
going to take a 10 percent efficiency across our team of 100, What are
we going to do with that 10 percent efficiency that we just gained?
So that individuals can then connect that, Oh, we can now
do something more value added.
We can drive more sales.
We can drive a better experience.
We can get into an area that we haven't had time to get into because
we're doing more of those other tasks that took our manual support.
And once you do that together, that's and I'm really transparent and people
can see those use cases, et cetera.
then they can feel that they're part of it.
They can feel that they're part of it.
And that's that human aspect of change management that really is
going to help your team propel.
Jobs will change.
And I'm really transparent with my team that they will change.
What you're doing today is not what you're going to be doing tomorrow.
So we want to evolve with that, but let's do that together.
Let me not do that in the seat that I have as a leader or manager.
Let's do it as a team of 101 and how we can, because the best
places to get those use cases is the individual doing the work.
And so that if you can promote that type of exploration and recognize those
great use cases that are coming forward with the team, then you're going to get
a lot of engagement and you're going to be able to then start to realize
the benefits from an ROI perspective.
That makes sense, yes.
So now that we've spent a bit of time talking about the people, I'd like
to expand the conversation as you and I were preparing this interview.
We've also talked about the challenges, other organizational challenges
around, for example, the readiness of organizations around data.
Can you elaborate on that for our audience?
Yeah.
And we do, we talk about in the business world, digital transformation, it's
not a new term, artificial intelligence and it's going to help accelerate that.
But what we still have is the pitfalls that have always been there when it
comes to any digital transformation, any technology introduction is technologies
are great, but you have to put, you have an input that you put into the
technology that then allows it to do what, what you purchased it for.
And if you're putting, if your data's not prepared to be that input, if you
have duplicate records, if you have not maintained your records that you're going
to use as those inputs in the technology that you're using, AI being one of
them, then that's going to affect the results you get out of that technology
or out of that artificial intelligence.
No digital transformation or technology is going to clean your data or your inputs.
You could use it to clean, but you need clean data then to be able to do the,
any type of digital transformation.
And so that's where a lot of people in businesses don't.
It's not sexy to invest in that.
It's not sexy to invest in having individuals work on governing,
maintaining, ensuring that there's no duplication, ensuring accuracy, gathering
information and emails and phone numbers, et cetera, from their client base or their
business, to business partners, et cetera.
And, It's an under invested area that then will not allow individuals to
have the return on investment that they were promised for that technology
that they're bringing forward.
And the other thing, besides data, that people have to
really consider is the process.
If you have 10 different processes and you're trying to now go to one
technology that's going to execute that process, then you have 10 different
change managements that you have to work through and standardize, so that
you're not customizing 10 different use cases with the technology.
I think a lot of people spend a lot of money trying to utilize a technology
where they try to customize it for how their process works versus changing their
process to be standard across the board.
And if they did that, they would get more and they would get
more out of that investment.
So those are two things that are very needed in any digital transformation.
Good clean data and good standard processes.
And what do you think is going to be then, the impact, of, smarter tools,
artificial intelligence of some sort, in this digital transformation context?
Do you expect to have these?
exceptions be amplified even more?
Or are you maybe optimistic and hopeful that, because the tools are smarter,
maybe you can detect when a process goes outside of its control boundaries earlier?
Yeah, I think you'll see there's so much more transparency and so much faster
than what we would have seen before.
And artificial intelligence, I hope in individuals will start
to utilize it for that readiness piece for in order to scale right?
You hear AI is awesome.
It's going to save 30%, 40%, et cetera, but it can do that.
And then what you're not hearing from some of the business leaders
that are trying to get that return on investment is that you're not getting
that a 30 percent return on investment.
You're getting a 3 percent return on investment for the
reasons that I'm talking about.
You you can utilize AI for a lot of efficiency on your desktop, but
then what you want to do is you become hungry for automation, more
automation, let it do more of my tasks for me, let me let it automate more.
And that's where people are starting to get hung up in the business
world because that's the hard part.
Now you got to go standardize the process.
Now you got to go clean the data to get that 30 percent return.
So you're going to get a return first just by enabling generative AI with
your team of a hundred because they're going to be able to research faster.
They're going to be able to create content faster.
They're going to be able to pull a lot of great insights in together right
away, but then it stalls out if you're not then going to move into automation.
If you're not ready for automation because you have bad data and process.
Yeah.
I wonder, is that like a risk of over reliance a little bit
of on artificial intelligence?
Because like now there's just a managed, an expectation from management that
we're just gonna keep on automating.
and so does that create a, a dangerous feedback loop?
It does.
I think it does.
I think, the C-suites are really excited about artificial intelligence.
I think that we need to start to think about artificial intelligence more
as a strategic partner on how we do the plan, how we create the roadmap,
what we want to utilize it for.
And be really crisp on what that means for the organization and then to start
to work through those, bottlenecks that you're going to uncover that
don't allow for the automation, which you have to do at some point.
There's got, there was always going to be that point where you're, you'll, people
wanted to, Become more efficient by investing in technology to run processes.
And this is just, because it's so easy to utilize, it uncovers so
many things that we can do with it.
Where, how do you prioritize the return on investment?
A lot of companies are going to get sucked into all those use
cases because they're like, Oh my gosh, yes, we've got to fix that.
We've got to fix that.
But there's a lot of things that we might need to fix, document,
put guardrails around, ensure that everyone's compliant, and get data
prepared, get processes prepared.
And there's a lot of preparation that happens to go to the next level.
So I would say that next level is that automation.
And last year we were talking about automation in 2024.
2025 is talking about the year of the agent.
And so it's happening so fast.
2024 hasn't even caught up.
we started, generative AI in 2022 and people don't even know what, they're
using that of my hundred, just a hundred people that, we're just trying
to get them to use generative AI to make their jobs a little easier.
Not to automate things yet.
Now we're creating those use cases of things to automate, but then
we're running into those bottlenecks.
And now we're on to the next agent where we're replacing, some of the
customer facing individuals with agents.
And that's a whole, that's two steps ahead of where people really
are in running their business.
So it's happening really fast and it's about how the company, where they're
going to, where they're going to make that investment because everyone
wants to jump on the shiny penny.
Every C suite is going to go understand agents and go, great, I can use agents
and augment 20 percent of my team.
And then that team that I free up, I can get them to working on more sales and more
growth and, some of those types of things.
But.
That's three steps ahead from just generative to automation to agent.
Now.
So it sounds a bit like, I don't know, to me, at least as a consultant, that reminds
me of like maturity matrices that we would have applied, you know, for other things.
So is that like one of the approaches or strategies that you use with
leadership to, sequence, let's say, or to talk about the logical sequence
based on the organization's readiness?
Definitely, yeah, I definitely think you need to utilize, that's a great
use case for maturity matrices to inform the C suite and set the right
expectation with them as to when and how it is recommended to utilize AI.
Or any digital transformation, in regards to the company's objectives, but it
really is a discussion because there's a big gap between what the C suites want
to invest in that they're hearing in the market and from their other CEOs, et
cetera, to what reality is in operations of the day to day and you want to have
that alignment They need to understand how long that it will take for that
investment to pay off and they want to have a really good prioritization process.
With understanding all those use cases and where you're going to leverage your
resources to enable those use cases.
And if you don't have that, but you have a lot of departments running on their
own priorities, et cetera, then you're going to make incremental improvements
versus larger scale improvements.
And because AI, as one of those transformation options, is moving so fast,
you, then you're getting further behind.
Sounds like a very cautious, but reasonable approach.
What is exciting.
I will tell you, as an operations leader, it, there's a lot to consider, but it's
exciting that we can, and that we have things like, artificial intelligence
to help us run our operations.
Now we really just got to be that leader that helps the team engage
and enable and move us forward.
And so it is super exciting.
It's the most exciting time to be an operations leader is now, we've seen
great things happen over, over the years, but this is the one that I've
seen over my 20 years in corporate America that I'm the most excited
about what it can do for businesses.
Yeah to, to, to step back, have a broader view and let, the technology
and the tools help you with the, the more operational side of things.
That's, a great summary.
As out as we're about to wrap up, I usually ask for a book, a tool or
a habit that has made a particular impact on you in the last 12 months
Okay, I'm going to give you two.
I'm going to give you this book, written by Reid Hoffman called Superagency where
he really talks about what could possibly go right with the AI future, because
what we talked about in the beginning of this podcast was around people wanting
to adopt, needing to enable themselves.
And so this is like, how do you enable and prepare for the future?
so I I think that's a great read for individuals and businesses that
are in management and leadership.
I also think that what I would start to do is utilize it every
day and ask yourself as a leader, how can AI be my strategic partner?
And start to just ask, prompt, prompt the AI for help to lead your team, through
the change and everything that you need from a strategy perspective, even taking
a picture of your refrigerator and saying, what should I make for dinner based on
the ingredients I have in my refrigerator?
Yeah, it's going to help you strategically manage your
direction with your organization.
It's going to help you personally manage your time better and faster.
And so number two, continue to read, continue to learn.
But my number two is continue to use, continue, use every day,
ask every day what AI can do.
How would AI do this?
Find, simple, practical tools for your everyday life, and that will help in the
long term help with the fears, I guess.
Is that what you're saying, yes?
Absolutely You'll get better and better and you'll be able to utilize it for more
and more as you get better but you have to make it a habit and habits are hard.
They take 21 days.
And that's 21 days consistently.
So that's, that's my advice, is to make it a habit, making utilizing
AI par of your daily habit.
Great.
And last but not least, is there one thing that you see remaining
constant 10 years from now?
Uh, change is constant, change is constant.
And, we talk about soft skills and talent and what type of talents
that we're needing to hire.
We were going to consistently see that change agility is a skill
that is going to be very valuable in human capital in the future.
So if you're one of those individuals that are not able to be adaptive to change,
that's a skill, a soft skill that you'll want to start to work on that muscle.
Because change will continue to happen rapidly and you'll
need to always be ready for it.
I visualized almost like change yoga now.
So that's a great point to finish on.
Nicole, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Have a great day.
Artificial intelligence can make businesses run smoother, but
only if teams are ready for it.
Nicole explained that AI adoption isn't just about installing new tools.
It's about preparing people, fixing broken processes, and making
sure data is clean and usable.
If you're looking for practical ways to get started, Nicole and her team
offer expert coaching and training to help businesses make AI work for them.
The link is in the description.
As always, we have more exciting topics and guests lined up.
So stay tuned for more tales of innovation that inspire, challenge, and transform.
Until next time, peace.