Our department leaders are using AI to write emails faster, but they are completely failing to think strategically about how AI can restructure their entire department operations. How do we shift their mindset during our strategic planning sessions so they start redesigning their workflows from scratch?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To move your department heads past basic tactical usage, you must shift your leadership behavior. Stop telling your team how to use AI tools, and instead articulate a clear strategic vision and financial plan on the V/TO®. Once the target is set, empower your leaders to develop the workflows required to reach it.

Start by setting a clear strategic constraint for each department. For example, challenge your operations leader to double their capacity over the next year without adding a single seat to the Accountability Chart. When you establish this boundary, they can no longer rely on simple fixes like using AI to write emails faster. They are forced to completely re-evaluate their core processes.

During your quarterly meetings, establish specific Rocks focused on workflow redesign. A department head's Rock should not be to learn an AI tool, but rather to integrate AI into operations by identifying and streamlining three cumbersome processes that keep their team stuck in low-value tasks.

As Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee suggest, true organizational productivity gains require business process redesign, not just technology insertion. By forcing your leaders to focus on process restructuring rather than minor efficiency gains, you encourage them to think like business owners who use technology to build operational leverage.