Companies & AI

Forty Three Years Later: Did We Learn Anything From 1983 until 2026?

My AI generated library of scientific articles on financial empowerment of women, AI adoption and technology adoption in general contains 183 articles. I’ve decided to read all of them and treat this as a second PhD approach.

Why? Because it was such a joy the first PhD. Reading all these, yes often very boring and overly complex, articles inspired a lot of writing. It inspired many of my ideas to translate these scientific insights into impactful transformation approaches that are super practical to apply.

I’m expecting the same in this journey. The sheer joy I feel when printing these articles with inspiring titles, knowing it will trigger me with new ideas to impact the world. I know, I know, several friends have said: “you are kinda nuts that this energizes you, but in a very fun and lovable way”. Appreciate the love!

Here we go.

The first article I printed

The first article I printed was an article on the implementation of Management Information Systems (MIS) from 1983. Even the printed pages were yellow from a yellowed paper scan. Since my first studies was all about business and IT, also already 30 years ago, I was curious to see what would resonate from this article.

To be fair: it was an inspiring article!

It looks at the topic of power (loss or gain) as a lens to explain resistance to the implementation of information systems. Super interesting topic. It finds that the power loss or gain perspective is a good predictor and explainer for adoption or resistance to adoption.

Three different types of power are described: power structure before implementation, power design within the software system itself and the power structure after implementation. It describes two cases in their analysis and when I was reading it, it could have been any CRM implementation or AI adoption roll out in 2026.

Honestly, implementing technology by corporations in 43 years did not change that much.

Unfortunately.

A key ingredient is missing

What are the key ingredients of most implementations? Functional specs, timeline of roll out, finding ambassadors for early adoption, budget challenges, phased approaches to roll out.

Super functional approach while using words like digital transformation.

How many successful digital transformations do you know?

Right. A key ingredient is missing in so many approaches.

Reading this article triggered again to deeply understand the role of human emotions.

It doesn’t really matter what transformation you are driving. If you don’t consciously design for and take into account the emotional, human aspects, your transformation will fail or for sure be way more of a struggle than anticipated.

Fear of loss of power, fear of being controlled, fear of being held responsible for targets I cannot influence. They are very relevant topics to take into account.

Design from the perspective of the people involved

My note to self after reading this to make it practical?

Add the analysis around (perceived) loss of power or power gain to the design of the adoption approach.

And remember: in the corporate context the systemic approach always wins, even if most people involved don’t want it to.

You have to consciously design your approach from the perspective of the people involved:

• what does our new AI roll out mean for the daily work of my employees (not generic, per role, per group, per pain points in their daily work)?
• What does our new AI roll out mean for our customers? Are we just blocking them from reaching out to us? Are we seemingly reducing calls while creating more frustration and complaints in the long term?

It’s not that hard if you can just step outside your organization system.

Imagine your employees and customers as your best friend, son or daughter, partner, mom or dad: would you keep the roll out as you have designed it now? Or do you see that some elements of the design are pretty crazy if you look at it from this perspective?