Bonus Episode: Your Team's AI Instincts: Why AI Adoption Succeeds or Fails on How You're Wired (with Paul Burgess & Mike Flannagan)
Do you know which of your people are wired to thrive in chaos, and which ones need certainty to do their best work?
In this episode, David is joined by Mike Flannagan, Corporate Vice President, Customer & Commercial Success at Microsoft, and Paul Burgess, founder of Instinctive Drives, to explore Microsoft's recent partnership with Instinctive Drives and what it reveals about the human side of AI transformation. Together they unpack why the biggest barrier to AI adoption isn't the technology itself, but the mismatch between people's natural instincts and the roles they're being asked to play.
Join the dynamic trio as they discuss:
Why AI adoption is a people transformation
How the Instinctive Drives framework explains why people react so differently to change
What happens when the wrong people get pushed into high-experimentation, high-failure roles
Why psychological safety is the real prerequisite for AI adoption at scale
How a shared language around instincts can rebuild trust and speed up team performance
Listeners can try their own Instinctive Drives assessment for free for a limited time (expires 31st of October 2026) - the link is in the show notes below.
This episode is sponsored by Instinctive Drives.
As organisations invest heavily in AI, the people expected to deliver are often overwhelmed and working against their own natural wiring. Instinctive Drives' science-backed methodology reveals how each person is wired to work — which is why Microsoft chose them as their strategic partner for enterprise AI adoption worldwide.
Try your own Instinctive Drives assessment for free at instinctivedrives.com/digitalhrleaders - available until 31 October 2026.
Resources:
Instinctive Drives assessment - available until 31 October 2026
This episode of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast is brought to you by Instinctive Drives.
[0:00:09] David Green: One thing I hear time and again from HR leaders is that AI adoption isn't unfolding as expected. The tools are in place, the training has been delivered, yet some people embrace AI almost immediately, while others barely engage. And many of the change management frameworks we've relied on for years don't fully explain why. What if the answer is something more instinctive? Joining me today are Mike Flannagan, Corporate Vice President for Customer Success at Microsoft, whose team helps organisations around the world realise the value of their AI investments, and Paul Burgess, founder and CEO of Instinctive Drives.
For more than 35 years, Paul has studied the innate, unchanging instincts that shape how we think, communicate, and make decisions. Recently, Microsoft and Instinctive Drives partnered to explore why successful AI adoption depends as much on understanding people as it does on the technology itself. In our conversation, we discuss why instinctive behaviour may be the missing piece in many AI transformation programs, what the four instinctive drives are, and why some people naturally embrace experimentation, while others need greater certainty before they trust something new. We also look at understanding how these differences can accelerate adoption. We also explore how Microsoft and its customers are using these insights to build stronger project teams by bringing together the right mix of instincts at each stage of an AI transformation, helping organisations realise value more quickly. If you've been wondering why AI adoption varies so dramatically across your organisation, this conversation offers a compelling new perspective. So, without further ado, let's get into it.
Mike, Paul, welcome to the show. Let's start with giving listeners a quick sense of who each of you are and what you do, and then we'll get into the conversation. So, Paul, do you want to go first?
[0:02:12] Paul Burgess: Sure. Thanks, David. Thank you for having me. So, I'm coming to you from Sydney, Australia. I'm Aussie, born and bred. I've been doing what I do for the last 35 years, which is all to do with human motivation and what we call the Instinctive Drives program, understanding the innate motivations behind people's actions and reactions. And that business has taken me all over the world, where I actually met Mike many years ago. But I have a fairly strong footprint with our work in the US, and also with our team here in Australia. So, I bounce between the two and, yeah, it keeps me very busy and very fulfilled.
[0:02:53] David Green: And actually, Paul, before I introduce you, Mike, this is the first time we've done one of these podcast episodes and we're recording on three continents. So, you're in Australia.
[0:03:02] Paul Burgess: There you go.
[0:03:03] David Green: I'm in Europe. And Mike, you're in the US.
[0:03:05] Mike Flannagan: I am indeed. Great to be here, David. Thanks for having me. As you mentioned, I'm responsible for customer success at Microsoft. And for us, what that really means is my team around the world helps customers achieve the outcomes that they intended when they acquired Microsoft technology. Obviously, lately, a lot of that has to do with AI and making sure that they achieve the ambitions that they set out with.
[0:03:26] David Green: Paul, I'm going to come to you on this. I can see numbers on each of our screen. Now, for those of you watching on video, you'll see this. For those that can't, Mike's number is 5338, Paul's is 8147, and mine is, I can't see it on my screen, so I'm going to guess it's 6347, I think, isn't it, Paul? Is that right?
[0:03:45] Paul Burgess: Correct.
[0:03:46] David Green: So, I know these reflect our Instinctive Drives. So, Paul, can you explain to our listeners what they say about Mike, about you, and about me?
[0:03:55] Paul Burgess: Yeah, sure. So, ID stands for Instinctive Drives. What you're seeing on the screen here is a little protocol that we actually bring into Teams so it becomes a common language across a business, where even though we may not have worked together before, which is our case with you, David, once we know someone's ID, it tells us a little bit about that person, how they're wired and why they do the things that they do. Those four numbers represent the four different Instinctive Drives. So, the first number is what we call the instinct to verify; the second, the instinct to authenticate; the third is the instinct to complete; and the last one is the instinct to improvise. And you're rated on a scale from one to nine. So, think of five as in the middle. Anything that goes above five, so six through nine, you're driven to use that instinct. If you're driven from four down to one, you're driven to avoid that instinct.
So, if you look at our scores, in the instinct to verify, the first one, I'm going up, I'm an eight. You're going up as well, you're a six. So, that means you're driven by that instinct, but not as intensely as what I am. I'm even more intense than you. And Mike is in the middle. So, he's like a car in neutral that goes, "Yeah, I can sort of take it or leave it. I can do that stuff, I could also not do it. I'm not really fussed either way". But if you look at the last drive, the fourth number, you can see that all three of us are driven up. You and I are a seven, Mike is an eight. So, that's a strong drive in all three of us, and that means something. So, the drive to verify is the instinct that just naturally causes you to want to think things through and weigh them up and compare them and check them, make sure they're right. That's the real thinking ID. If you're driven and to avoid that drive, like some people are, in fact half the world is driven up on the drives and half is driven down to avoid it, but they're the people that get confused with all of the data and detail. They're driven more by a gut feel. They have a visceral reaction, they just know when it's right.
So, the second drive, we call that the instinct to authenticate, and I'm sure the listeners will know some of these people. They're the straight-shooters, the people who are very literal. They call a spade a spade, they just tell it like it is. Some people, whether they're in the right environment or not, they just speak their truth. And there are other people that are much more sensitive and diplomatic and more concerned with how things are going to land, the way it's perceived, the feelings and emotions in the mix, rather than the literalness of things. So, when they say things like, "I'll call you back in five minutes", a literal person, the authenticators, they mean five minutes. In my case, it's 18 after the hour now, it would be at 23, that phone's going to call. But if you're an avoid authenticate person, that means you mean like five minutes in quotes, like, "Soon". And so, whilst some people go, "Yeah, well, that's fair enough", that actually causes a lot of friction in communication, because if you've got somebody who's literal and somebody who's not, they don't interpret it as a difference, they interpret as, "You lied to me," because you didn't do what you said you're going to do. It's big in how teams communicate together.
[0:07:20] David Green: So, if you've got a one working with a nine, then there could be some conflict there?
[0:07:24] Paul Burgess: Big time. And the same in any drive. If you've got big differences in any drive, even though both are right or both are normal in their minds and both can justify their existence, the differences are what can cause friction when people don't understand those differences. Just quickly on the other two drives, the instinct to complete are the people that need to see the whole jigsaw puzzle fitting together. Everything being in harmony is what works for them. And the last drive, the instinct to improvise, which as I said before, is strong in Mike and also in you and I, David, that's the drive where people get a buzz out of the big, exciting, seemingly impossible challenges. The more something is like, "I don't know how we're going to do this, we just got to figure this out and go for it", that sense of like, "Let's go after the mountain", that's the people driven to improvise. They are excited and thrive in that type of energy.
If you are avoid in that drive, that means like, "Whoa. When you guys have blazed the trail and I can see where it's going, then I'm more comfortable. But stepping off the cliff into the unknown, that causes massive anxiety".
[0:08:31] David Green: Well, what's great is we're recording a podcast together, the three of us, and all of us have, it seems like, quite a strong instinct to improvise. So, it should make the conversation quite interesting over the next 40 minutes or so. I could ask you a stack of questions about this, Paul, but I was going to ask two. Firstly, what made you go for what made you go for something different to the personality tests that most of us will have completed many of during our time as employees in various companies around the world?
[0:09:02] Paul Burgess: Great question. I mean, so I was in a different business altogether 35 years ago. And it was a financial planning style of business, where I was helping the succession planning of business owners. And I would have the father come to me and say, I'm going to retire in three years' time, and I've got my son here who's done a business degree, and he's my son, and he's the oldest in the family, so he's the heir apparent." But you know when you meet people and there's just something where you sort of go, "It's not going to work"? There's something about the person that although they've got the degree and they're the oldest, doesn't mean they're suited to the role. And I could see that no matter what financial plans are put in place, if we didn't get the people elements right, then I was probably setting them up for a catastrophe. And I wondered, how do you define that?
So, I went looking for answers and I found psychometric testing. But all of the different personality tests and behavioural models all looked at what people did, like what their strengths were or what their characteristics were, but they didn't explain to you, "But why you are like that?" Are you like that because you've had 15 years in the military or because you're male or because you're the oldest child or middle-child syndrome, or what is the reason you're like that? Or is it just you're born that way, you're the spots on the leopard, that's just who you are? 35 years ago, there was a real distancing from the nature element of our makeup. The whole school of thought in psychology was all around cognitive behaviour therapy. They would basically fashion people to be whatever we or they wanted to be. With enough training, enough motivation, enough remuneration, we could incentivise people to be whoever they wanted to be. And people would say to me, "I did it, I did that, I became more organised, I became more assertive, I became more people-oriented. But after ten years of doing it, or maybe longer, it just feels so false. I'm not being true to who I am. I don't like who I am. My wife or husband has said, where is the person I married?" And they could feel that although they were, if you like, living up to a persona, it wasn't honouring who they were, and there was a hollowness and a massive frustration inside them about it.
So, I wondered, there must be something deeper that was more fundamental. And maybe there was, in fact, a lot more credibility to this nature part of who we are. And I kept going with my research, admittedly with a lot of heat from people criticising what I was doing. And I actually found that there are indeed natural instinctive drives within a human being, and continuing with my work to define what they were and put the whole framework together. And now, people are very accepting of my work, I think not only because I've got a lot more water under the bridge myself, but I think people have come to see in time so many life experiences, like midlife crises and seed changes and people being more, I guess, open to different ways to do things and a more regimented way of raising children, grooming employees, and so on, there's more room for diversity in many ways in our culture. Just think of so many things personally where people are, you know, I'm thinking of people with disabilities, men and women, and the whole equality spectrum. There's been a lot of change in the last 35 years where people are more open to diversity, but that doesn't mean they know how to work with it. They might be open to it. But they still struggle with understanding people quickly and moving at speed, which obviously in business today is a really significant pressure.
[0:13:07] David Green: This episode is brought to you by Instinctive Drives. Right now, organisations everywhere are investing heavily in AI, but the people expected to deliver on that investment are often overwhelmed, uncertain, and working against their own natural wiring. Instinctive Drives changes that. Their science-backed methodology reveals how each person is instinctively wired to work, and they put that insight to work at every level of the organisation, coaching that helps individuals turn self-awareness into real shifts in mindset, performance and wellbeing; consulting that equips leaders and teams with high-performing team protocols to fast-track goals and navigate change; and executive advisory, acting as trusted advisors to senior leadership on personal growth and the people side of performance. It's why Microsoft chose Instinctive Drives as their strategic partner for enterprise AI adoption worldwide. Visit instinctivedrives.com/digitalhrleaders.
So, I took the test earlier today, because I was actually intrigued by it. So, it's a really good set of questions, actually, it actually really makes you think a little bit. And would my result be different if I took it in five years', ten years' time? Do you see that from people that their Instinctive Drives evolve? I'm guessing the fact it's called 'instinct' obviously suggests it doesn't, unless you try and play the question.
[0:14:54] Paul Burgess: You know what's really funny, David? We get asked a lot that question.
[0:14:59] David Green: I bet you do, yeah.
[0:15:00] Paul Burgess: When I say to people, "No, it doesn't change over time", and I've had people take it again and again over the years, the people that typically do retake it are the verifiers who want to just check one more time that haven't changed. And as they're sort of setting off to do it, they go, "I'm sort of proving it, aren't I, that by going off to check it, I'm proving I'm still a verifier?" But yes, it doesn't change. What changes, this is really important, is the degree to which we're in stride or not, the degree to which we're being true to ourselves. And so, whilst your instincts remain very constant in who you are, we have all been in roles and relationships where we are varying degrees aligned to our ID. And that's what determines our satisfaction and fulfilment in life and how we show up to others. Athletes talk about being in the zone or in flow state, as some people say. That's what happens when you're in stride. And if you want to present the very best version of yourself, being aligned to your ID, that's the way to do it, and then knowing how to stay there.
[0:16:02] David Green: Great. I'm sure we'll touch on more questions as we go through. Mike, I'm going to turn to you, because I really want to hear from you. Obviously, Microsoft has recently partnered with Instinctive Drives to support a specific use case around AI adoption, I think one that a lot of listeners will be thinking about in their own roles and companies at the moment, particularly given that a lot of our listeners are from the HR domain. Tell me more about the partnership and how it came about and what you're seeing, maybe at Microsoft, maybe as it comes to customers and maybe, I don't know, internally as well, if you're using it internally?
[0:16:41] Mike Flannagan: Yeah, look, I think there are a bunch of quotes from researchers in the AI space and in technology companies who've said technology was originally the problem with AI, right? It was really hard. If you think back to the early days of analytics and machine learning, you really had to have an advanced degree in computer science to understand how to make AI work for you. The reality is AI adoption is no longer a technology problem. AI is available to every one of us through a browser, human language, natural language, very easy to use. It is now a human adoption challenge for organisations. And if you think about classic change management frameworks, I'll pick ADKAR because it's easy, it tells you what has to happen for change to stick. What it doesn't really help you understand is why people move or don't move through the stages of ADKAR.
So, when you put together a change management framework like ADKAR with a personality instrument like Instinctive Drives, it can kind of help you understand that people don't really resist AI. They resist certain things for instinctual reasons that prevent them from being successful with AI. And as an organisation, if you're trying to use AI to reimagine a customer experience, reimagine an employee experience, bend the curve on innovation, reinvent a business process to drive a better outcome, those things require people to embrace the technology. They require people to move through those stages and get to a place where the change in the way that we work has been successful. Understanding why people are not quickly moving through those stages, or perhaps why your organisation can't seem to get out of pilot mode, is a really important part of driving from having a great idea to having a substantial business outcome that your CFO can embrace.
So, where I see customers having challenges with getting to realisation of the value from the AI ambition that they have, quite often we realise it's nothing to do with the technology. The technology is working exactly as designed and actually is quite easy to implement. What we have is a human challenge with either the processes that we're using to identify and progress projects, or with people who just maybe have a psychological safety challenge because of the way that the AI project has been presented to them.
[0:19:26] David Green: And I think it's interesting because if we think about it, adopting AI, whether it's as an individual, whether it's as a team, whether it's as an organisation, and obviously in Microsoft, obviously you're looking within the company, but you're also looking at your customers that are using particularly, I guess, your enterprise customers in terms of adopting some of the new tools that you're developing at the company, and ultimately, the misnomer is that it's a technology transformation. It's actually a people transformation because, as you alluded to there, or as you said there, Mike, it's about people taking this on and using it themselves, even though it's not necessarily the AI that's preventing form the mist, it's themselves, or it could be stuff to do with the way things are communicated within the organisation, whether they see AI as an opportunity, a threat, etc, all things that I guess your instincts could potentially magnify as well. How are you actually using Instinctive Drives, the four numbers, with customers to actually help them overcome some of these challenges?
[0:20:40] Mike Flannagan: So, what we often see, just pattern identification is important. So, the pattern that we often see is somebody gets excited, whether it's the IT department or a business leader inside of a company about, "We're going to use AI to do a thing". And typically, it falls into four buckets, as I mentioned. It's either something to do with the employee experience, like we're going to change the way we onboard new employees; something to do with the customer experience, you know, customer support is a great example, customer service is a great example of where AI can change the experience; bending the curve on innovation, things like drug research and these things that take a long, long time and innovation cycles that we believe that we can change; or changing a business process, like reinventing the way that we manufacture a widget.
In any of those four categories, the first step is almost always we're going to assemble a team of experts. We're going to assemble a person who understands the process, we're going to assemble a person who understands the tech, somebody who understands the legalities, the governance controls that we have to have in place. However you build your expert team, you typically do that based on their subject matter expertise; fairly classic enterprise thinking of just, if we put all the people with the right brains in the room, we'll get to the outcome. But what that does doesn't take into account is how those people are wired. So, some people are wired to seek certainty and security. They see AI as a threat. So, they raise their hand to be on the project team, but not because they're excited. It's because they're scared and they want to make sure that the thing doesn't happen or it doesn't happen too quickly. Other people are wired for novelty, right? They're wired for, "I want to do new things. I love new things, I can't wait. I'm going to jump in". But maybe they don't have an instinctive drive to complete things, which means they bring a lot of energy at the beginning. They raise their hand, they jump in, they can't wait, but they don't actually see it through, which means that you spend a lot of energy and a lot of money, frankly, and then you end up with a pilot that didn't go anywhere.
I referenced ADKAR earlier. ADKAR talks about the fact that desire is driven by what's in it for me. Well, Instinctive Drives understand that motivation comes from deeply personal priorities. Some people seek status. Paul and I talk about this. You want to be seen as the CIO or the CEO's champion, "I like the thing the boss likes, and so I'm going to raise my hand to be part of this project team". But it comes from a motivation to have that status or have that recognition, not because I actually am going to be a great fit for the role on that project team. And so, if we can help marry the subject matter expertise that people bring with what role in a project team are they instinctively going to play best, then we can sort of field the right team, put the right team on the pitch to have everybody in the right position, that gives us a much better opportunity to drive quickly from ambition to outcome. And that really is how customers realise value faster when they start a project, which is what my team is chartered with doing.
So, we're using Instinctive Drives to help say, "Look, appreciate that that lady or gentleman raised their hand first. Maybe we should take a look at how they're wired and see are they best at the beginning of a project, because they are very innovative, they think big, they have crazy ideas, and can bring energy there; or is this someone who's really wired to verify, in which case, at the beginning of a project, they're going to have a lot of questions that we can't answer yet because we're in experimentation mode? But if you insert them a bit later in the project, they're going to bring energy towards completion, they're going to make sure that we have data that supports the financial case, they're going to make sure that we have data that supports the business impact, that ultimately the business owner will be excited about". And so, putting the right people in the right positions in that project team is how we're using Instinctive Drives.
[0:25:00] David Green: Brilliant. Paul, let's expand on that a little bit, because obviously you're working with multiple organisations across various different use cases, but let's stick with the AI adoption one for the time being. So, I mean, Mike's talked a little bit about how Microsoft's obviously using it with customers. When we think about the people needed to drive successful AI adoption, who do we need? Who are the early adopters? Who are the people who can actually shift hearts and minds, rather than just tick a box on a change pan? Who can really inspire others, perhaps? And then maybe, who are the ones, I think Mike alluded to this, the completers who are quietly the ones who can get things over the line?
[0:25:43] Paul Burgess: So, that's exactly right. I mean, as Mike said, most people either get tapped or volunteer, based on their domain expertise. Expertise is important, but you've got to have the mindset. When you're kicking something off that's fresh, you've got to have people that are wired for early adoption. And if people say they are, but they're not wired for it, that incongruency, it just burns them out, and people lose their confidence and their willingness to keep playing. And so, it's a quick burn and they're done. You see people who aren't meant to be there, who aren't naturally suited in that role, they become very controlling, because they're not at their best that way, so everyone gets disenfranchised. So, you've got to have early adopters. You've also got to have, in that early adopter style, people who are natural collaborators. And the ID can define, there's certain drives that define that that's early adoption, and there are certain drives that define collaboration.
So, when you get people who are naturally collaborative, and so it sounds like a bit of a value where you think, "Well, everyone would say that I'm collaborative". I had a lady the other day say to me, "But I'm collaborative". I'm like, "Yes, when you decide to be collaborative, you can be collaborative". But a natural collaborator is collaborative all the time. And because their instinct is to be like that, they are just naturally inclusive. And so, what happens is when someone shares a point of view that they weren't expecting or they don't even agree with it, the way they naturally react is still very accepting and inclusive of that person; whereas the person who isn't a collaborator but is trying to be reacts with judgment that disenfranchises somebody. So, when we put the natural early adopter with the collaboration mindset together in the leadership of the initiative, you're set up for success. But you need each of the other players who are going to come into play in due course, you need your evangelists, you need your delivery and completion people, you need the builders and scalers, all these different roles. And I think of them like an orchestra. At different times in the score, they're going to be more prominent in the music, and the right conductor, being the leader, knows when to call on that different mindset depending on what's needed.
So, we can map. During the journey of the of the AI adoption pathway, all of those different mindsets that are needed, we make sure that we've got all of them being led by the right people, and then call on those different strengths or different mindsets as required through the journey. And so far, as people have been introduced to it, I mean honestly, the reception has been remarkable, because I think they've felt it, but haven't known how to describe it. And what I've noticed is people feel a relief, because otherwise they're expected to be an equal player in every stage of the journey, and they know they're not. So, they don't have to be false about that anymore. It just relaxes them and then they can play to their strengths.
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Paul, let's stay with you a minute just on the next question. You talked about the conductor, the leader. How does it change the way a leader has to manage a team through an AI rollout perhaps, compared to how they'd run a more traditional change program? You alluded to with AI, it's different, because we're all having to reimagine ourselves. Presumably, that applies to leaders even more so?
[0:30:37] Paul Burgess: I think the responsibility has been the same. I think the difference is how it enables the leaders, because there's always been a need for a leader to be focused on the people. But when they don't feel confident with how get the best out of their people, what they do by default is focus on the task. And you find that most initiatives very quickly revert to task. Like, "I don't even want to be here in this meeting, so just tell me what you need from me and I'll go get it done". The jigsaw puzzle becomes separate pieces of the puzzle and people go off to do their thing, because then they can tick the box and say that they've delivered what was expected of them. But that task-orientation kills an initiative. The best initiatives are where the people feel valued for being who they are and called-on to contribute their strengths. And so, when a leader now can understand what are the differences in this team and when do I call on which person at what time, they've got this new insight into how to play the game, that not only keeps them excited, from a leadership point of view, because they can see progress; but the other thing that they focus on is keeping their people in stride.
I'm finding leaders now spending more time with their people, but getting much better results, because they feel more aware of why that person is doing what they're doing, when to call on them, how to best use them. And they're rich conversations. When people are really responding and appreciative for how they're being engaged, that's really exciting to a leader. So, although it sounds like they're putting more effort and time into the people side, it's actually where they should be spending their time; but they're getting so much more return on that investment, it's worth it for them to do it.
[0:32:17] David Green: And, Mike, coming back to you again, I mean, how are you seeing this play out, what Paul's just been talking about there, both at Microsoft, but obviously principally, I guess, for your responsibility with customers, as it plays to leaders and various drives within teams?
[0:32:39] Mike Flannagan: Yeah. I mean, I think first of all, just having an awareness and a language to put to that awareness, so that you can have a conversation about it. When we talk to customers about building the right project team around an AI program or project, having a framework, having a language that we can use to quickly come together, lets us shortcut a lot of things, right? It's not a judgment statement to say, "When I hear AI, I think opportunity. When Paul hears AI, he thinks risk". There's no judgment there, it's just a reality. It's a reality of whether you're wired for certainty and security, or wired for novelty. And so, having a language to put to that that is non-judgmental, this is why we put the IDs on the screen here today, this is why Paul will recommend, if you use Instinctive Drives in your organisation, that you put it in your email signature. So, it becomes a natural language when you can speak to people about the differences in the way that people are wired without judgment.
I want everybody on the project team who wants to be on the project team. I just want them all in the right position so that they can work well together and help us drive forward to the outcome. What we find with AI projects is you are not going to mandate that an organisation becomes successful with AI. You can mandate that they get started, you can mandate that people use a tool, you can mandate that they change the way that they work. But ultimately, what you're seeking is that people have the sort of intrinsic motivation to do things differently. Some people are going to be very excited about leaning into early experimentation. With early experimentation, there's a lot of failure. There are other people who are driven to avoid failing. That creates a lot of fear for them. And so, those people, they're simply not going to be the right person in the early stage of a project. And helping our customers understand that means that they can put the right people in the right places in a project. Again, it's not about judgment or being exclusionary, but it is about putting people who have the right instincts at a certain phase of a project in the chair at that phase of the project, to help orchestrate the rest.
You asked about leaders and what does it mean for leaders? I mean, as leaders, we all have a responsibility to help our people feel safe at work. If I force you into a role of high experimentation with a high failure rate in the early days of an AI program, knowing that your instinct is to avoid being in that situation, I'm not making you feel safe at work. I'm not going to get my best work from you if you don't feel safe. And to Paul's point, it's not that you can't do it. Anyone can fail. That's great news. The bad news is some people are comfortable with it and other people are very uncomfortable. So, I think as leaders, we have a responsibility to make sure that we put people in places where they feel safe at work and they feel energised to do their best work. We also have a responsibility to make sure that we have the right skilling programs. People need to be comfortable using AI, they need to be comfortable with the things that we ask them to do at work. They need to have the knowledge, they need to have the ability. We need to make sure that we get the right people in the right places for that, or we create a lot of anxiety, a lot of avoidance in the adoption of AI, if I simply don't have the right knowledge or I don't have the right ability.
So, some people may have already done a lot of experimentation on their own at home over the weekend, you know, you plan your vacations using whatever online AI tool you have access to. So, you come into work with already having the skills and the ability. Other people, they don't do that, they don't experiment, that's not their default. And so, when you tell them that they need to adopt a different way of working, you have to structure skilling programs around that and make sure that people have those right skills. And then, I think certainly the HR leaders listening to this podcast will appreciate the reinforcement aspect. If I force you to do a thing or I convince you to do a thing or I somehow cajole you into doing a thing once, how do I make that your default way of doing it in the future? And that comes from reinforcement. Once we understand those things about how people are wired, not only do we get the right people in the right places for a project, but we then think about how to take that project or program to scale across the entire enterprise and drive adoption that everybody feels great about.
If you love to experiment, I can give it to you early and you can just play with it until you figure it out. You'll fail a lot and then figure it out eventually. If you're the kind of person who avoids failure, I'm going to need to put you into a structured skilling program, make sure that you've got the right skills, the opportunity to demonstrate. I'm going to have to reinforce a bunch of times what you're doing to make sure that failure feels okay so that you can get to a place where it's exciting. But I think those are the things that as leaders, we have a responsibility to recognise the differences in human beings and help them get to the same place, but probably taking very different paths to get there.
[0:37:58] David Green: That's really interesting. And really, listening to you, Mike, I can see, and again let's bringing the HR angle here as well. This gives you the insights to help you build the project team, as you said, put the right people in the right places for the task that needs to be fulfilled. And we've talked about why AI adoption or rolling out AI is a different sort of challenge to others. But as you said, understanding people's Instinctive Drives and propensity to experiment or not, or comfort with experimenting or not, it helps you to apply the right sort of reinforcement or reassurance to different people, depending on where they fall on that. And I'm guessing that helps you as a leader, because it's basically giving you intelligence on how to best manage each of the people within your team to achieve the common goal that you're trying to achieve as a project team, whether that's with a customer or whether that's internally within an organisation. And this is people, this is understanding the human part of people, which is obviously, given that we talk about AI adoption as a use case, is that argument that the more we use AI, the more important that the human element actually is as well, which that might sound a bit contradictory, but I think it actually isn't. I think it actually magnifies the importance of humans.
Now, we're seeing in some of the organisations that we're working with Insight222, and I know this applies at Microsoft, where the HR function is taking either ownership or partnering on the role of AI transformation, AI adoption, and driving that from adoption through to value and impact. Some companies are still very much relying on their IT or their technology departments to roll this out. That sounds like a risk to me. Again, Paul, maybe bringing you back in here, if a company is really treating AI adoption as purely an IT rollout, what are some of the challenges or risks that that could involve?
[0:40:10] Paul Burgess: Well, as I mentioned earlier, I mean I think a lot of people, when I watch these initiatives get flight, there's generally one of two ways they go. They either start with the focus on the work like, "What are we trying to do? What's the work we've got to do? Let's divide all the work and go and conquer the demon of AI or the opportunity of it", but it's a task-oriented approach. I think that's fraught with danger, because at the end of the day, AI is a very emotional experience. We're saying it's a human experience, but it's super-emotional. It's exciting and it's got incredible possibilities that really are true and genuinely excite people, and it's got enormous fear and danger in it as well, and a lot of trepidation. I mean, companies are spending billions of dollars and are yet to really be confident that they're going to see the returns on that. So, there's a lot of pressure and heat on everybody to get results and reinvent and reimagine. So, it's a very emotional journey.
The leaders and the initiatives that start by focusing first on their people and helping them understand who they are in that journey and how they're wired and how they need to play, in order to be at their best and help succeed, they are the ones that are achieving the most progress so far on what we are seeing.
[0:41:35] David Green: Very good. And again, some of the companies that you're working with to solve this problem, maybe some of the other challenges that the Instinctive Drives helps them to solve, where are you seeing HR leaning in? What guidance could you offer? Because, again, predominantly the listeners are HR professionals, HR leaders around the world. What guidance would you offer on this particular topic and how Instinctive Drives can support that?
[0:42:03] Paul Burgess: Well, as Mike said, I mean it's not an IT issue, it's also not a HR issue. It's a business leadership issue. I'm sure there's a lot of HR leaders listening who are like, "We've wanted to have the people side taken more seriously, but it's actually the business leaders". And to be honest, I mean, what really was magnetic for me with Mike was to find a leader who is such a big remit in the AI adoption space and was so into the people side of it, leading with people. That's what excited me to work with Mike and make it happen, because I met somebody who was aligned to what I saw happening in the world, that the people side really mattered. So, I would say to the HR leaders, find a business leader who is a people-oriented leader, who really gets the value of people. Start there, wherever that is, if that's in marketing, if that's in sales, if that's in CX, or wherever it might be, find that leader who can blaze the trail with the right combination of the people focus and the work focus and get results there. And the results of that will start to have others take notice and the momentum will expand.
[0:43:19] David Green: So, last two questions. So, if someone listening to this episode wanted to start applying this approach, maybe for their own AI rollout or AI adoption, what's the first practical step that you'd point them to, and maybe what's the thing that most often gets in the way? And Mike, maybe I'll start with you and then, Paul, I'll let you finish off, and then I've got a follow-up for you as well, Paul.
[0:43:44] Paul Burgess: Yeah, I think most HR leaders will already have a change framework that they're comfortable with, and I think that really gives you sort of the pathway for adoption. And so, whatever one you're comfortable with, bring that in. And then, the thing that you need to add to it is an instrument like Instinctive Drives. It helps you understand why people move down that path at different paces. And that really is back to the taste and taste-making that I talked about earlier. That really is the difference. If you can understand the pathway that you need to take and why people move at different paces along that path, and then refine as an organisation the way that you're providing AI capability to your people, they will move at a faster pace towards the destination that you want. And then, of course, you have to continuously reinforce that movement.
[0:44:43] David Green: And, Paul, is there anything you'd like to add to that? And then I'll ask you a follow-up one.
[0:44:47] Paul Burgess: I would just say the easiest way that I think people can start is just try it. Try the ID as a way of understanding yourself and relate yourself into the AI equation. Think, if this is true for you, could this be true for others who may be then different to you? And just see if there's that face validity for yourself. And I would expect that you would. It's a very safe and easy way to just get started.
[0:45:15] David Green: You've set up the next question absolutely perfectly, Paul. So, for anyone listening who'd like to understand their ID, their Instinctive Drives themselves, is there a way for them to try it?
[0:45:23] Paul Burgess: Well, I was thinking about this before, David. I think the easiest way, honestly, is I'll just provide you a link. We'll put it in the recording here so people can just jump online and try it. And then, for a limited time, they can have access to the information so they can see what it shows about them and just be able to really test it at face value. And that's the easiest way. So, let's make that an offer to all of your listeners.
[0:45:45] David Green: Yeah, we'll do that. Thank you very much, that's a really kind offer. So, anyone listening, intrigued, wants to find out more, go to the show notes and there'll be a link in there, and it will be time bound. So, hopefully you're listening to this before the end of the expiry date. I'm sure we'll put some time in. And also, if you can't find it there, which I'm sure you will, go to my LinkedIn post about the episode and I'll make sure it's included there as well. So, before I let you both go, and again, thank you both for joining for this recording at opposite ends of the day, Mike, starting with you, how can people find out more about you and keep up with what you're doing? And is there anything coming up that listeners should know about?
[0:46:31] Mike Flannagan: Well, I would point folks to my LinkedIn as well. It sounds like they'll find information about this episode there. And yeah, I frequently post about AI and the things that we're doing with customers, and so there's a good source of information there. Would love to stay connected with your listeners, anybody who is chartered with helping the IT group to drive AI inside of the organisation, because I do really genuinely believe that technology is part of the equation, but it is not the hardest part of that equation. It really is the human element, and HR leaders need to be partnered closely with the teams that are driving AI adoption inside of their organisation.
[0:47:11] David Green: Great. Thanks, Mike. And Paul, same question to you. How can people stay in touch with you, find out more about Instinctive Drives?
[0:47:17] Paul Burgess: Pretty much what you're both saying. There is a lot that's coming up that we're doing in this whole space, and I'm loving the dialogue that it's creating. So, I'd say let's all stay close on our LinkedIns. We communicate a lot of what we're doing through that channel as well. And let's see what we can share together, and help each other out.
[0:47:37] David Green: Great. Well, thanks very much both for joining. Enjoy the rest of your day, Mike. Paul, hopefully it's time maybe for a glass of wine or maybe straight to bed. So, thank you very much, and yeah, look forward to hopefully seeing you both at some point in the near future.
[0:47:53] Paul Burgess: Thank you, David.
[0:47:54] Mike Flannagan: Thanks, David. Thanks, Paul
[0:47:57] David Green: That brings us to the end of this week's episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast. A huge thank you to Paul and Mike for joining me today, especially given the different time zones we had to work around to make it happen. And of course, thank you to all of our listeners that tuned in today. I'd love to know what stood out to you most from the conversation with Paul and Mike. Head over to LinkedIn, find my post about this episode and let me know in the comments. I read every single one and honestly, the conversations that happen there often build on the ones that we have on the show. And as Paul mentioned, he's kindly offering listeners the chance to try the Instinctive Drives assessment for themselves for a limited time. You'll find the link in the show notes or on that same LinkedIn post if it's easier to find it there. If you found this conversation valuable, please do subscribe to the podcast, share it with your network, and leave us a rating or review. And don't forget to head over to insight222.com, follow us on LinkedIn, or sign up for our weekly newsletter at myHRfuture.com.
This is also our last episode before we head off for our summer break. So, have a lovely summer and I'll catch you back here in a couple of weeks' time. Until then, take care and stay well.