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GenAI DNA Framework Report
At no time in recent history have we seen a disruptive technology storm into the public consciousness with as much speed and potential impact as Generative AI. The broad-ranging implications of its use and rapidly evolving capabilities are simultaneously bewildering, daunting, and inspiring, and will impact organizations across all industries.
GenAI has the capability of changing your organization’s processes, business models, work, roles, talent, structure, policies, governance, leadership actions and more. But it won’t happen automagically, and the answer to the question “Are we ready?” for most organizations, is “No.”
Our research in digital transformation indicates it’s very unlikely that many companies have their DNA already tuned and ready to realize the value and manage the risks of GenAI.
To succeed will require specific changes to your DNA – how you organize work, operate and behave as an organization. DNA can be adjusted, aligned and recoded.
With GenAI, it’s important to be cautious yet equally important to not be left behind as others leap ahead. With the GenAI DNA Framework, our intent is to help you strike that balance. The framework helps companies reduce risks, increase adoption, accelerate benefits, and achieve the business value desired from GenAI while keeping the frustrations and costs of “random acts of digital” at a minimum.
This framework is based on our research, independently and together, with MIT on digital DNA and digital transformation. It has been further studied and customized specifically for GenAI. In addition, we have woven in our practical experiences and insights helping dozens of Fortune 500 companies around the world make digital, including AI, part of their DNA.
GenAI DNA Framework
Your organization’s DNA comprises organization, operation, and behavior. Unless you are constantly recoding your DNA to stay ahead of the changes happening around you, your DNA may already be, or could soon become, misaligned with your business objectives. With Generative AI tools, that misalignment will quickly become even more pronounced.
If you want superior business results out of Generative AI solutions, you will need to weave essential changes into your DNA that de-risk, activate and superpower your organization to succeed with this transformative technology. The GenAI DNA Framework will help you do that.
How you organize
1) Structure and work – With Generative AI, some jobs and tasks will likely become obsolete or require different skill sets. You’ll need to revisit your organizational structures, roles, and the design of work. Employees will need retraining or upskilling.
2) Geographies – If you operate in multiple geographies, GenAI creates potential issues and opportunities that will require you to consider different implications – legal, cultural, geo-strategy, global infrastructure, data privacy, and regulatory, among others.
3) Capabilities – GenAI creates potential opportunities and challenges that will require you to consider changes to your existing capabilities. What used to be a core capability for you could change very quickly with GenAI. Turn new capabilities into strategic advantage.
4) Physical environment – GenAI can enable more flexible and efficient workplace models, allowing you to optimize your physical footprint for offices, stores, and factories. It can also enable the development of more advanced workplace technologies and improve safety and security.
How you operate
5) Governance – GenAI has the potential to bring clarity, insights, and new ways of looking at governance. It can also introduce new challenges like algorithmic bias, ethics issues, and questions about who can make decisions and what kinds of decisions can be made.
6) Processes – For many companies, process redesign is one of the most promising areas of GenAI to reduce costs and increase new lines of revenue. You’ll need to redesign and reconnect processes with new ways of working. Process changes will affect employees’ roles and responsibilities.
7) Talent – In the talent management area, Generative AI tools can, for example, enhance predictive analytics in new ways to identify never-before-seen trends and patterns in your workforce. As another example, Generative AI models can use data and machine learning algorithms to optimize recruitment processes.
8) Technology – Generative AI models can help identify and solve data quality issues, optimize data storage and retrieval, and improve data analytics and reporting capabilities, as one example. As another, GenAI can help develop and train machine learning models, identifying patterns in large datasets and providing insights for improving algorithms.
How you behave
9) Leadership – GenAI introduces new issues that many organizations have not dealt with before. Effective leadership behaviors and skills are essential to successful GenAI integration, and proactive leadership training is key.
10) Performance – Redefine what actions and behaviors are valued. You’ll have to modify traditional performance management methods and prioritize new behaviors, such as risk taking, being bold, and more intentional collaboration.
11) Rewards – Opportunities to work with GenAI may become a powerful reward mechanism for employers and serve to attract and develop the careers of existing or future talent.
12) Policies – Generative AI tools may necessitate modification of existing policies or the creation of new ones, particularly in areas such as data privacy and security, ethical AI, recruitment and hiring, and diversity, equity and inclusion.
Ready or not
Generative AI will push changes directly at and into your organization, straight at your DNA. Given the scale and speed of GenAI, organizations staying the same without realigning or recoding their DNA will find themselves quickly left behind.
On the other hand, if you’re able to recode your organization’s DNA – to change how you’re organized, how you operate, and how you behave – you can reduce risks, increase adoption, accelerate benefits, and achieve the exponential impact GenAI offers.
Author
Dr. Garth Andrus
Executive at Cognixia
About the Author
Dr. Garth Andrus is executive at Cognixia, an Ascendion company. Cognixia is a leading digital talent and transformation provider keeping companies and individuals ahead of the technology curve through transformative, digital-first learning and organizational solutions.
