Adopting new technology: the decisive role of the team
Why is one tool adopted here and abandoned there? Long before AI, research on new hospital technology proposed a team-centred answer.
The founding study
Amy Edmondson, Richard Bohmer and Gary Pisano (2001, Administrative Science Quarterly) follow the introduction of the same surgical technique in sixteen hospitals. Successful teams differ less in expertise than in structured collective learning: member selection, prepared trials, debriefs.
What it does not claim
These are comparative case studies, rich but non-experimental. Surgery differs from office work; the mechanism — disrupted routines needing shared relearning — transfers as a hypothesis.
The link to AI
Christian Jöhnk, Malte Weißert and Katrin Wyrtki (2021, Business & Information Systems Engineering) identify, through interviews, organisational AI-readiness factors including culture and skills. Their work is exploratory. (our executive and employee training programmes)
The limit of common practice
Training people individually and then 'letting it happen' neglects the collective side: who tries what, how failures are shared, which common rules emerge.
A practical check in Bern
For six weeks, hold a weekly fifteen-minute debrief on one AI use attempted and its result. The number of uses shared and then reused by a colleague is a simple indicator of collective learning. To go further: explore the Leading AI Adoption in Your Team training in Bern, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Leading AI Adoption in Your Team in Bern
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