The Paper Store

My dad has told me the same “two choices” story more times than I can count. In the 1980s, he had to choose between two school electives: woodshop and computers. His teacher, Mr. Houston, had some advice: “Get into computers, it’s going to be big!”

My dad chose woodshop. It was comfortable. It was what he knew as the son of a carpenter.

Decades later, he still talks about that decision. He does not believe one computer class would have prepared him for every technological change that followed. His point is simpler: he wishes he had gotten comfortable with the technology before he needed to.

I think about that story often now.

Enter artificial intelligence. Or is it superintelligence now? There is a reasonable chance the terminology will change between writing this and publication, so I will stick to calling it “AI” for now.

This poor attempt at a joke almost makes the point for me. Technology is moving faster than our ability to define where it is going. Maybe preparing the workforce for the future is not about predicting what comes next. Maybe it is about preparing people to adapt when it does.

But adaptability requires a starting point. My dad’s story would lose its meaning if the lesson were simply to remain open to change. Part of his point is that he wishes he had learned the technology when he had the opportunity. I think the same is becoming true of AI.

Workers do not need to become developers or AI experts, but basic AI literacy is quickly becoming necessary for navigating the workplace. People need to understand what the technology can and cannot do, how to interact with it, and where it might apply to their work. It is difficult to adapt around a technology you have never taken the time to learn.

Learning the technology, however, is only the beginning. I believe AI is as much a behavioral shift as it is a technology shift. An organization can purchase tools, provide training, and track usage without meaningfully changing how anyone works. The harder shift occurs when people begin questioning familiar processes, experimenting with new approaches, and changing long-established habits.

Employees must become comfortable starting a task differently, asking better questions, evaluating imperfect outputs, and applying their own judgment. Becoming more efficient does not simply mean doing the same work faster. It may mean letting go of familiar tasks, taking on more valuable responsibilities, and redefining how they contribute. Technology creates the opportunity, but behavior determines whether anything changes.

“Technology creates the opportunity, but behavior determines whether anything changes.”

Organizations therefore need to look beyond AI usage and examine the work itself. What are we trying to accomplish? How do we accomplish it today? Which activities add value? Which exist because “that is how we have always done it”? What can technology eliminate, simplify, or augment? If additional capacity is created, how should it be reinvested?

These are questions I have been wrestling with in my own work. Conversations that begin around AI adoption quickly become conversations about workflows, responsibilities, job design, and eventually organizational design. If technology meaningfully changes the work, the jobs should eventually change too.

That does not necessarily mean replacing people. It can mean spending less time on repetitive work and more time applying judgment, solving problems, building relationships, developing others, or assuming new responsibilities. As the work evolves, the worker and the role need to evolve with it.

Managers become especially important in that transition. Employees do not experience “the future of work” through a strategy presentation. They experience it on a Tuesday morning when the way they have completed a task for five years suddenly changes. Their manager must help them understand why, create room to learn, and connect the change to something more meaningful than simply telling them to “use AI.”

Organizations cannot announce that the future has arrived, provide limited direction, and then penalize employees for not adapting quickly enough. There should be a progression: clarity, access, education, practice, manager support, expectations, and then accountability. Once an organization provides those things, however, it is reasonable to expect employees and leaders to develop the capabilities and behaviors necessary to operate in a changing environment. Adaptation cannot remain permanently optional.

Which brings me back to my dad.

He could not have known that a computer class in the 1980s might eventually connect to the internet, social media, smartphones, or today’s workplace. But his teacher did not ask him to predict any of that. He just told him to get into computers.

Today’s workforce cannot know exactly where AI will take us either. Maybe we do not need to.

We need to learn the technology in front of us, remain curious about what comes next, and be willing to change how we work as the possibilities evolve.

Preparing for the future of work is not about predicting the future correctly. It is about giving people the foundational skills to participate in it and developing the behaviors, leaders, and organizations capable of adapting as it arrives.