What you want to become
Ambition Model
I developed the Ambition Model to help organisations be specific about what they want AI to make possible. It’s five questions that draw out a clear, organisation-specific reason for what AI should improve or enable. That specificity is what makes the hard choices possible, because every decision can be tested against what the transformation is actually for. It also gives your people a far better answer than “AI should make us more efficient and cut costs”.
Uniqueness
Does this make us more like everyone else?
Why this matters
When everyone can use the same tools, what sets your organisation apart? What do you understand that others don’t, and what can you do that they can’t? That difference is why people choose you. AI can amplify it, or quietly wear it away.
Choose one to see its question.
I believe AI is a tremendous opportunity. Efficiency, productivity and lower costs matter, but AI should also let an organisation do new things, do more of what it does well, and deliver on the reason it exists.
I use these questions in the Board-Ready AI Vision
That’s where you’re heading. Now, where are you really?
Where you are today
Adoption Pathway
Every organisation has its own reasons for using AI, and its own idea of what worthwhile progress would look like. I use the Adoption Pathway to examine how that progress develops: whether people have a reason to act, permission and support to change their practice, and evidence that those changes are helping.
The questions are shared. The answers, priorities and measures of success need to belong to your organisation.
Think about one team or part of your organisation. What has already been established? What still depends on a few enthusiastic people? Where does progress become difficult?
Those are useful places to begin. Progress should be judged against what you want AI to improve or make possible here.
Imperative
Give people a reason that matters here.
“We need to use more AI” leaves people to invent their own purpose. A clearer reason might be giving specialists more time to review difficult cases, or improving the service people receive.
What should become better here, and why does it matter now?
ImperativeWhy does AI matter here, now?
Give people a reason that matters here.
“We need to use more AI” leaves people to invent their own purpose. A clearer reason might be giving specialists more time to review difficult cases, or improving the service people receive.
What should become better here, and why does it matter now?
AgencyWho has permission, confidence and clarity to act?
Make it possible for people to act.
Someone may be comfortable using AI for their own tasks and still have no permission to change a shared process. Leaders and managers need to make that permission clear and support people when they use it.
What are people actually backed to change?
ReadinessCan the organisation support real adoption?
Give people the support to use AI.
A team needs to know which tools and data it can use, how to check results, and where to take an uncertain question. Training helps when people can apply it with that support around them.
Can people try something useful without having to resolve every uncertainty themselves?
PracticeHow does AI become repeatable working behaviour?
Make useful learning part of how the team operates.
A useful experiment is worth sharing if colleagues can repeat it and know when to use it. Give them time to compare results and improve it together.
What continues when the most enthusiastic person is away?
InnovationWhat new capability and value can emerge?
Use growing capability to try something new.
As people become more capable, they may find opportunities beyond improving an existing task: a different service, a better decision process, or something the team previously couldn’t attempt.
What could you now do that would be worth pursuing?
OutcomesWhat changed, and was it worth it?
Check what changed against what you wanted.
Look at the quality of decisions and services, what people have learned, and whether any time saved went somewhere useful. The evidence should connect back to your reason for acting.
What improved, for whom, and how do you know?
Where progress becomes difficult, I look more closely at the conditions people are working in.
What is standing in the way
Ten dimensions of AI adoption
I developed these dimensions to examine the organisational conditions behind adoption and value. An organisation can buy tools, run training and report growing usage while leaving those conditions largely unchanged. Capable people still need permission to change established workflows, and further training will not supply it. I believe meaningful, sustained results depend on addressing these dimensions together.
Transformative belief
Do leaders believe AI should change how the organisation operates, and are they prepared to act on that belief?
What you might hear
“We're already doing this.”
There's plenty of activity, with training, pilots and steering committees, but the way work actually gets done hasn't changed. Pilots succeed, then never scale, and nobody asks why.
I use these dimensions in the AI Adoption Reality Check
Working through it together
Finding what’s standing in the way is where the work starts.
Each engagement begins from one of these questions.
- Starts at 01 · What you want to becomeBoard-Ready AI VisionWhen you know AI matters but your leaders haven't agreed what it's for.I help your leaders and teams shape an ambitious vision grounded in who you are and why you exist.
- Starts at 02 and 03 · Where you are, and what is standing in the wayAI Adoption Reality CheckWhen your AI transformation isn't producing the results you expected.I find what's holding adoption back and give you a 30/90-day plan.
- Starts at 01 · Leading the direction you've agreedExecutive AI SprintWhen you have an AI vision but your leaders aren't yet united or ready to deliver it.I work with your executives together and one-on-one so each can lead AI in their function.
- All three, as they come upOngoing AI Strategy AdvisoryWhen AI change is relentless and every month brings something new to decide.Have me in your corner for the decisions ahead so you can decide with confidence.
Contact
Start with the question you have.
You may have a direction to clarify, or adoption that has stalled. Get in touch about your organisation, and we can discuss whether I can help.
