Talk about the fear first. Then about tools.

Seven people in a meeting room. First AI workshop. On the whiteboard: „Collect use cases.“ Nobody says anything.

After ten minutes of silence I interrupt the agenda. „Before we collect use cases — what actually goes through your mind when you hear ‚AI in our team’?“

A pause. Then Frank says: „Honestly? I wonder whether my job will still exist in two years.“

Sabine nods. „The day before yesterday I had ChatGPT do my favourite part of the job — in 30 seconds. It was better than what I would have put together in three hours. That knocked me sideways.“

Markus, the team lead: „I’m supposed to facilitate this. I don’t know what to think myself.“

Three hours later we had not documented a single use case. But everyone in the room knew what was on the others’ minds. And everyone knew: we are not approaching this as a tool rollout, but as a shared learning journey with real uncertainty.

A week later the second session was more productive than any use-case workshop I have ever run. Because people knew: the fear is allowed to be here. Nobody gets left behind. We decide together what we want from this technology — not the other way round.

Detego, the consulting network I work in, puts it like this: „We take the fear out of change.“ That is not a marketing phrase. It is the only sequence that works in AI transformations.

Anyone who opens the first AI session with tools loses half the room — quietly, invisibly, for months. Anyone who starts with „What is actually worrying you?“ has a chance of taking a team into the new reality.

My question: when did someone in your organisation last ask — not about use cases, but about how people feel?

Lead yourself, and everything else follows.
— Ralf