The 87% Question That Every Leader Needs to Ask

Your biggest barrier to AI adoption isn't your technology stack. It isn't your budget. It isn't your talent pipeline.

It's your culture.

And I can prove it with one question.

The Study That Changed How I Think About Innovation

There was a fascinating study out of the University of California that should be required reading for every leader navigating digital transformation right now.

Researchers posed a simple question to employees: If you had a great innovation or automation idea, and you believed the deployment of that idea would lead you to doing different work as a result — would you share it?

Only 37% said yes.

Let that land. Almost two-thirds of your workforce is sitting on ideas that could transform your business — and actively choosing to stay quiet. Not because they lack creativity. Not because they don't care. Because the way we frame change makes them afraid of what comes next.

Then the researchers changed the question slightly.

If you believed you would be able to do better, more meaningful, more humane work as a result of that idea being implemented — would you share it?

87% said absolutely.

Same people. Same innovation. Same technology. One reframe. A 50-percentage-point swing in willingness to participate.

The Framing Gap: Why Most AI Strategies Fail at the Human Level

This is what I call the framing gap — and it is the single biggest reason I see AI adoption stall in organisations around the world.

We keep selling change as disruption. We keep framing AI as an efficiency play. We keep positioning automation as a way to do things differently.

But people don't want to do different work. They want to do better work.

There is a massive difference between telling someone their job is about to change and telling someone they're about to be freed from the worst parts of their job. The technology is identical. The outcome is identical. But the emotional response — and the level of buy-in you get — could not be more different.

This is what the University of California research reveals so clearly. The impediment to change isn't technical resistance. It's emotional resistance driven by poor framing.

Take the Robot Out of the Human

There's a phrase I come back to constantly when I speak to leadership teams and organisations navigating this shift: take the robot out of the human.

Every organisation has people spending significant portions of their week on repetitive, low-value, soul-crushing tasks. Data entry. Manual reporting. Copy-paste workflows. Status update meetings that could be an email. Emails that could be automated entirely.

AI and automation can remove these tasks. But when we frame that as "your role is changing," people hear "your role is at risk."

When we frame it as "you'll never have to do that thing you hate again — and instead you'll spend that time on work that actually matters," people lean in.

Less of the menial. Less of the mundane. More of the meaningful. More of the humane.

That's the pitch your people are waiting to hear. And it's the pitch most leaders aren't making.

Why This Matters More in 2026 Than Ever Before

The pace of AI advancement is accelerating. What we're seeing in agentic AI alone suggests capability is doubling roughly every three months. The technology gap between what AI can do and what most organisations are actually deploying is widening every single week.

But the constraint isn't the technology. The constraint is human readiness.

Organisations that crack the culture code — that figure out how to frame innovation as liberation rather than disruption — will move exponentially faster than those still fighting internal resistance with strategy decks and town halls.

The leaders who win the next five years won't be the ones with the best AI tools. They'll be the ones whose people actually want to use them.

Five Questions Every Leader Should Ask This Week

Before you launch your next AI initiative, transformation project, or automation rollout, sit with these questions:

1. Am I leading with loss or gain? When you last announced a change to your team, did you frame it around what was being replaced — or what was being unlocked?

2. Is AI being implemented for my people or to my people? If you asked your team this question right now, what would they honestly say? The answer tells you everything about your adoption trajectory.

3. How many ideas are sitting dormant? Not because people don't have them, but because they don't trust what happens if they share them. The 37% in the study didn't lack ideas. They lacked psychological safety about what those ideas might trigger.

4. Is my culture ready, or just my strategy? You can have a world-class digital transformation roadmap and still fail completely if your culture is signalling that change is something to fear rather than embrace.

5. If my team only heard how I talk about change — and never saw the strategy deck — would they feel excited or threatened? This is the question that separates leaders who drive adoption from leaders who drive resistance.

Three Practical Steps to Close the Framing Gap

1. Reframe One Initiative This Week

Take something you're currently positioning as "efficiency" or "transformation" and rewrite the narrative around what it frees your people to do — not what it replaces. The language shift from "different" to "better" isn't semantics. It's strategy. Go through your current change communications and audit every sentence. Are you describing what's being taken away, or what's being given back?

2. Ask Before You Tell

Before your next change rollout, run a simple pulse check with your team: "What's the most repetitive, low-value task in your week?" Let your people name the problem before you introduce the solution. When people see automation as the answer to their frustration rather than your cost-saving exercise, adoption doesn't just improve — it accelerates dramatically. People champion solutions to problems they've identified themselves.

3. Make It Safe to Share

The 37% didn't stay quiet because they lacked ideas. They stayed quiet because they feared the consequences. Create a visible, low-risk channel for innovation ideas and publicly celebrate the first few that get implemented. Nothing kills silence faster than proof that speaking up leads somewhere good. Psychological safety isn't a nice-to-have in the age of AI. It's the prerequisite for adoption.

The Bottom Line

The biggest impediment to change, innovation, automation, and AI adoption in your organisation isn't a technology gap. It's a framing gap.

Your people aren't resistant to change. They're resistant to change that doesn't serve them.

Close that gap — and watch what happens when 87% of your organisation starts sharing their best ideas instead of 37%.

The question was never about the technology. It was always about the question you're asking.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the biggest barrier to AI adoption in organisations?

Research consistently shows that organisational culture — not technology — is the primary barrier to AI adoption. A University of California study found that only 37% of employees would share innovation ideas if they believed it would lead to different work. However, when the question was reframed around doing better, more meaningful work, 87% said they would share. This demonstrates that resistance to AI adoption is largely driven by how change is communicated and framed by leadership, not by the technology itself.

Why do employees resist AI and automation in the workplace?

Employees typically resist AI and automation not because they oppose progress, but because they fear what change means for their role, relevance, and job security. When AI is framed as an efficiency tool or a way to do things differently, it triggers fear of displacement. When it's framed as a way to eliminate repetitive, low-value tasks and focus on more meaningful work, resistance drops dramatically. The core issue is psychological safety and framing, not technological reluctance.

How can leaders improve AI adoption rates in their teams?

Leaders can dramatically improve AI adoption by changing how they communicate about it. Three proven approaches include: reframing initiatives around what employees gain rather than what changes; asking teams to identify their most repetitive tasks before introducing automation solutions; and creating psychologically safe channels for employees to share innovation ideas. The shift from "your work will be different" to "your work will be better" can move adoption willingness from 37% to 87%.

What is the "framing gap" in digital transformation?

The framing gap refers to the disconnect between how leaders communicate change and how employees receive that message. Most organisations frame AI and automation in terms of efficiency, transformation, or doing things differently — language that triggers anxiety. Closing the framing gap means repositioning the same initiatives around human benefit: less menial work, more meaningful contribution. It's the same technology and the same outcome, but a fundamentally different emotional response from the workforce.

What does "take the robot out of the human" mean?

"Take the robot out of the human" is a leadership framework for positioning AI adoption. It means using AI and automation to remove the repetitive, mechanical, low-value tasks that humans currently perform — freeing them to focus on creative, strategic, and interpersonal work that only humans can do. Rather than replacing humans with robots, the goal is to remove the robotic work from human roles, elevating people to do more of what they do best.

How does company culture affect innovation and automation?

Company culture directly determines whether employees feel safe enough to share innovative ideas and embrace new ways of working. In cultures where change is framed as threatening or where psychological safety is low, the vast majority of employees will suppress their ideas and resist adoption. In cultures where change is framed as empowering and where idea-sharing is celebrated, organisations see dramatically higher rates of innovation participation and technology adoption.

What is the University of California study on employee innovation?

The University of California conducted a study examining employee willingness to share innovation and automation ideas. When asked whether they would share an idea that would lead them to do different work, only 37% said yes. When the question was reframed to ask whether they would share an idea that would lead them to do better, more meaningful, more humane work, 87% said yes. The study highlights that the framing of change — not the change itself — is the primary driver of employee participation in innovation.

Why do digital transformation projects fail?

Many digital transformation projects fail not because of technical limitations but because of cultural resistance rooted in poor change communication. When organisations lead with operational efficiency and cost savings without addressing the human impact, employees disengage. Successful transformation requires leaders to articulate a compelling human narrative: what gets better for the people doing the work, not just what gets better for the balance sheet.

How can a futurist or keynote speaker help with AI adoption?

A futurist keynote speaker specialising in AI adoption and organisational change can help leadership teams reframe their approach to innovation, identify cultural barriers to transformation, and equip managers with practical frameworks for driving adoption. Through keynote presentations, workshops, and strategic advisory, organisations gain actionable strategies for closing the framing gap and building cultures where employees actively champion change rather than resist it.

Anders is a futurist, keynote speaker, and the author of Decoding Tomorrow — a weekly newsletter helping leaders navigate AI, innovation, and the future of work. To book Anders for your next leadership event, conference, or workshop, get in touch here.