I Fought AI. Here's What It Actually Exposed.

I've spent years learning specific skills, mastering my craft. Looking for efficiencies and optimizing specific workflows. I do things a certain way because it gets me a good, consistent result. That worked for years. Well enough that I could help other people do the same.

When you have a system, it's replicable. If the result isn't what we want, we look at the system, identify the issue, and make tweaks. Adjust the inputs, get the right output.

I'm sure you have similar systems and processes in your own work.

But what's hard is unlearning something. When you've spent so much time learning how to do something, and then you realize there's an even better way, except that better way isn't documented, it's unclear, and it's going to require a lot of trial and error.

That's what it's like to start learning how to leverage AI. I see it constantly. I've experienced it firsthand. So have my colleagues.

I thought I was efficient. I thought I had great processes that were easy to follow and scale.

I had to humble myself. And it's not that what I had wasn't good, or that my skills weren't relevant.

It was my inability to accept change. To put my ego aside and believe that there is a better way, for myself, my teams, and company.

I fought it.

AI isn't good enough. It doesn't know enough to produce good results. It doesn't know how we do things, or why. It doesn't know what's at stake. AI gets confused. AI doesn't verify its work. AI needs to be told the same thing multiple times (don't you hate repeating yourself). On and on and on…

But all of those were actually leadership problems.

Bad communication. Poor documentation. Lack of context. No clear expectations.

I wasn't putting in the time. I wasn't investing in AI, giving it what it needs. I took for granted all the tribal knowledge our teams had, and the culture we'd built.

What's crazy is, it surfaced our shortcomings fast. AI exposed the gaps in our own systems and processes. Our bad habits were quickly amplified.

What we thought was good documentation wasn't. (We treated poor documentation as a rite of passage for new hires, something's missing, go find it and add to it.)

Our ability to explain problems wasn't sufficient. (We'd say "go fix X" when we could have said what's wrong with X, when did X start breaking. We were vague.)

We weren't thinking through edge cases. (AI workflows quickly had gaps because we hadn't spent enough time sitting with the problem.)

We were overly reliant on specific subject matter experts. "Ask so-and-so, they know best." That clearly doesn't work with AI.

That's just the surface. The point is, we needed a mindset shift. One that forced us to be humble, challenge our assumptions, and actually be open to change. That didn't happen overnight.

It's hard realizing that the way you've been doing something isn't as good as it could be. Especially when you've invested so much time in your current process. Everyone's getting the squeeze, do more, in less time, with higher quality. It's tough. If you resist, it's frustrating.

But I'm here to tell you, it's possible.

If you believe you have something to learn, that you and your team can improve, that you could move faster, work smarter, delegate more, and leverage more, I assure you, you'll find a way. With AI's help.

I can't tell you I have it completely figured out. AI is constantly changing and improving. But I'm excited. I'm enjoying it, and the team is too.

AI still messes up… so do we.

We're not looking for perfection. We're looking for progress.