4 Ways to Bulletproof Your Job From AI and the Underperformance Label

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Daniel Snell, a 53-year-old cofounder and CEO of Arrival, based in London. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

As efficiency starts to improve, whether driven by AI or not, underperformers will get squeezed out.

I’ve been running my management consulting and social impact company, Arrival, for 20 years now. Lately, I’ve experienced investors and business leaders hoping that AI can unlock efficiency, productivity, and performance to get organizations growing again.

Having worked with senior leaders at companies like Tesco and GSK to help develop high-performing teams, I tell my clients that putting their heads in the sand is the worst strategy when it comes to AI.

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To bulletproof yourself as an employee from the AI revolution, you have to get really engaged. Don’t get overwhelmed by it, and don’t buy into the narrative of fear.

1. Test AI for your company

Don’t limit yourself to what your business is giving you or what it’s doing with AI.

Run some projects, do some experiments, do some external research, and look at organizations that are using AI really well. Take those ideas to your manager and your boss and see if you’re allowed to get involved. Be solution-oriented. Don’t be problematic.

Think about how you can apply AI in an aligned way, immerse yourself in the executive strategy and intentions, and figure out what your company perceives as issues, opportunities, and challenges. Use that as a guide to test an AI model within your particular context and figure out how you can contribute real value.

2. Demonstrate the value of your work

Many people think that activity is productivity. Sharing lots of insights or working really hard has nothing directly to do with perceived value or productivity.

When you’re doing work, make sure you’re really clear on how it’s valuable to the company and how it’s aligned with the strategy. Don’t drift into projects or roles without testing in your own mind whether this project or this team is perceived as part of the organization’s future growth.

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If you’re not clear about that, you can easily be put into a team or department that is not valued or not valued highly enough.

3. Align yourself with leaders who are part of the change

If you align yourself with a leader, a department, a project, or a division that is not about the future of growth, you won’t be visible. So, align yourself with leaders who are part of the change agenda.

It’ll be crushing to realize you’re not invited to the exciting conversations and you aren’t among those meetings where the best talent is going. It’ll be apparent. Just figure out how to get into those circles where the heat of the business is.

Bring a contribution or value based on how you’re going to establish better efficiencies, productivity, performance, and how AI can drive that.

4. Skip meetings and projects that waste time

Sometimes, you get into meetings and wonder why you’re there, what the purpose of the meeting is, or where it’s going. In many cases, it’s going nowhere.

Excuse yourself from meetings where you know there won’t be a clear decision or you won’t get any value. When I work with leaders, I tell them to just reject the meeting if nobody can clearly articulate what the decision is and why they’re there to make it.

Often, projects are started that aren’t attached to the business’s core strategic focus. You can get rid of those projects, and it makes absolutely no difference. In fact, it lifts performance.

Once you figure out what projects and meetings are unnecessary, you will bring exponentially better value and be rewarded for that. But if you think lots of meetings, activities, projects, and insights are going to deliver value, then you’re grossly mistaken.

Do you have career advice to share? Contact this reporter, Agnes Applegate, at aapplegate@businessinsider.com.