Artificial Intelligence helps to set SIX times smarter targets

Transformations require smart improvement targets so resources are well spent, and morale keeps up. Our acedemic study among 4,000 teams shows how artificial intelligence changes the game here.

When entire organizations have to change - a transformation - everyone is part of the problem and ... everyone is part of the solution as well. Hence, it makes sense to verifiably ask managers and employees about the status of the organization and what would be the priorities for, say, the next 6 months. That input, combined with a so-called maturity model, is enough to let algorithms assist managers by focusing on consequences that would make the target’s implementation nearly impossible. In our study: too little organizational alignment, setting too ambitious targets, and insufficient capacity to change.

Without an algorithm calculating such consequences of an improvement target, only 11% of 3,400 managers set targets that could be considered smart in terms of their 'transformational consequences' (sufficient alignment, realistic effort and having sufficient capacity to change present in the organization). When these algorithms were added to the game (in a second, comparable sample of 1,000 teams) this percentage shot up to 66%, a six-fold increase.