Principle 04: I make the new way the easy way.

You can try to convince people to use AI. Or you can make AI the path of least resistance and let human nature do the rest.

I have tried both. Human nature wins every time. It also never needed a slide deck.

Human nature wins every time.

For the record, I tried persuasion first. I gave the speech. I built the deck. I may have used the phrase "exciting journey," which should be grounds for a mild fine. People nodded, clapped politely, and went straight back to the old template, which was still sitting right there, warm and familiar, like a favorite hoodie with a hole in it. That is when I stopped trying to win the argument and started rigging the environment.

Defaults beat directives

Here is a nugget I picked up years ago and have never shut up about. Back in 2003, a couple of really smart dudes named Eric Johnson and Daniel Goldstein looked at organ donation rates across European countries. Countries where people had to opt in had low rates. Countries where donation was the default and people had to opt out had dramatically higher ones.

Same people. Same values. Different default.

Then two more brainiacs, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, wrote a whole book, Nudge, about this idea. Thaler later picked up a Nobel Prize, so apparently it was not a fluke. Humans mostly do whatever requires the fewest decisions. That is not laziness. It is a brain conserving energy for things that matter. Like remembering where you parked.

Humans mostly do whatever requires the fewest decisions.

So stop fighting it. Use it. Judo, not arm wrestling.

The blank box is the enemy

The hardest part of using AI is the empty text box. It is a blinking cursor asking, "What do you want?" Most people do not know. So they close the tab and go back to the old way. The cursor keeps blinking. Smugly.

My job is to make sure nobody ever faces the blank box alone.

Here is how I make the new way the easy way:

Ship prompts, not permissions. "You're allowed to use AI" changes nothing. It is the corporate version of "Feel free to use the gym." A tested prompt with the brand voice, the format, and the rules already built in changes everything. People copy, paste, and go.
Start every task at draft one, not draft zero. When a new product record is created, a first draft of the copy can be waiting next to it, written in our voice from the spec. Nobody decides to use AI. They just edit what is already there.
Put AI where the work already lives. In the spreadsheet. In the doc. In the chat channel. Automation tools connect the pieces so the output shows up without anyone opening a new app.
Make the old way slightly harder. Retire the old template. Archive the old folder. You do not have to ban anything. A little extra friction on the old path is enough. Water finds the easy route. So do coworkers.
Apply the ten-minute rule. If a new workflow takes longer to learn than one use of it saves, redesign it before you roll it out.
Build character into the system. Our brand rules live at the top of every prompt chain, so every image, script, and caption inherits them. Consistency becomes the default instead of a review step.

What this looks like when it works

Nobody announces it. There is no launch party. No cake. Sorry.

One day someone mentions they cannot remember how they used to write product descriptions. A designer starts a concept from a generated set of options without being asked. The weekly report shows up drafted, and the analyst spends her time on the insight instead of the formatting.

That is adoption. Not a usage chart. A quiet moment when the old way starts to feel like work.

The point

I do not want people to use AI because I asked them to. I want them to use it because the alternative is more annoying.

Leaders spend a lot of energy on persuasion. Speeches, memos, town halls, slides with rockets on them.

Skip the rocket. Build the ramp.

Make the new way the easy way, and you will never have to give the speech.