AI Strategies For Building High-Performing Teams

When a company deploys an AI transformation, everyone fixates on the technology but here’s what is even more important. It's about the people. Over the years, I've developed a simple but powerful tool to evaluate teams for AI readiness. I call it my Will-Skill Matrix for AI! It’s taking a pre-existing model and customizing it for AI deployments based on 13 years of deployment experience. This framework is copyrighted: © 2025 Sol Rashidi. All rights reserved. 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹, 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹: These are your champions - they have the technical capabilities and the hunger to drive AI adoption forward. 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹, 𝗟𝗼𝘄 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹: Often your most technically brilliant people who resist change. They've mastered existing systems and see AI as either a threat or unnecessary complexity. 𝗟𝗼𝘄 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹, 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹: Your enthusiastic learners. They may not understand neural networks, but they're eager to embrace AI-driven solutions. 𝗟𝗼𝘄 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹, 𝗟𝗼𝘄 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹: These team members neither understand AI nor want to adapt to it. They're comfortable in their current roles and see no reason to change. Here's the counterintuitive insight most leaders miss: The "Low Skill, High Will" group is your hidden treasure in AI transformation. I discovered this at one of my employers during a massive data overhaul. My most valuable contributors weren't always the data scientists with impressive credentials. Often, they were business analysts who couldn't code complex algorithms but brought boundless curiosity and deep business knowledge and a will to figure it out. Why does this matter? Because AI implementation isn't just a technical challenge - it's fundamentally a human change management project. In one particularly tough transformation, I spent months trying to convince resistant technical experts to embrace new methods. Meanwhile, I overlooked enthusiastic business teams eager to learn and adapt. The breakthrough came when I finally shifted focus. By empowering the "High Will" groups and pairing them with technical mentors, our implementation timeline was shortened by nearly 40%. This completely changed my approach to building AI teams. The most successful AI implementations don't just depend on having the best algorithms or the most data engineers. They depend on having people throughout your organization who are willing to reimagine what's possible - and who bring others along with them.

AI isn't just a tool; it's becoming a teammate. A major field experiment with 776 professionals at Procter & Gamble, led by researchers from Harvard, Wharton, and Warwick, revealed something remarkable: Generative AI can replicate and even outperform human teamwork. Read the recently published paper here: In a real-world new product development challenge, professionals were assigned to one of four conditions: 1. Control Individuals without AI 2. Human Team R&D + Commercial without AI (+0.24 SD) 3. Individual + AI Working alone with GPT-4 (+0.37 SD) 4. AI-Augmented Team Human team + GPT-4 (+0.39 SD) Key findings: ⭐ Individuals with AI matched the output quality of traditional teams, with 16% less time spent. ⭐ AI helped non-experts perform like seasoned product developers. ⭐ It flattened functional silos: R&D and Commercial employees produced more balanced, cross-functional solutions. ⭐ It made work feel better: AI users reported higher excitement and energy and lower anxiety, even more so than many working in human-only teams. What does this mean for organizations? 💡 Rethink team structures. One AI-empowered individual can do the work of two and do it faster. 💡 Democratize expertise. AI is a boundary-spanning engine that reduces reliance on deep specialization. 💡 Invest in AI fluency. Prompting and AI collaboration skills are the new competitive edge. 💡 Double down on innovation. AI + team = highest chance of top-tier breakthrough ideas. This is not just productivity software. This is a redefinition of how work happens. AI is no longer the intern or the assistant. It’s showing up as a cybernetic teammate, enhancing performance, dissolving silos, and lifting morale. The future of work isn’t human vs. AI. The next step is human + AI + new ways of collaborating. Are you ready?

If you’re in leadership, you need to understand *how* genAI will transform your organization, and what that means for restructuring teams. Here's what we're learning: BREAKTHROUGH IN AI IDEATION OpenAI is getting ready to launch new AI models (o3 and o4-mini) that can connect concepts across different disciplines ranging from nuclear fusion to pathogen detection. (Reporting from The Information's Stephanie Palazzolo and Amir Efrati). Molecular biologist Sarah Owens used the system to design a study applying ecological techniques to pathogen detection and said doing this without AI "would have taken days." THE NEW TEAMMATE EMERGES Remember the HBS study with 776 Procter & Gamble professionals? It showed that genAI functioned as an actual teammate. Individuals using AI performed at levels comparable to traditional human teams, achieving a 37% performance improvement over solo workers without AI. Teams using AI were three times more likely to produce top-quality solutions while completing tasks 12.7% faster and producing more detailed outputs. BREAKING DOWN SILOS That study showed that AI also dissolves professional boundaries. Without AI, R&D specialists created technical solutions while Commercial specialists developed market-focused ideas. With AI, both types of specialists produced balanced solutions integrating technical and commercial perspectives. A NEW KIND OF TEAM AI users reported higher levels of excitement and enthusiasm while experiencing less anxiety and frustration. Individuals working alone with AI reported emotional experiences comparable to those in human teams. That's wild. RESTRUCTURING FOR ADVANTAGE The HBS study showed that AI reduces dominance effects in team collaboration. When genAI translates between roles, it accelerates iteration at a pace that there’s no way traditional teams could match. ++++++++++++++++++++ THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD BE DOING NOW: 1. Upskill your entire workforce: Develop a fundamental behavioral shift in how teams interact with AI across every task. This only works if everyone is doing it. (We work with enterprise to upskill at scale - more below.) 2. Experiment with new team structures: Test different AI-team combinations. Try individuals with AI for routine tasks and small teams with AI for complex challenges. Find what works best for your specific needs. 3. Redefine success metrics: Set new standards for what good work looks like with AI. Track not just productivity but also idea quality, knowledge sharing across departments, and team satisfaction—all areas where AI shows major benefits. ++++++++++++++++++++ UPSKILL YOUR ORGANIZATION: When your company is ready, we are ready to upskill your workforce at scale. Our Generative AI for Professionals course is tailored to enterprise and highly effective in driving AI adoption through a unique, proven behavioral transformation. It's pretty awesome. Check out our website or shoot me a DM.