Innovation

I’ve been a lawyer for 20 years now. That’s mind-blowing to me because it seems like just yesterday that I was driving down to New Orleans for my first year of law school. But the fact remains, 20 years have passed, and I seem to be way better at getting injured doing harmless things than I was back when I was 23 years old. But what is really scary is how little the practice of law has changed in the 20 years since I started. Let me explain.

Twenty years is a long time, but technology (good technology) existed back then. We had powerful desktop computers, laptops and handheld devices (queue the Blackberry jokes) that could still do amazing things, automating complex tasks and allowing us to communicate across the country with ease. Yet, when I would go to state court for hearings, we would use carbon paper (yes, carbon paper) to make duplicate copies of orders. If you needed a document from a prior case, you would head down to the clerk’s desk and ask for the redweld so you could leaf through the paper file. I would record my time in six-minute increments on a daily basis by writing it in pen on a paper time sheet.

For the 11 years I was in private practice, nothing changed. In fact, I’m not sure anything has changed in the nine years since I left private practice. For all I know, attorneys are still looking for the least used piece of carbon paper to make sure they don’t have to press too hard to make a legible copy. Many court decisions are still memorialized solely in paper files or unscannable pdfs. There is an abundance of attorneys who are demanding a return to in-person hearings instead of virtual proceedings.

Related: Why Embracing Change is the Best Catalyst for Growth

The costs associated with ignoring innovation

While this all seems amusing (and a little mind-boggling), it speaks to a larger problem in the legal industry and several other industries as well. The entrenchment of ideas and processes. The fear of the novel. The trepidation associated with changing things from “the way they’ve always been done.” I don’t mind tradition, and it most certainly has its place. But the fact is, there are real costs associated with doing things the same way simply because they are familiar and comfortable. And those costs can trickle down.

Let’s take a basic example of in-person hearings. Back in the day, it wasn’t uncommon for an attorney to have to attend a status hearing in person, even if it was occurring across the country. That would necessitate airfare, lodging, meals, as well as additional travel time billed to the file. Depending on the number of attorneys involved in the case, it is not remotely inconceivable that an in-person hearing could cost the client five to ten times what a Zoom hearing would cost, maybe more. If the company has a lot of litigation, those costs will increase exponentially for each case on the company’s docket. In contrast, with a basic Zoom hearing, an attorney can now jump into the proceeding, inform the court of the status and jump back out, all while never leaving their desk. But not all attorneys like virtual proceedings. Because they’re novel … different.

Related: The Power of Innovation

Why should you care?

Why do you care, you may ask? Well, those are costs associated with doing business that need to be mitigated or paid for somehow — which may mean an increase in prices passed on to consumers. Long story short, the impact doesn’t simply end at the company’s income statement and balance sheet. Even worse, those dollars could be better spent on human capital, technology, training, education, and yes, innovation.

These issues aren’t relegated to the law, however. Insurance is a good example. There are now several exciting apps that allow you to document damage by using your phone. Some even use AI to evaluate and price the repairs. Despite these innovations, it isn’t uncommon to have insurance companies that require you to get an in-person estimate from an examiner or to take your car to a physical repair shop so the damage can be evaluated. There are costs on both sides of the transaction in those instances. You may incur costs by missing work and taking time out of your day, while the insurance company incurs costs associated with compensating the adjuster and/or the repair shop. These may get passed along to you through increased insurance premiums or in other ways.

Does the adoption of technology and acceptance of innovation solve all of these problems? No. But there are consequences to ignoring innovation. The most direct are the ones described above which may be passed down to you as a consumer. But there are ancillary effects as well. The next amazing product may not flourish if the old-school mindset continues to dominate. The next great entrepreneur may never get off the ground because their idea flies in the face of hundreds of years of “tradition.”

Related: 11 Innovation Strategies That Can Effectively Increase Your Businesses’ Growth

Innovation and change can be scary — particularly if innovation threatens your job directly. But we now live in an innovation culture. For example, you can communicate across the globe from the palm of your hand. Tourists are going into space. You can ask a computer exceedingly difficult questions and get thoughtful and reasoned answers. None of this is going away. But there is still an abundance of entrenched old-school mindsets out there that continue to rail against new ways of doing things. Unfortunately, that can cost all of us. As mentioned above, there is certainly a time and place for tradition. And technology doesn’t fit for everything. But if we don’t at least consider the options out there, we all end up paying the price.

About 15 years ago, I noticed the revenue of my company had flatlined. I work in the language-services industry, and at the time, we were primarily providing translation services through humans. Large technology clients had stopped buying from us, and we were determined to uncover the problem.

As it turned out, we weren’t offering our big tech clients what they needed: machine-based language models that could train artificial intelligence and improve automated translation outcomes.

This left us with two choices: adapt or lose business. Even though we knew incorporating AI into our company was critical to its success, the transition wasn’t easy. From the C-level down, the idea of incorporating machines into our workflow and changing the nature of our people’s jobs was met with a lot of resistance. The new direction would completely change the DNA of our company, and not everyone was on board.

With the recent acceleration of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, businesses in virtually every industry are being forced to change. A report from the World Economic Forum, showed more than 75% of companies are looking to adopt AI tech in the next five years. And with AI expected to contribute 14.5% of the U.S. GDP by 2030, there’s no denying its impact on economic growth.

As leaders across corporate America navigate the era of AI in the workplace, here are three insights I learned from the digital transformation of our company.

Related: 3 Smart Things to Know Before Getting Started with AI

Reskilling is key to rescaling your workforce

Change is hard for everyone, but we found a lot of the resistance from our people came from not knowing what skills would be required of them as our company embraced AI. To ease their concerns, we brought in senior leaders who were adept at leading digital transformations to help reskill our workforce.

Offering employees an opportunity to reskill in the age of AI has cross benefits. Not only did it allow us to retain many top employees who had institutional knowledge of our business and were critical to our culture, but as our people obtained new technical skills, it made them more employable: being a human language translator is great, but being a human language translator who has trained artificial intelligence engines is even better.

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs 2023 report showed 44% of employers surveyed from a cross-section of the world’s largest companies expect workers’ skills will be disrupted in the next five years. Such significant disruption requires business leaders, government and educational institutions alike to ensure we are providing the right training and reskilling of our human workforce.

For us, at times reskilling required merging different divisions of our company together for cross-learning opportunities. A division that understood the technology, for instance, could collaborate with a division that understood the customer experience to uncover new client solutions. This enabled us to reutilize valuable team members and also set them up to grow and prosper in their individual careers.

Related: 5 Tips for Integrating AI Into Your Business

Robots can’t replace complex critical thinking

I was given a demo by an AI vendor recently, and when asked if the translation technology could be used in a healthcare setting, he said “no.” This was due, in part, to the precise nature surrounding healthcare communication.

It got me thinking about my father. He was a great citizen who immigrated to America to provide a better life for his family. Later in life, he got dementia and lost much of his speech. I imagined how awful it would have been for him to go through an MRI, for instance, being aided with AI, rather than a human, for language interpretation.

As much as AI can help inform our decision-making and maximize efficiency, it can’t replace the emotional intelligence or critical-thinking skills of humans. An in-person interpreter is a multi-dimensional being with compassion that can mimic the gestures of a doctor and communicate to a vulnerable patient with empathy. That simply can’t be replicated through AI.

AI bases its decision-making off of the aggregate of data that’s been programmed into it — data that often contains preconceived biases. For example, I went into DALL-E by Open AI recently and asked it to create an image of a woman CEO. All of the images produced were of Asian women with zero differentiation in body size, race or emotional expression. With the volume of content being created through data analytics, we need human’s complex critical thinking skills more than ever to help audit and regulate machine output.

We also need human leadership skills more than ever. As a leader at our company, my role is to ensure we stay relevant — to be a step ahead of the trends and innovate to the benefit of our clients and team. These are skills that can be informed, but not replaced by AI.

Related: The Perfect Blend: How to Successfully Combine AI and Human Approaches to Business

Great tools require even greater responsibility

At the time of the Industrial Revolution, we had regulations in place for physical crimes. To this day, if you go into a supermarket and steal a physical product, there is legislation in place to prosecute you. The same cannot be said for the digital economy. Our justice system is not currently set up to protect Americans from the volume of cybersecurity issues the age of AI presents.

A recent report from Gartner showed that by 2025, consumerization of AI-enabled fraud will drive more focus on security education and awareness. From managing large volumes of private data to protecting our election systems, it’s extremely important that our laws and regulations catch up with the digital age.

For business leaders, one of the biggest mistakes you can make when incorporating AI into your organization is to violate the privacy of your stakeholders. And it’s not just humans that put privacy at risk. Machines and systems themselves can become non-compliant if they aren’t tested and implemented in a responsible manner. Privacy breaches can be extremely damaging and harm a lot of people, which is why it’s critical that AI is used responsibly and in conjunction with robust cybersecurity measures.

It’s early days in the era of AI, but already leaders around the world are recognizing its transformative capabilities. With great power comes great responsibility, and I believe it’s critical that as we go further down the road of incorporating AI into our workplaces, we establish regulations and uphold policies to protect the value of human life.

It is no secret that brands and companies are always on the hunt to elevate their presence in a competitive realm. Even the most recognizable brands are finding new ways to adapt to the sway of their consumers’ expectations to grow. However, some become too comfortable in a state of stagnation once they’ve reached the highest step on the winning podium.

Innovation is the lifeline of many companies, and to remain in stasis could eventually make your brand outdated. Thus, innovation is the key to growth that shouldn’t be overlooked. It doesn’t, however, have to be a drastic change that reinvents the wheel. Innovation can be subtle but significant, and there are many ways to achieve just that. Let’s explore the importance of easy ways to achieve innovation and how you can implement it into your internal strategy.

Related: 4 Ways to Drive Growth-Unlocking Internal Innovation in Your Organization

Keep your company competitive

When your business achieves significant success with its product or service, it becomes crucial to uphold the principle of continuous evolution at its core. While this may appear self-evident, it is a common occurrence for prosperous brands to fall into complacency, stagnating their innovation process. Periods of inertia often provide an opportunity for competitors to outperform them with superior versions of those very same products or services. To maintain a sustainable competitive edge, companies must keep innovation perpetually in motion. The next out-of-the-box idea is easier said than done — however, keeping your brand relevant and modern is a more subtle, but noticeable way to keep your brand in a constant state of renewal. The best way to achieve this is through a brand refresh.

In our digital design agency, we have witnessed first-hand that when we assist industries with brand rejuvenation, it often leads to a surge in conversions and audience growth. Whether it’s a minor tweak or a comprehensive transformation, modernizing your brand’s design language, website or marketing materials can be a potent form of innovation. This involves making forward-looking visual UI decisions that harmonize with your existing brand style, thereby ensuring your design is future-proof. Even something as simple as a logo refresh can be a powerful statement to your audience, signaling that your brand is keeping pace with the times. Every upgrade contributes to the ongoing evolution of your brand’s identity.

Updating your brand website with tweaks to usability and accessibility is also a great way to innovate. When your company considers all users of all abilities, it not only makes it a great experience for everyone, but it also demonstrates to your consumer base that their experience with your brand is also prioritized just as anyone else’s. Incorporating ADA-compliant standards into your website, color schemes, typography sizes, alt text incorporation and more are just a few ways to boost users’ experience.

Related: 3 Startups Making a Big Difference with Small Innovations

Make a difference with demographics

To truly ignite innovative thinking, fostering a culture of shared ideas and collaborative brainstorming is often the crucial catalyst to the next breakthrough concept. Consequently, it is vital for industry leaders to not only welcome but actively encourage input from their in-house teams.

This strategy may involve ensuring a diverse workforce, inclusive of both younger and older generations, to infuse a breadth of fresh perspectives and experiences that create a productive ground for ideas to thrive. Engaging team members from a younger demographic can be particularly beneficial, as they are typically current with the latest trends, user expectations and potentially outdated practices that the company might unwittingly still be employing. This collective knowledge and shared perspective can be the driving force behind meaningful and relevant innovation. According to UNICEF, hiring younger team members can help tap into the millennial and younger audiences since they are more attuned and familiar.

Further, innovation means growth and scalability. When you innovate for people of all demographics, you are expanding your audience base as well as growing your company’s conversions. Another best practice to achieve collaboration for fresh ideas is holding weekly idea sessions to share ideas internally on how to improve certain products or services based on client feedback and surveys. The crux here is to create an inclusive environment where every idea is heard and valued. Any dismissive attitude can rapidly quell team morale and stifle their enthusiasm for sharing their insights. Therefore, nurturing an open and receptive atmosphere is pivotal to driving successful and continuous innovation.

Related: Great Minds Think Unalike — 3 Ways to Drive True Innovation Through Diversity

Adopt a design-thinking mindset

Often utilized in the digital design industry, including our agency, design thinking can help the structure of the way ideas flow. Design thinking is a problem-solving approach that emphasizes human-centered design. Design thinking incorporates empathizing with user needs, defining problems, ideating ways to improve a problem/idea, prototyping, testing, then circling back in iterative increments. Design thinking fosters a collaborative environment where multidisciplinary teams work together to find solutions. This diversity of perspectives can lead to more innovative ideas and solutions for your brand.

Additionally, it emphasizes an iterative process. Ideas are tested and refined based on user feedback, leading to continuous improvement. This ensures your brand stays updated and resonates with evolving customer expectations. Concepts and ideas can become more defined and not simply live on as ideas but can be put into an actionable space to eventually flourish. By incorporating a design-thinking approach into your company, your team can view growth with a fresh perspective.

In the relentless pursuit of brand supremacy, companies must continuously innovate to keep pace with ever-evolving customer expectations and outdo the competition. However, the idea of innovation often connotes seismic shifts and grandiose changes. Instead, the reality is that innovation can, and often does, happen incrementally — through brand refreshes, website updates and diversity in demographic insights — in a subtle, but powerful approach.