2 — Don’t start with AI; start with purpose

Without purpose, technology becomes your new leader.

Without sharp purpose, AI quietly infiltrates your culture. This blog helps the executive team make boundaries and direction explicit.

The easiest way to lose yourself is to introduce AI without clarity about what it may and may not be used for. Technology is never neutral; every AI system carries an image of the human. Are people a cost item or a source of meaning? Are mistakes risks or raw material for learning? Is deviation undesirable—or professional?

Three purpose decisions

What may AI contribute to?

• Tie AI explicitly to strategic goals: better service delivery, shorter lead times, less administrative burden. And be even clearer about what AI must never replace: moral final judgment, the conversation with employees, the relational core with customers/citizens.

• Sample sentence: “AI supports professionals; it never makes final decisions about people without human judgment.”
• Which values must never be compromised?

• Choose 3–5 values (e.g., human dignity, fairness, reliability, transparency, inclusion) and translate them into design principles: right to an explanation, room for dissent without repercussions, logging of human overrides.
• Red lines and no-go’s

• Be explicit about what you will not do: no hidden performance profiling; no automatic refusals in vulnerable cases without a counter-judgment; no emotion monitoring without compelling reason and employee participation.

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The undercurrent: what people actually hear

People listen less to words than to practices. Is your first pilot tied to monitoring? The message is: we trust the system more than you. If you focus AI primarily on relieving burden and strengthening craftsmanship, the message becomes: we take your judgment seriously.

A 2-hour approach

Run an executive session around three questions: what may AI be used for, which values are non-negotiable, and what are our no-go’s?

Capture this in a one-page AI compass plus a page with example situations (this yes/this no).

Place it next to your leadership and culture vision: does it match the story you want to embody in the organisation?

What now, what later, what not

• Now: write your one-sentence AI purpose in plain language.
• Later: test three real cases against the chosen values.
• Not: value-washing—posters with values without design choices.

Reflective question 

Could you credibly answer today: what may AI be used for here—and what absolutely not?