Most organisations still think buying a stack of licences and sending everyone a 45‑minute e‑learning module makes them “AI ready”. It doesn’t. If nobody is using the tools on Monday morning, those completion rates are just vanity metrics.
In Episode 3 of pickIT Up, I’m digging into the second pillar of the 4 Cs: Competency - the stage where AI stops being a shiny tool and starts becoming a daily habit.
Competency isn’t a certificate. It’s a behavioural pathway that moves teams through three stages: Apply → Optimise → Transform. And in this episode, I break down exactly how leaders and change managers can help their teams move past the initial plateau and turn individual experimentation into shared operational impact.
Here’s what we get into:
Stage 1 - Apply: Make it real, make time, build trust
Why generic training doesn’t work, how to make AI relatable to each role, why learning time has to be protected as actual work time, and why safe internal experimentation is always better than Shadow AI.
Stage 2 - Optimise: From personal hacks to team time savings
This is the point where most enterprise AI adoption stalls. I walk through how to shift from “AI saves me an hour” to “AI saves our team X hours a week” using a simple 3-4 hour Workflow Hackathon, the Value vs Drag test, and the delivery buffers managers need to build in.
Stage 3 - Transform: When competency compounds
Once teams optimise what they control, transformation becomes a natural progression. We look at how local workflow improvements scale into cross‑functional collaboration and the beginnings of a truly AI‑native culture.
🍬 This Week’s pickIT & Mix
Forget the £500 webinars. The frontier labs - Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google - are releasing world‑class training and interactive sandboxes for free.
I share the Free Session Scanner & What’s New Prompt, built on the GCSE framework (Goal, Context, Source, Expectation).
Drop it into any web‑connected LLM every Monday morning and you’ll have a clean directory of verified first‑party training plus a weekly update feed your team can act on straight away.
Grab the prompt, give it a run with your team, and let’s pickIT Up together.
Find my page or LinkedIn with me.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are entirely those of the host (and guests) and do not reflect the official views or position of any employer, client, or organisation.
