How to Build Organisational Capacity to Renew in the AI Era
In 2016, organisational transformation was largely about teaching people new ways of working. In 2026, it is increasingly about enabling people to discover those new ways themselves.
This is a fundamental change in how we need to lead organisations.
Having worked with business transformations for over 20 years, I have seen how dramatically the conditions for organisational renewal have changed. Last spring, while supporting a transformation in a large organisation, I was reminded just how different the task of leading change has become in only a few years.
In this article, I want to share
what I see has changed,
why understanding human biology matters,
and three practical things leaders can do to strengthen their organisation's capacity to renew.
If these questions are relevant to your business, I'm always happy to exchange thoughts and explore them further.
From 2016 to 2026
Think back to a typical transformation project in 2016.
Management defined the direction and the desired future state. A project team designed the new operating model, described the roles and processes, and prepared the organisation for implementation. Employees were trained in the new ways of working, the change was launched, and the focus shifted to embedding the new practices.
Of course, transformations were rarely as straightforward as the plans suggested. But the underlying assumption was that someone could define the future state with reasonable accuracy.
The task was largely to learn and apply.
Now consider 2026.
AI is changing what organisations can do. What customers expect shifts rapidly and new technological capabilities emerge while companies are still experimenting with the previous ones. Even when the strategic direction is clear, it may be impossible to describe precisely what the best operating model will look like six months from now.
In the transformation I supported last spring, this change was very tangible: Management could define the direction and level of ambition, but teams increasingly needed to discover how to turn that ambition into new ways of working. Renewal was happening alongside the daily demands of running the business, with no separate period reserved for transformation.
AI has also made it possible to produce analyses, plans, communications and training materials much faster than before. Yet the human processes of understanding, learning, making decisions and developing alignment can not be accelerated at the same rate.
The task had become much more about thinking, experimenting and learning together than “learn and apply”.
And this changes what organizations need to enable.
We need different human capabilities
“If I know exactly what you need to do differently tomorrow, I can teach you. But if you need to recognise for yourself what should change, question established practices, explore alternatives and work with others to discover a better solution, the situation is entirely different. You need the capacity to think, exercise judgement, learn, experiment and collaborate.”
These unique human capabilities are becoming increasingly important as organisations move towards AI-enabled renewal. At the same time, we are operating in an environment that does not always support them particularly well.
Think about how much our everyday working environment has changed.
Not so long ago, moving between meetings created natural breaks. Information, messages and demands for attention were more limited by the technology and structures around us.
Today, we can receive information, respond to requests and switch between tasks almost continuously. Combined with global competition, geopolitical uncertainty and the increasing pace of change, this creates an environment where there is always something requiring our attention.
And here lies an important paradox: Just as businesses need more human thinking, judgement and continuous learning, our working environments increasingly pull us towards reacting. And reactive state is not optimal state for thinking, judgement or learning.
Why human biology matters for organisational renewal
This is where I believe we need a broader understanding of human performance: Our ability to think, learn and collaborate is not constant. These capabilities depend partly on our physiological state, which is continuously influenced by the environment around us.
Continuous stimuli, excessive demands, and frequent interruptions can affect our attention, cognitive flexibility and ability to evaluate alternatives. Uncertainty due to current goepolitical events and perceived social threats stemming from continuous change negotiations can influence how readily we explore new ideas, challenge existing practices or admit mistakes.
This matters because organisational renewal depends on precisely these capabilities.
We need people who can recognise opportunities, remain curious, make thoughtful decisions under uncertainty and learn from experiments that do not always succeed.
Yet we often approach renewal primarily by developing people's knowledge and skills. We provide training, communicate expectations and encourage new behaviours, while paying much less attention to whether the working environment allows people to use those capabilities.
Understanding human biology helps us recognise that the conditions in which people work influence how effectively they can think, learn and interact with others.
And unlike many individual characteristics, organisational conditions are something leaders can deliberately influence.
Three practical ways to strengthen your organisation's capacity to renew
So where should leaders start? Here are three things I would encourage every leadership team to examine.
1. Make room for renewal in everyday work
If running today's business consumes 100% of people's capacity, where is continuous renewal supposed to happen?
Today we expect people to learn new technologies, experiment with AI, rethink processes and develop new services alongside everything else.
I believe, many people are willing to put in additional hours when something is important. However, learning requires more than willingness. Learning requires sufficient attention and mental capacity, which may be consumed after eight hours working day.
A practical place to start is the calendar.
Look at how people's working time is actually allocated. How much is spent on meetings, responding to requests and delivering existing commitments? Where is the capacity for exploring new possibilities, reflecting on what has been learned and experimenting with better ways of working?
If renewal is strategically important, it needs to be reflected in how we allocate people's time, attention and energy.
And that means making choices about what we stop doing, not simply adding new activities.
2. Clarify the direction and level of ambition
Creating capacity for renewal is only useful if people know where to direct their efforts.
In a continuously changing environment, leadership still has a crucial role in defining strategic direction and making choices. For example, does your organisation want to become an AI-native business? Do you aim to lead your industry in applying new technologies, or follow proven practices as they emerge? How quickly do you intend to move?
These choices have very practical consequences for how much capacity needs to be allocated to experimentation and learning.
A useful exercise is to identify a few clear renewal priorities for the next three months: Where do we want to make progress? What do we need to learn? Which existing assumptions or practices might need to change?
When the direction and ambition are clear, teams can make better decisions about where to focus their efforts, even when the final solutions are not yet known.
3. Equip leaders to create the conditions for renewal
As responsibility for renewal moves closer to everyday work, the role of team leaders and supervisors becomes increasingly important. They influence how work is prioritised, how decisions are made, how people respond to uncertainty and what happens when an experiment fails. They can create opportunities for reflection and shared learning. They can also unintentionally prevent these activities by rewarding only immediate delivery, retaining unnecessary decision-making authority or filling every available moment with operational demands.
This is a different leadership task from implementing a predefined operating model.
It requires understanding what helps people think clearly, take initiative, experiment, make mistakes, exercise judgement and learn together.
Organisations therefore need to support their leaders in developing these capabilities. We cannot simply transfer responsibility for continuous renewal to teams and assume they will automatically know how to make it happen.
Start by examining one team's everyday practices. How are decisions made? What happens when something does not work? Is learning from experiments part of normal work? Do people have enough clarity, autonomy and capacity to take responsibility for improving how work is done?
Small changes in these conditions can make renewal considerably more achievable.
The next competitive advantage is built into everyday work
The ability to renew quickly has always been valuable in business. What has changed is the environment in which that ability must now be developed.
Ten years ago, much of transformation management focused on helping organisations implement a defined change as efficiently as possible. Today, businesses increasingly need the ability to discover and implement new ways of working continuously, while maintaining the performance of their existing operations.
This calls for a shift in what we pay attention to as leaders. Alongside strategy, technology and skills, we need to understand the organisational conditions that enable human thinking, learning, judgement and collaboration.
The capacity to renew is built by creating the conditions in which people can think, experiment, make choices, learn from mistakes and collaborate every day, while the business keeps running.
This is the leadership challenge I find particularly interesting today, both through my work with businesses and my doctoral research into the relationship between human biology and performance.
If you are thinking about how to strengthen your organisation's capacity to renew in the AI era, I'd be delighted to discuss your experiences and ideas.
