Guillaume Delacour, VP – Global Head of People Development at ABB gives an insight into how his business is introducing and working with AI.
Over the past decades, we have moved from counting on our ten fingers, to leveraging the power of computers to binary count in 0s and 1s. It has brought us astronomical computing power, making the use of AI – notably Large Language Models (LLMs) – possible anytime, anywhere, in any of our smartphones.
So where does this giant leap in progress leave us as HR professionals, responsible for developing and nurturing the next generation of talent? And how do we prepare our people for this new world when things are changing so fast?
I recently contributed to a new report by CEMS – the Global Alliance in Management Education – Augmented Leadership, which explored the impact of AI on talent and leadership development.
Although it is hard to predict anything with certainty, here are a few recommendations from the report for HR professionals to help them navigate this new dynamic:
Encourage employees to use AI to explore skills outside their core discipline.
During our AI Summer Camp last year, we trained over 6,000 participants. And what we were incredibly pleased to see was that sessions on self-coaching, interview prep, and lifelong learning triggered lots of curiosity and were popular. Many people said, “I never thought AI could help me with my personal development.” But it can, and it should.
Tools like ChatGPT can help bridge skills gaps far more easily than ever before.
In the past, gaining knowledge outside your field meant finding the right books, enrolling in courses, or gaining years of experience. Today, anyone can ask AI for help preparing a presentation, resolving a conflict, or interpreting data. AI, especially tools like ChatGPT, can help bridge skills gaps far more easily than ever before.
This has huge potential to develop more well-rounded professionals earlier in their careers. If we can help people understand that their expertise doesn’t limit them and that they can easily cross boundaries between disciplines and nurture their curiosity, we’ll be creating a workforce that is not just more agile, but more empowered to navigate future careers.
Equip early-career professionals with foundational subject expertise
For me, one of the biggest challenges ahead of us is in developing expertise to be able to apply a critical eye on the outputs of Large Language Models (LLMs).
AI’s average accuracy improves every day; however, it is still biased, incomplete, and subject to hallucinations. When you’re using AI in your fields of expertise, it’s relatively easy to spot when it’s giving you a strong answer versus when it’s completely off.
For me, a challenge we face as HR professionals is how to continue developing these future experts. It can take 10 to 15 years to build a high level of expertise, however many of the foundational, early-career tasks that used to be critical to build the skills and experiences of junior professionals have the potential to be done by AI, at marginal cost.
If those tasks are automated, companies will have to rethink hard how to develop the next generation of experts.
This is where creating opportunities for early career professionals to take on real, practical roles, like recruitment, audit, or operations, can help – so they can build critical-thinking skills by working through concrete challenges, not just theoretical ones.
Encourage people to think first, prompt second
I’m convinced that AI can really unleash your creativity, innovation, and problem-solving, but it can also crush it. The key to working well with AI is to apply curiosity and critical thinking. GenAI will always generate something. It is designed to do that. But the danger is in taking it as-is.
At ABB we tell our people: think first, prompt second. Build your own ideas, structure your thinking, and only once you’ve hit your limits, then turn to AI. That’s when it becomes a truly valuable partner.
We want teams to share prompts, challenge ideas, and explore solutions together.
Make sure employees know to ask – what’s the source? What biases might be in the model? How do you cross-check outputs? Pair with other humans, both in-person and online. We want teams to share prompts, challenge ideas, and explore solutions together. AI is not about isolating yourself – it’s about working smarter together.
Guide people to assess the process, mindset, and judgement behind an outcome
One of the most exciting ways to use AI is for idea generation and creativity using “what if” prompts:
• What if colleagues from India would be looking at this opportunity, what would they see differently than me? How about those from China or the US?
• What if I looked at how LLMs reason in front of a problem? Which questions does it ask itself?
• What if I had to rethink the purpose of my role from scratch?
These prompts – and the outputs generated – unlock new ways of thinking; ideas people would have had difficulties to reach on their own. AI becomes a spark for innovation.
However, it only works if you don’t skip the thinking part. If two people input the same basic prompt, they’ll likely generate similar outputs.
It’s only when you come in with your own unique angle first that AI helps you go further, stimulate your brain, and increase the collective diversity of thinking, rather than standardising it.
Support the growth of ambidextrous professionals
Looking ahead, it’s hard to predict exactly which tasks will be automated by AI and which jobs will, as a consequence, be impacted most, but one thing I believe is that humans mastering both human skills and digital skills will only strengthen their ability to make a positive difference, both personally and professionally.
Communication, empathy, critical thinking, collaboration, strategic vision, purpose: these are the things that machines can’t easily replicate, and also where AI can help us humans to improve even further.
At ABB, we speak a lot about being technology-savvy and AI-literate. Throughout our series of trainings, we encourage all our employees to collaborate with AI to increase their impact, through productivity, exploration and self-development.
Employees who will master both strong human and digital skills (in particular GenAI) will have the incredible opportunity to become the best professionals that the corporate and academic worlds have ever seen.
