AI is undoubtedly one of the most important technical trends of our generation.

I recently asked my math teacher at an alumni meeting how he assessed the intelligence of his students today. His answer surprised me: in the 80s, he taught students in the basic course content that would hopelessly overwhelm students in the advanced course today!

Skeptical?

Do you still remember your primary school days when you multiplied, divided and extrapolated numbers by hand and head?

At some point, the calculator took over, so they must have found themselves entering 5+5 into the calculator like I did...

In other words, our natural intelligence has been dulled over the years by technical gadgets!

The behavior described above is not reprehensible: it is simply more convenient and faster to enter an address in Google Maps and, thanks to real-time traffic data, to be guided more conveniently to your destination than to study the map yourself before every journey.

However, this may have the side effect of wearing down our natural intelligence on a daily basis because we “think” less.

If you're anything like me, the countless events on artificial intelligence will no doubt be ringing in your ears.

It seems to me that it is simply “hip” to promote this topic at various conferences, although very few of them really deal adequately with this complex topic and scientific background, let alone show how to develop or improve your own business model in a measurable and sustainable way. Artificial intelligence is clearly an important trend, but it is a fallacy that artificial intelligence compensates for a lack of company-wide, natural intelligence!

In my view, this is similar to a CEO going to Silicon Valley, looking at the new ways of working for a week, returning electrified and then trying to copy them into his own company without questioning them critically. This is how “AI” (artificial intelligence) is supposed to make up for a lack of “NI” (natural intelligence).

However, this is just as unpromising as a large company forming an “accelerator” to make up for the Group's lack of speed. Both are doomed to failure.

It helps to first consider what hinders the development of natural intelligence in organizations.

In my view, the culprits have two names: Bureaucracy and efficiency fanatics.

The former disempowers the workforce, and hinders innovation. The latter, efficiency, is not bad per se (otherwise no large company would make a profit), but efficiency fanaticism prevents the development of natural intelligence.

If a company is too focused on efficiency, i.e. has turned 6 “slow, inefficient” steps into 6 “narrow, fast” steps and only measures processes according to efficiency, nobody dares to question the process as such. Until a start-up or competitor comes up with the idea (thanks to “NI”) of simply eliminating 3 steps from 6. Example: Tesla eliminates the dealer and sells directly to customers. This was initially viewed with derision, but now Daimler, Porsche and others are following suit (albeit still on a small scale).

It takes 3 things to increase the NI factor in the company:

1. Willingness to experiment

As Garry Hamel logically describes in his excellent book “What really matters”, we humans are the only species on this planet that invents things for the sheer joy of it. And this is only possible with natural intelligence. To achieve this, managers in companies must create a framework in which a culture of “What can I learn from mistakes” prevails instead of “How can I avoid the next mistake”.

2. Critical thinking

Not every trend is worth talking about tomorrow as it was yesterday. Sometimes common sense is enough to avoid blindly following a trend, especially when a “competitor” does it. Train your entire workforce to think more innovatively and critically!

3. Customer obsession - but analog, please!

Too many companies ponder how they can outperform the competition, but don't know enough about their own customers! Today, it is no longer enough to provide customers with what they want. By obsessively engaging with your customers, you should anticipate hidden needs and create new ones. AI does not produce a new idea per se, but AI can be a fantastic tracker of unrecognized needs, e.g. when online retailers analyze the shopping behavior of their customers and make new purchase suggestions to customers, thus increasing sales.

AI helps with the evaluation, but the initiative, which must come first, is taken by NI!

Conclusion: AI has its place and provides valuable new insights in some areas, but if you as a business leader neglect the “NI factor”, you are leaving the playing field to the competition.