You might want AI to help your team work smarter, but are you just giving them more work? Instead of freeing people to focus on meaningful, higher-value work, AI can end up creating a cycle where more efficiency just leads to more work. If you’re not careful, the work never really changes, it just keeps coming back faster – and that's bad for everybody.
https://swiy.co/go-the-sisyphus-trap
When you’re using AI in your organisation, are you falling into the Sisyphus trap?
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king who angered the gods. So, for his punishment, they gave him a never-ending task. Every day, he had to push a big rock up a hill. But before it reached the top, it magically rolled down to the bottom, and he had to start all over again. Push the rock, it rolls down. Push the rock, it rolls down. Push the rock, it rolls down.
In Greek mythology, this was known as the eternal punishment. I call it the birth of rock and roll, ha ha.
But isn’t this exactly what happens in many workplaces?
Many team members feel like Sisyphus – spending most of their waking hours pushing rocks up a hill, never achieving anything useful. Even when they get a “new and improved” system for boosting their productivity, it just means they can push more rocks up more hills!
Is that true for you? Do people in your team feel like they’re making progress, or just working harder?
New tools, new processes, and new expectations promise efficiency, but sometimes they just lead to more work. AI can draft your emails and replies faster – good! But does that just mean you get more emails???
Using AI isn’t better if it just means more emails, more tasks, more pointless meetings, and more pressure.
That’s short-term gain (at best) but it’s terrible for your people, and uitimately for your organisation.
This is not true of all AI adoption, of course, but I’m seeing it a lot.
As a leader, recognise this and ensure that change is actually improving the work – not just increasing the workload – of everybody in your team.
AI is part of a broader conversation about the future of work, but it’s a very important part because everybody’s talking about it.
I’m running a free public online presentation very soon about the future of work – including AI – so please join me and invite others in your team and organisation as well.
Register for the virtual masterclass: