Pride & Prejudice in Generative AI - the Elephant in the Room
- simon6045
- Mar 27
- 3 min read
Pride & Prejudice in Generative AI - the Elephant in the Room
AI has arrived, and many are experimenting with tools like ChatGPT. Yet fully embracing AI across sales organizations is slow and often stalls. Emerging scandals at companies like 11X don't help. Leaders rightly cite data security, costs, or unpredictable ROI, but these “first objections” hide a deeper fear, and as any competent seller knows, the objections first raised are rarely the objections most real.
In the context of AI, the elephant all leads back to one thing - Fear. The fear of being replaced, being wrong, or losing relevance. While few openly admit it, this anxiety derails progress.
Listen to the Pod:
Fear & Loathing: Emotional Undercurrents
Fear of Obsolescence - We take pride in our instincts and expertise. The idea that a machine might replicate or surpass these skills can feel like a direct threat to personal value.
Fear of the Unknown - AI can seem like a black box. When sales professionals don’t fully understand how it arrives at insights, distrust grows—and people often fear what they can’t control.
Fear of Losing Purpose - Salespeople thrive on personal connections and problem-solving. If AI handles some of this, many wonder what’s left for them.
Fear of Not Keeping Up - No one wants to be the leader who “doesn’t get” AI. The prospect of falling behind or being seen as out of touch sparks defensiveness.
Like current political scenes across the West, we have become conditioned to not concede any ground (on anything), ever, including the admission of some trepidation around something like AI. It’s become seen as one extreme or the other - “all” fear or “no” fear. But as Bill Paxton rightly points out in the movie Edge of Tomorrow – “there is courage without fear.”
Pride & Vanity: Fear of Admitting You Need Help
In modern culture—especially sales—confidence is currency. Everyone seems to be the smartest person in the room these days! Accepting that AI could offer a better way means acknowledging gaps in one’s knowledge or strategy.
The Image of Competence - Leaders build careers on having the right answers. Suggesting an algorithm might outperform long-honed techniques can feel like betraying core expertise.
High-Ego Cultures: In sink-or-swim environments, uncertainty is taboo. Leaders who don’t immediately see AI’s fit may dismiss it to protect their authority.
Performance Pressure: With quarterly targets under scrutiny, endorsing a new, unproven approach can be risky. If AI fails, it’s on them; if it succeeds, it might highlight prior inefficiencies.
Dismissing New Approaches - Calling AI “just hype” preserves the status quo. That way, leaders can avoid pilot programs that might fail—or succeed too well and force change.
Avoidance of Change: Implementing AI often reveals inefficiencies. Many prefer to keep the lid on potential disruptions.
Cultural Resistance: Top-down environments rarely welcome outside help. Admitting a knowledge gap can feel like weakness.
Downplaying Ineffective Methods - Leaders may blame poor leads, mediocre products or inconsistent team performance rather than admit traditional strategies are faltering. AI could expose those shortcomings.
Cognitive Dissonance: It’s painful to discover a championed method is outdated. AI, as a disruptor, threatens to shine a light on blind spots.
Ego Protection: Accepting AI means revealing diminishing returns in “tried-and-true” approaches—a tough pill to swallow.
Fear of Letting Go: Trusting algorithms over gut instinct is unsettling for leaders used to making calls based on experience.
Conclusion
Company leaders need to be looking through the prism of AI “every” time they consider their business challenges and opportunities. Their team can exhibit all the natural fears and vanities we’ve discussed, but even though it would be unnatural for them not to suffer from the same, they need to recognize this and push through. Every member of a leadership team needs to have, or come in with, ideas and suggestions as to how they can use AI to benefit their people and the business. To end with a fabulous cliché, any other behavior is failing to plan. And we all know that means you’re planning to fail!
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