95% of AI pilots never make it to production. If you’re reading this, yours probably didn’t either.
Most people blame technology. Wrong model, wrong vendor, wrong implementation. Brett Schklar has spent two years working with 1,800 CEOs and business owners, tracking AI adoption across every department and industry vertical. His data tells a different story.
Technology isn’t the problem. Your people are. Specifically, one group of people you probably haven’t thought to focus on.
The Frozen Middle Problem
Brett calls it the “frozen middle” senior managers and directors who sit between executives demanding AI results and junior employees already using ChatGPT to write their emails. This middle layer has the highest resistance to AI adoption, but also the highest potential impact.
“The people that have been starting to use and get messy and get their hands dirty with AI are adopting it and finding more ways to use it,” Brett explains. “And the people who haven’t are falling way behind. Literally, their productivity looks like it is slowing down because others are picking up.”
It’s not stubbornness. It’s an identity crisis.
These managers built their careers on expertise-based authority. They know their domain better than anyone else. AI threatens to commoditize that knowledge, and they’re protecting something that used to work.
Meanwhile, Brett’s data shows the productivity gap widening every week. Marketing teams are achieving 2.3x productivity gains. Sales teams are at 1.8x. Customer service teams are hitting 1.4x. The frozen middle watches from the sidelines as their direct reports and executives move forward without them.
Intelligence as a Commodity
Brett’s insight cuts to the core of why this resistance happens: “Intelligence is now bought by the token. Intelligence can be overbought by token maxing. If IQ is a commodity and it’s paid by the token, then one of the most important traits is EQ.”
The managers who built their identity around being the smartest person in the room now face a world where intelligence is available on-demand for pennies. What remains valuable is emotional intelligence, judgment, and wisdom, the ability to know what to do with that intelligence.
This isn’t a training problem. It’s a change management problem disguised as a technology problem.
The One Percent Solution
Rather than swinging for transformational change, Brett advocates for what he calls the “one percent approach.” Focus on finding small problems that are “a fly in your soup” minor irritations in daily workflow that AI can eliminate.
“My goal is to teach people how to find the one percent of problems in their workflow and their day and their life, and say, what can AI do to help solve that one little thing. By doing that and saying each week you focus on a small thing, within six months, you actually have these 1% changes each week. By the end of six months, you got 68% productivity gain.”
This approach works because it reduces resistance. No one feels threatened by automating the annoying parts of their job. But these small wins compound, creating momentum and confidence that enables larger applications.
Listen to the full episode: https://www.linkedin.com/video/live/urn:li:ugcPost:7468326213497929728/?originTrackingId=CEZD4mzWTp%2BClp4bwf4QDg%3D%3D
Building Internal Capacity
The question every CEO asks Brett: How do we scale this without hiring an army of consultants?
His answer involves creating what he calls a “center of excellence” or steering committee that rotates focus across departments. One month on HR, one month on marketing, one month on finance. The goal isn’t to deploy AI everywhere at once, but to build internal champions who can support their colleagues.
“Some people are going to get it and enjoy it and double down and want to research on their own. And others are going to want to resist it. And there’s not a lot that I am going to do about helping somebody get over their resistance, unfortunately. But they are going to fall way behind within the next twelve to eighteen months.”
The companies that succeed focus on the willing and create systems for knowledge transfer. They reward problem-solving with AI and celebrate case studies that show real impact.
The Path Forward
Your AI strategy isn’t failing because of technology choices. It’s failing because you haven’t addressed the human dynamics that determine whether any technology succeeds or fails in your organization.
The frozen middle needs a different conversation than junior employees or executives. They need to understand how their expertise becomes more valuable when augmented by AI, not replaced by it. They need permission to not know everything about AI while maintaining their authority in their domain.
Most importantly, they need small wins that prove AI makes their job better, not obsolete.
Start with the fly in the soup. Find the 1% problems. Build momentum through compound improvements rather than transformational leaps.
Because 95% of AI pilots fail not because the technology doesn’t work, but because the organization wasn’t ready for it to work.
Ready to address your frozen middle? Let’s talk about what AI readiness actually looks like in practice: https://assessment.ascendlabs.ai/
Need to discuss your specific situation? Schedule time with our team: tidycal.com/kevinwilliams
