---
id: "action-cocreate-strategies"
type: "action-item"
source_timestamps: ["§ The Empathy Advantage"]
tags: ["strategy-design", "employee-engagement"]
related: ["concept-procedural-justice", "concept-augmentation-vs-automation"]
speakers: ["Jamil Zaki"]
action: "Replace top-down AI mandates with collaborative conversations to design augmentation strategies that establish procedural justice."
outcome: "Increased employee buy-in, reduced resistance, and more effective, context-aware AI utilization."
sources: ["adoption"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-adoption"
originDay: 9
articleStem: "hbr-edu-42-empathetic-leadership-ai-adoption"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/04/empathetic-leadership-can-make-or-break-ai-adoption"
sourceTitle: "Empathetic Leadership Can Make or Break AI Adoption"
---
# Co-create AI strategies with employees

**Action:** Replace top-down AI mandates with collaborative conversations to design augmentation strategies that establish procedural justice.

**Outcome:** Increased employee buy-in, reduced resistance, and more effective, context-aware AI utilization.

Instead of issuing top-down mandates and unrealistic productivity goals (the failure mode of [[quote-masterclass-unempathetic]]), leaders must replace announcements with two-way conversations. Ask employees how AI can help them focus on the *meaningful* parts of their work — the [[concept-augmentation-vs-automation]] framing. This collaborative approach establishes [[concept-procedural-justice]], yields better operational insights, and significantly reduces resistance to adoption.

This is **Pillar 1** of the [[framework-empathy-driven-ai-adoption]].

**Enrichment:** Strongly grounded — participatory design and two-way communication reliably improve technology adoption and reduce resistance (procedural/organizational-justice research).


## Related across articles
- [[concept-pull-vs-push-adoption]]
- [[action-co-create-ai-tools]]
- [[action-redesign-workflows]]