I Was the Problem: How My AI Enthusiasm Became My Team's Anxiety

Our web and content team had an intake process they'd built themselves. It was proven. It worked. They were proud of it.

And I was sure AI could make it better.

AI was still new to most of our team back then. I was out ahead of the crowd, and I could see exactly how a big piece of that process could be rebuilt. So I rebuilt it. I didn't ask the people who owned the work what they thought. I just started.

A mission to prove it

Here's the part I'm least proud of. It stopped being only about the intake process. It became a mission to prove it could be done, to the team, sure, but mostly to myself.

I'd been building plenty of things with AI by then, but nothing this big. This one was my Mount Everest. So I took it on alone. I mapped out the plan, built the AI version, and kept the team out of it on purpose. I didn't want input yet. I wanted to know I could do it.

I'm an idea guy. AI lets me go from idea to working solution almost as fast as I can think of it. That speed is a gift, and it's also a trap. Somewhere along the way, I'd stopped bringing my team ideas and started bringing them finished solutions.

My intent was good. The technology genuinely helped. But I'd moved their cheese without asking, on something they had built and were proud of.

It wasn't the tool

It didn't land the way I'd pictured.

Change is hard on its own. Change to a process people built, one that was already working for them, is harder. And I'd made it harder still by building it alone.

The pushback didn't come from the skeptics. It came from my own leadership team, the people most on my side, and they came to me directly.

They didn't argue with the tool. They argued with how it got made. What I saw as a solution, they saw as something built in a silo; my ideas dropped on top of their work instead of something we made together. I was pushing, and they were bracing.

My first reaction wasn't gratitude. I got defensive. I was sure I was helping us. I still believe that in our industry, if you don't adopt AI, you get left behind.

But they were right. Being right about where we needed to go didn't make me right about how I was dragging people there.

Ideas get partners. Solutions get verdicts.

Here's what that conversation taught me, and it changed how I lead.

When I bring someone an idea, I'm inviting them in. They get to ask questions, poke holes, and add what they know that I don't. By the time we're done, it's partly theirs.

When I bring someone a finished solution, I've already made every decision. All that's left for them is to accept it or resist it. That's not collaboration. That's a verdict.

And the people closest to the work almost always know something I don't. Every time I skip their input, I'm not just bruising feelings. I'm building on less than I had available.

What my enthusiasm sounded like on the other side

I thought I was broadcasting excitement. A lot of my team was hearing something closer to "keep up or get left behind."

I don't think my team is unusual. When Pew Research surveyed more than 5,000 U.S. workers in October 2024, 52% said they were worried about the future impact of AI in the workplace, and 33% said they felt overwhelmed. Only 36% felt hopeful.

So picture that room. Half the people in it are already worried. A third feel overwhelmed. And here comes the owner with a finished thing, built alone, that changes how they work.

I wasn't easing anyone's anxiety. I was feeding it with the best of intentions.

Where Rocket AI Labs came from

That conversation is where Rocket AI Labs came from.

I realized the problem wasn't the intake process. It was that we had no common ground. I was out ahead building things alone, and the team was watching from the shore, bracing for the next finished solution I'd drop on their desk. We needed something we could name and stand inside together.

So we built it. Rocket AI Labs put the whole team under one umbrella, with one goal: not me building faster, but all of us building together.

The lesson was humbling. I couldn't mandate my way to this. I could talk about AI until I was blue in the face, present solution after solution, and all I'd produce was more anxiety and more resistance. People don't come to believe in something because the boss built it. They come to believe because they built something themselves and felt it work.

Are you the bottleneck?

If you're the most excited person about AI in your company, this one's for you. Three questions I ask myself now:

1. In the last month, did I show my team something already built that changes work they own? If yes, did they get a say before it was finished?

2. Did I ask "what do you think?" before I built it, or after? After isn't asking. It's announcing.

3. When someone pushed back, did I hear resistance or information? The people closest to the work usually know something I don't.

If any of those stung a little, good. They stung me, too.

Right about where, wrong about how

I set out to climb my Everest to prove I could. What I learned is that a climb you make alone doesn't take anyone else to the top.

That conversation with my leadership team is a big part of why I wrote Everybody In. It isn't a playbook for the two or three people who already love AI. It's for leaders who want the whole team to come along, including the people in the back of the room who are quietly worried.

It's the book I wish I'd had before I started climbing.

Everybody In launches in November. If this story sounded familiar, join the waitlist at everybodyin.ai, and you'll be first to get it.

Sources

• Pew Research Center, "U.S. Workers Are More Worried Than Hopeful About Future AI Use in the Workplace," Luona Lin and Kim Parker, February 25, 2025. Survey of 5,273 employed U.S. adults, conducted October 7 to 13, 2024. pewresearch.org

• Story details: Ben Kalkman, and Everybody In, Chapters 1 and 10.