#349 Overcoming Transformation Fatigue in the Age of AI

**Alex Adamopoulos** (0:00)
And so the pressure for CEOs isn't only figuring out how do I invest wisely and get transformation or change going at a different rate in light of all this emerging tech, but how do I also satisfy shareholders and board members who are asking questions consistently about when are we going to see a return?

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (0:22)
Welcome to Embracing Digital Transformation, where we explore how people process policy and technology drive effective change. This is Dr. Darren, Chief Enterprise Architect, educator, author, and most importantly, your host.
On this episode, Overcoming Transformation Fatigue in the Age of AI, with Alex Adamopoulos, Change Agent and CEO of Emergen. Alex, welcome to the show.

**Alex Adamopoulos** (0:55)
Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (0:58)
Yeah, this is going to be a great topic because we've been going through so much change over the last six years. COVID hits, OpenAI releases Chad GPT, what, two years and nine months later, two and a half years after COVID hit. We've been going through a lot of change, a lot of transformation. We're going to talk about transformation fatigue today and AI and all that. But before we drop into that, everyone that listens to my show knows a little secret. I only have superheroes on the show. Don't tell anyone else because all the other hosts out there are totally jealous.
All of my superheroes that I have on the show, I'll have a background story, an origin story. Alex, what's your origin story?

**Alex Adamopoulos** (1:47)
My origin story? Well, I came to the US in 1971 from Greece. My father was in the shipping industry and had to leave Greece due to the 1968 military coup that happened in that country. Otherwise, I would have grown up in Greece and who knows what I would be doing.
But I've been an entrepreneur from a very young age. I've always had a desire to experiment and work in industry, travel all over the world, and all those things came to fulfillment as I got older.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (2:20)
That is awesome. What a great background story from, were you on the mainland of Greece or were you off on one of the islands of Greece growing up?

**Alex Adamopoulos** (2:29)
So I was born up north in Thessaloniki, the second largest city of Greece.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (2:34)
Yeah, I've actually been there.

**Alex Adamopoulos** (2:36)
So fantastic. Great city.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (2:39)
Such a beautiful place.

**Alex Adamopoulos** (2:41)
It is.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (2:41)
But all right, we could talk about Greece and all that, but we need to talk about this real problem that we're seeing out there. There's been so much change going on. I'm sure you've seen it.
I guess we could call it Transformation Fatigue. Is that a good name for it? Yeah, probably. Transformation Fatigue. Are you seeing that out there with your company and what you guys do?

**Alex Adamopoulos** (3:09)
Yeah, that's what we call it. I mean, we wrote some research two years ago on that topic. You know, there's a lot of it. People are tired. I mean, even seeing companies like Glassdoor named Fatigue their word of the year last year, which I thought was interesting.
But there's a lot of it. People are tired. People are weary. Maybe they're not all articulating it that way. But change is hard. And as you said early on, we're moving at a pace that we just can't keep up with.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (3:43)
Well, but if we don't keep up with the pace, don't we fall behind? Isn't that the big fear that everyone has?

**Alex Adamopoulos** (3:51)
Logically, yes, but we're all overwhelmed. I mean, personally, I mean, every time I scan my YouTube channels and I see all the AI stuff that changed in the last 24 hours, I get this anxiety thing come up where I'm like, how in the world am I going to keep up with this stuff when I just spent the last week learning this other thing?
And now you magnify that at the company level, and I think people are having a tough time figuring out how to keep up.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (4:21)
Do you think that's one of the reasons why we see a lot of CEOs kind of paralyzed? Because I see that a lot of companies are like, I don't exactly know what to do.

**Alex Adamopoulos** (4:34)
Yes, and I think it's getting worse. You know, two, three years ago, Gartner did some research on the democratizing digital, I think was the phrase. And basically they were saying how, you know, digital budgets are now at the boardroom level. Board members want to know how you're going to spend money on all this AI stuff and all this digital stuff, where they didn't really care so much prior. I mean, they cared, but it was more of like, that's the CIO's issue or the CTO's issue. Now it's everybody's issue, you know?