The Age of AI: No-nonsense advice for protecting your best ideas

If you’re like me, perhaps you’re full of ideas and solutions on how to improve the experience of teams, make change land better, connect with leaders, stakeholders and frontlines, and ensure change success. Your approaches might be new and innovative, or you’ve developed some great formula that’s tried-and-tested with the projects you’ve worked on. You might even have some thought leadership in the space, with views and opinions on the future of change, the future of work, and/or the future of a particular industry or profession. 

If that is you, the likelihood is that you’re giving out a lot of this advice for free either as part of your role or as a trusted change advisor. And you might love doing this, giving back, helping others, and making a difference (I know I do!). 

The problem comes when suddenly others start taking credit for your work, use your ideas and approaches without acknowledging you, or sometimes even position themselves as more of a Change expert than you even are. More than ever, in the age of AI, it’s important to own your expertise and to position yourself differently in the market so that if and when your particular industry and role are impacted, the value you bring is so clear and consistent that you can continue to enjoy a career in your field.

Build your personal brand

Part of building your own personal brand means you can share ideas and opinions on a mix of owned (i.e. your own website and blog) and shared (i.e. social media, podcasts, etc) platforms. While it seems counterintuitive to share your ideas and opinions on the internet ripe for AI to take, the truth is if you’re sharing those ideas and opinions within your organisation then they’re already out of your control anyway. You might as well position yourself publicly as the source!

Create a product

You can also take your ideas and approaches and package them into a product, like I’ve done with my Leading Successful Change program. For years, I worked in Change Management and brought my own training and skills in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Coaching into my Change work. I never charged anything more, I was just thrilled to be finding my own unique ways to bring these techniques into a business environment in my day-to-day work to get incredible engagement and results. When people started saying, “How do you do what you do?”, I realised the way I led change was different to the way most people were taught and led change, even those who had 20 years’ experience on me. So eventually in 2021, I packaged up my unique approaches along with general Change Management delivery know-how that isn’t taught in the well-known Change accreditations, and developed my online global Leading Successful Change program. What I share on my blog and social media is a drop in the ocean compared to the content, tools, tips and techniques in the program, and it’s all locked down and privately exclusive to my Leading Successful Change members. 

Become a consultant

Obviously, if you don’t want to create a product, you can also deliver your services live and bespoke to your own consulting clients. You can take what you already do in your day-to-day but package it up into a particular service at a particular price point, and, again, be seen as the creator and/or expert of specific approaches and tools you’ve developed. In fact, that's what I won Best Independent Consultant last year in the global Change Awards for.

Publish a book

I’m not going to lie, I’d never start getting my ideas out into the world by publishing a book. When I published my first-ever book “Pioneer Your Career Change”, I’d been coaching women in career for almost a decade and had already built a platform and following as a thought leader and expert in the field of career confidence. It cost me about $12,000 to develop and self-publish the book in print, eBook, and audiobook formats - quite the investment! But because I’d been talking about how to pivot in your career for financial and fulfilment success for so many years, I wanted to get my ideas, personal stories, and powerful activities out into the world at a time when I knew so many jobs would start to be impacted by AI. It wasn’t easy but it was definitely worth it and one of the proudest things I’ve accomplished to date. 

Start speaking

Way before I moved to my own consulting business in mid-2021, I had already started speaking on the topics of bringing Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Coaching into Change Management delivery and on the impact of technology like automation and AI on future workforces, along with how we needed to help people upskill, reskill, and reimagine their future. I did both in-person conferences and online webinars, and was even paid to run leadership workshops and host panels, partnering with event organisers and recruitment agencies to bring my ideas to the world. Again - rather than sit on these ideas, I wanted to share them and be seen as the creator of them.

My free Change Advisor Bootcamp shares some of the important mindset shifts that you need to make today. This free workshop is available for just one more week so check it out here ASAP. 

And if you’d like the chance to see behind-the-scenes of my own independent consulting business and how I position, price, fund and deliver in my business, come along to my Instant Change Consultant Retreat in June. The Early Bird is open for one more week, so check out all the details here:

Find out more about my Instant Change Consultant Retreat in June here

Creating your own brand and business is one of the best ways to not only protect your best ideas but also to protect and future-proof your career. 

Lata xx