Free AI Adoption Workbook
Find what's stalling your AI rollout.
The AI Adoption Workbook is six exercises that help your leadership team name the conditions slowing adoption, prove one workflow, and decide who owns the next change.
What's inside
Six exercises, from diagnosis to debrief.
The AI Adoption Workbook is a free 22-page PDF from Praxis Forward, written by Damian Galarza. It gives a leadership team six exercises, one for each step of a loop: Own, Believe, Simplify, Demonstrate, Decentralize, and Learn. Plan on 30 to 45 minutes. It works best with your leadership team in the room, because most of the answers sit with them.
01 · Own and Incentives
Find what's stalling adoption
Answer fourteen yes-or-no questions, name the conditions that make not adopting AI the rational choice, and pick two to fix first.
02 · Believe
Use it on your own work
Try AI on one real task from your own week, and note where it helped and where it failed.
03 · Simplify
Write a mission a team can act on
Replace a vague mandate with one line: when X happens, AI does Y, and a named person verifies Z.
04 · Demonstrate
Prove one workflow
Record a baseline for speed, quality, and review effort, set a target, and choose the peer team who will see the result.
05 · Decentralize
Map who owns what
Name who owns intent, capabilities, guardrails, and workflow redesign, and find one approval that no longer needs to go through the center.
06 · Learn
Run the debrief
A template for what held, what to spread to another team, which guardrail to change, and what to try next.
A closing page maps your scores from the first exercise to where to go next.
The loop
- Own
- Believe
- Simplify
- Demonstrate
- Decentralize
- Learn
The exercises follow a six-part loop that you run again after each change. The loop is our application of ideas from Jocko Willink and Leif Babin's Extreme Ownership to AI adoption: leaders own the outcome, so when adoption stalls, the first question is what conditions leadership has created.
The thinking behind it: AI Transformation Is a Leadership Problem.
Preview
Three pages from the workbook.
Each exercise has an objective, a worked example, numbered steps with space to write, and a note on what to watch out for.
Who it's for
Founders and operating leaders.
It's for the whole leadership team, whether your AI rollout is just starting, has stalled, or is moving faster in some teams than others.
- Your teams have AI tools, but in parts of the company the work looks the same as last year.
- People have heard “use AI more” without a workflow, an owner, or a way to check the result.
- You want one workflow measurably better before you plan twenty.
- You are about to roll out AI tools and want the conditions right before you do.
The exercises start with what leadership controls: access, training, permission, clarity, and incentives. Nothing in them asks you to judge anyone's willingness.
Start with fourteen questions.
Neither answer is wrong. The first exercise shows which parts of the loop to start with, so you know where your leadership team should spend its time.
- Has each member of the leadership team used AI on their own work recently?
- If someone saves ten hours a week, are they rewarded rather than handed ten more hours of work?
- Do teams debrief what worked and what did not after an AI change?
FAQ
Questions about the workbook.
Is it free?
Yes. Enter your email and we will send you the PDF.
What format is it?
A 22-page PDF in US Letter size. Print it for the meeting, or write in it with any PDF editor.
Do I have to confirm my email?
If you are new to our list, yes, once. Click the link in the confirmation email and the workbook follows.
What are the six steps?
Own the conditions that shape adoption. Use AI on your own work. Write a mission a team can act on. Prove one workflow. Move decisions to the teams closest to the work. Debrief, then run the loop again.
Where does the loop come from?
It is our application of ideas from Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin: leaders own the outcome, so when adoption stalls, the first question is what conditions leadership has created.
What else will you send me?
Four short emails over two weeks to help you work through the exercises, then occasional emails from Praxis Forward. Every one has an unsubscribe link, and you can leave anytime.
Want help with what you find?
Bring the two conditions you picked in exercise 1 to an intro call. We will tell you what we would look at first, and whether we are the right people to help.