April 6, 2026
Finding better ways to successfully integrate technology in the workplace is top of mind for many leaders today. Yet too often, organizations still fail miserably on this challenge by rushing in without being strategic. The result? Frustrated employees and lasting cultural damage throughout the organization.
The good news is there are a lot of lessons learned and best practices to lean on for leaders looking to up their game. One of my favorite pieces of wisdom comes from a recent point IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna shared with author Malcolm Gladwell: “The biggest change is not the technology. It’s getting people to accept that there’s a different way to do things.”
I couldn’t agree more with Krishna. Technology adoption is essentially about people and culture change. I’ve seen it time and again in our work with Fortune 500 clients. Very frequently, the most important piece is ignored: employee buy-in for how the new technology not only improves the company’s bottom line but makes their daily work life seamless, efficient, and rewarding.
What Is Technology Adoption?
As a formal definition, I define technology adoption as leaders using digital tools as superpowers that can unlock creativity, learning, and human potential. The focus should be on leaders asking how they can transform technological change from a challenge into an opportunity for growth.
Why Does It Matter to Get Technology Adoption Methods Right
If there’s one thing we’ve learned after decades of consulting with top leaders, it’s that change is inevitable. We’ve helped organizations of all sizes complete major turnarounds, transform to stay on top, and manage through the unthinkable. While no single trait defines lasting organizational success, the ability to manage change successfully repeatedly tops the list.
At the same time, change fatigue among leaders and employees is at record levels, especially when it comes to adoption of new technology. A recent national study we conducted with The Harris Poll underscores this. We found that organizations are at a pronounced change tipping point. While most employees can expect to absorb just one or two major changes per year, more than 50% of leaders in 2025 expected to implement three or more changes in the next couple of years.
Further, our study found that AI is clearly adding additional pressure to the change fatigue phenomenon. 83% of leaders in our study said they expect AI to play a major role in future change, and yet 1 in 4 say it’s the hardest change to implement.
What are the costs of poorly rolling out new technology in business? As you can imagine, the costs are high on a variety of levels. Technology deployments notoriously fail when employees are poorly trained, poorly communicated with, and ill-prepared. Among the most common leadership mistakes is that the projects are rushed and the tools themselves become the focus of the change rather than employee adoption. This can lead to employee burnout, dissatisfaction, and turnover.
Recent research also connects psychological safety to the success of AI technology adoption. Psychological safety is about leaders creating an environment where employees feel safe to speak up, take risks, and be themselves as they work to adopt new technology. A 2026 whitepaper from a research consulting firm found that psychological safety strongly predicts whether employees even try AI tools, and that an employer’s emphasis on the use of AI as a learning process leads to stronger performance and higher adoption rates.
How to Help Employees Adopt New Technology (Step-by-Step)
Based on our experience advising companies with technology and organizational change in general, here are our top best practices for technology adoption in large enterprises. We call this the “5 Ss of Managing Change.”
- Scale. Organizations need to know the size, scope, and sequencing of any change to ensure that it’s manageable for teams, especially considering what other changes may be taking place. Unfortunately, many employers underestimate the degree of behavior change, mindset shift, and skill-building required for employees to successfully adopt new technology in business. Smart plans receive proper input from employees and managers so organizations can identify the gap between how the team is feeling about the change now and where they need to go.
- Story. Your technology change story needs to be written well, with a clear, consistent message explaining the “why” behind the change, even when all answers still aren’t known. When CEOs communicate a compelling, high-level change story, they’re 5.8 times more likely to see a successful transformation within their organizations, according to an extensive McKinsey & Company study of corporate transformations.
- Strategy. To succeed, organizations need a clear roadmap for success that aligns business objectives with a communication plan that delivers the right tactics, timing, and resources. Communication is especially critical to enterprise technology adoption, as many organizations and researchers frequently point out. Our recent study in partnership with The Harris Poll found that organizations are three times more likely to succeed in major change when employees are fully bought in. On its own, clear and credible communication doubles success rates.
- Stakeholders. Leaders need to engage all stakeholders in the change process, including potential change “champions,” employees willing to enthusiastically adopt the change, and educate their peers along the way. Everyone who touches the change needs to be brought into the discussion on why and how the change will unfold and what role each team member plays in order to succeed.
- Sentiment. An essential best practice for technology adoption is the feedback loop among all the stakeholders. From start to finish, leaders need a clear eye on how employees are experiencing the change, what questions and challenges they face, and the support or resources needed to ensure success. Without this evaluation of sentiment, many changes fizzle or outright fail because necessary adjustments aren’t made along the process.
Best Communication Approaches for Successful Technology Adoption
Communication and strategy are inexorably linked for successful technology adoption. For this reason, communicators need to get communication right from the earliest stages of change. Here are some of our best practices for enhancing organizational communication during a major technology change.
Get managers engaged early and often in enterprise technology adoption.
Our studies, as well as many others, repeatedly demonstrate the critical nature of the manager’s role during any time of organizational change. A recent Gallup study on Artificial Intelligence found only three in 10 employees strongly agree that their manager supports the team’s use of AI, a factor in discouraging AI use and adoption. The recent Exceptional Leadership study of employees, conducted in partnership with The Harris Poll, also found communication-related skills to be among the most essential traits of exceptional leaders.
Communicate with context.
Effective communication isn’t just about what leaders say – it’s about how well they connect their message to what matters most to their audience. In this way, leaders can help increase adoption of new technology. While leaders often focus on crafting perfect messages, choosing the right words, or mastering delivery techniques, they may be missing the gravity of a critical aspect of communication – context.
When leaders communicate with context, they help employees understand not solely what’s happening, but why it matters to them personally and how it connects to the bigger picture. The best communicators consistently demonstrate an ability to frame messages in ways that resonate deeply with their audiences.
Demonstrate transparency.
Whenever there’s new technology coming, transparency needs to be a core value for leaders. I recognize this can be harder for some leaders than others, especially for leaders who prefer keeping things close to the vest. But in my experience, the benefits far outweigh the risks. When you’re transparent as a leader, you build trust. You show your employees you respect them enough to tell the truth. You then create a culture of openness and authenticity that can be transformative.
So, communicate to your team that open, honest communication is expected and valued as the technology innovation gets underway. Then, look for opportunities to put transparency into practice:
- Admit when you don’t have all the answers as a leader
- Be upfront about challenges
- Regularly share updates, even if it’s to say, “Here’s what we know, here’s what we don’t know.”
- Encourage questions and feedback, and respond honestly
Build peer partnerships among your team.
One great tip in supporting the implementation work is pairing new users with a mentor. Training is often quite generalized and doesn’t always address specific user adoption challenges. Working with an assigned mentor with experience can be a game-changer for many employees, including new hires just ramping up to the new technology.
How to Measure Success in Technology Adoption
As we often say, what gets measured gets done. We recommend the following strategies to measure the success of enterprise technology adoption:
1. Keep the measure momentum going from start to finish.
A big mistake leaders often make is dropping the ball on rigorously following a technology change once it’s launched. Leaders need to monitor and measure adoption to understand what’s working well, what needs improving, and what may require a complete overhaul.
2. Embrace a wide range of feedback options.
Listening sessions with employees at all levels are critical. Give employees multiple options for weighing in, such as feedback loops with managers, questions at town halls, pulse surveys, focus groups, and regular check-ins with front-line leaders or change champions.
3. Demonstrate you’re actually listening.
Employees also need to know that you’re taking in all the feedback that’s coming in and acting on what you’ve learned. That’s a critical way for leaders to build employee trust and engagement.
4. Remember the payoffs from listening well.
At the end of the day, why does any organization adopt a technology change? It’s certainly not to just torture and disengage reluctant employees! Technology change isn’t about getting on a shiny new toy bandwagon. When done well, it’s about using technology to drive a stronger overall culture, enhance efficiencies, and deliver returns on investment. None of that happens if leaders aren’t hearing from the people responsible for carrying out the change. Honest, candid, and helpful feedback is like gold for leaders who truly care. Deep and focused listening helps organizations make the necessary tweaks along the change journey that can make all the difference for lasting success.
How The Grossman Group Can Help User Adoption of New Technology
Technology change is clearly at the top of the priority list for countless organizations today and change management consulting of this sort is core to what we do at The Grossman Group. We understand that technology adoption strategies are not a one-size-fits-all proposition. We partner with organizations to develop and implement strategic communication plans and culture change initiatives that address all levels of employee resistance to change.
- Before implementing any technology change communications plan, we can help identify potential resistance points, understand organizational culture, and assess employee readiness for change. From there, we can develop a specialized plan to address your unique challenges.
- Our team also helps with crafting and writing compelling messages for all employees – addressing what the change means for them and how it will improve their daily working lives. Communicating the “why” behind the change is essential, and we are adept at becoming the experts in your unique story.
- We also design comprehensive technology change communication plans, utilizing the most effective channels for your organization’s culture and workforce. From digital platforms to face-to-face forums, we ensure the technology change or AI adoption story reaches employees where they are.
- Most critically, we help employees truly feel like the change is happening with them rather than to them, so they can feel part of the solution, aligned, and ready to embrace what’s ahead.
If you’re navigating a complex technology or AI rollout and want to ensure adoption actually sticks, this is exactly the kind of work we help organizations get right – early, strategically, and with employees at the center.
The Bottom Line
Let’s face it, any change can be hard for employees to accept, let alone embrace. And yet these days, employees are bombarded with changes of all kinds. On top of that, technology changes are often among the toughest for employees to get their hands around. There’s often an added fear factor involved. Some employees bluntly or even dismissively state, “I’m not good with technology.” Further, many worry that their jobs may be eliminated due to the new technology. Nothing is more de-motivating to an employee than a change that may eventually lead to their job’s elimination.
This means leaders have a real opportunity now to take hold of the narrative, helping employees see that the old way of doing things may feel easier but actually leads to more work, less efficiency, longer days, and longer nights. When the story is told right, employees can come to see all the values of technological change and also recognize how much value they still have to offer their organizations.
After all, successful technology adoption is now and will continue to be a key differentiator in the long-term strength and viability of countless organizations. Doing it right really matters, and great leadership – along with a smart, strategic approach – will make all the difference.
What do you consider the most important missing elements of a successful technology implementation in companies today?
—David Grossman
Technology adoption is ultimately a human challenge – and that means it takes human-centered leadership to get it right. The strategies that make the difference – transparency, listening, empathy, building trust, communicating with context – are hallmarks of exceptional leadership.
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