I caught up with a fellow leader at the popular Lalbaugh MTR outlet in Bengaluru for the Dosa treat. Our friendly banter while having the Dosa soon drifted toward work and technology (Eh again!!)

He said, “First time we explored GenAI to leverage its capabilities to prepare the 9+3 budget view demonstrating good insights and to present it in the monthly meeting.”

I told, “That’s amazing. How did it go then?”

He laughed, “No… we still printed the old Excel. The boss is used to that format.”

And there we are. Tech has moved forward but habits have stayed exactly where they were. And our Dosa was like, I also am the same, see!!

But this discussion stayed with me and pulled me back some 17 years while driving back home. In one of my earlier roles, there was this factory GM who never used to open emails on his laptop. His PA would print every email and would stack them in a file. That GM would write replies with a pen and then the PA would type them back. Watching that in the age of laptops used to drive me crazy.

And when I connect that with this chat I had with my friend, it left me thinking that there are different tools and tech but there are still the same habits.

We call it “digital transformation” but sometimes it is just the new tech duct taped to our old behaviors. GenAI also will be nothing more than another Excel worksheet unless leaders choose to break that comfort cycle.

The real question is – Are we upgrading ourselves or only just the tech?

P.S. Be it GenAI or HabitAI, the only thing consistently upgraded is my Dosa order from plain to masala. And yes, this post does not market MTR. 😉