Pick It Up: The AI Culture Podcast

Pratish Kotecha

Most AI initiatives don’t fail because the technology is moving too fast - they fail because the culture isn’t ready to move with it. Welcome to pickIT Up: The AI Culture Podcast, hosted by Pratish, AI Transformation & Change Lead. Every fortnight, we cut through the technical noise and corporate hype to focus on the real engine of digital adoption: the human side of AI.  In each 20-minute episode, we break down practical ways to build an AI-native organisation using our 4 Cs framework: Capability: Building confident, AI-literate leadership.Competency: Mapping real adoption pathways (Apply > Optimise > Transform).Connectivity:  Orchestrating grassroots innovation across business silos.Culture: Fostering curiosity, psychological safety, and continuous learning. We spend 15 minutes diving deep into the core strategy, then wrap up every show with our signature 5-minute PickIT & Mix - delivering a rapid-fire grab bag of actionable prompt hacks, micro-playbooks, and team exercises you can take away and use right now. Whether you're leading enterprise change, steering an AI strategy, or driving adoption across your teams, tune in every two weeks for a sharp, 20-minute masterclass to help you pick up the future of work. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are entirely those of the host (and guests) and do not reflect the official views or position of any employer or organisation. 

Episodes

  1. Sep 8

    Competency - Moving Teams from Apply to Optimise and Transform

    Most organisations still think buying a stack of licences and sending everyone a 45‑minute e‑learning module makes them “AI ready”. It doesn’t. If nobody is using the tools on Monday morning, those completion rates are just vanity metrics. In Episode 3 of pickIT Up, I’m digging into the second pillar of the 4 Cs: Competency - the stage where AI stops being a shiny tool and starts becoming a daily habit. Competency isn’t a certificate. It’s a behavioural pathway that moves teams through three stages: Apply → Optimise → Transform. And in this episode, I break down exactly how leaders and change managers can help their teams move past the initial plateau and turn individual experimentation into shared operational impact. Here’s what we get into: Stage 1 - Apply: Make it real, make time, build trust Why generic training doesn’t work, how to make AI relatable to each role, why learning time has to be protected as actual work time, and why safe internal experimentation is always better than Shadow AI. Stage 2 - Optimise: From personal hacks to team time savings This is the point where most enterprise AI adoption stalls. I walk through how to shift from “AI saves me an hour” to “AI saves our team X hours a week” using a simple 3-4 hour Workflow Hackathon, the Value vs Drag test, and the delivery buffers managers need to build in. Stage 3 - Transform: When competency compounds Once teams optimise what they control, transformation becomes a natural progression. We look at how local workflow improvements scale into cross‑functional collaboration and the beginnings of a truly AI‑native culture. 🍬 This Week’s pickIT & Mix Forget the £500 webinars. The frontier labs - Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google - are releasing world‑class training and interactive sandboxes for free. I share the Free Session Scanner & What’s New Prompt, built on the GCSE framework (Goal, Context, Source, Expectation).  Drop it into any web‑connected LLM every Monday morning and you’ll have a clean directory of verified first‑party training plus a weekly update feed your team can act on straight away. Grab the prompt, give it a run with your team, and let’s pickIT Up together. Find my page or LinkedIn with me.  Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are entirely those of the host (and guests) and do not reflect the official views or position of any employer, client, or organisation.

  2. Aug 11

    What If Culture Is The Missing AI Feature

    We unpack why AI spend keeps rising while real adoption flatlines, then shift the focus from tools to people change using a simple Four Cs framework for AI Transformation.  We end with our PickIT&Mix: a practical reverse prompting technique that stress tests your ideas before your stakeholders do.  • AI rollouts failing due to treating adoption like a tick box technology programme  • The Four Cs framework for readiness: capability, competency, connectivity, culture  • Capability through leadership pathways, shared language, and consistent role modelling  • Competency as apply then optimise then transform, with managers removing friction  • Connectivity by breaking silos, building communities, and reducing duplicated agents  • Culture built on psychological safety, curiosity, and sharing failures openly  • Three scenarios to diagnose where a team gets stuck across the Four Cs  Don't forget to drop me a comment in the episode. If you don't want to write it publicly, send me a direct message. I'd love to know where you think you're at, but also on what you think about the four Cs for AI Transformation.  Give that role reversal prompt a go this week. Drop me a comment to let me know how it went with the role reversal prompt.  And of course, hit follow on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, wherever you get your shows.  Find my page or LinkedIn with me.  Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are entirely those of the host (and guests) and do not reflect the official views or position of any employer, client, or organisation.

About

Most AI initiatives don’t fail because the technology is moving too fast - they fail because the culture isn’t ready to move with it. Welcome to pickIT Up: The AI Culture Podcast, hosted by Pratish, AI Transformation & Change Lead. Every fortnight, we cut through the technical noise and corporate hype to focus on the real engine of digital adoption: the human side of AI.  In each 20-minute episode, we break down practical ways to build an AI-native organisation using our 4 Cs framework: Capability: Building confident, AI-literate leadership.Competency: Mapping real adoption pathways (Apply > Optimise > Transform).Connectivity:  Orchestrating grassroots innovation across business silos.Culture: Fostering curiosity, psychological safety, and continuous learning. We spend 15 minutes diving deep into the core strategy, then wrap up every show with our signature 5-minute PickIT & Mix - delivering a rapid-fire grab bag of actionable prompt hacks, micro-playbooks, and team exercises you can take away and use right now. Whether you're leading enterprise change, steering an AI strategy, or driving adoption across your teams, tune in every two weeks for a sharp, 20-minute masterclass to help you pick up the future of work. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are entirely those of the host (and guests) and do not reflect the official views or position of any employer or organisation.