• Respect for People: When you integrate AI, you free your people from mundane tasks, enabling them to focus on high-value activities. The bar for “mundane” is getting higher and higher with artificial intelligence. It’s not just filtering and tagging emails. It can now multiply one project manager who typically served one team of producers into a project manager who serves four teams of producers.
• Respect for Time: Every process you undertake has a time cost. Are you using that time as efficiently as possible? AI can help detect inefficiencies, crunch data, and streamline workflows, ensuring that the hours (money going out via payroll) yield the greatest impact.
• Respect for Resources: An overstaffed organization might look like a resource-heavy structure. But guess what? When you pair your existing staff with AI, you can transform “overcapacity” into a well-tuned machine. You turn idle time or wasted effort into productive output that grows the business. 

In a “good change” culture, you’re never just content to “keep going.”

You’re always looking for ways to get better. 

That’s exactly what adopting AI demands. 

And because AI itself evolves quickly, you want your team in a habit of continuous improvement so they can pivot and adapt, rather than standing still while the competition sails by. 

Why Overstaffing Is Really a Symptom

Think of “overstaffing” less as a direct problem and more as a symptom of unoptimized processes or underutilized potential. 

Maybe you hired in anticipation of growth. Maybe you just wanted bodies in the building to give yourself a sense of stability. Or maybe you didn’t notice how much your company’s growth in revenue per headcount has slowed. 

Regardless, overstaffing points to at least one of these issues: 

• Your Processes Aren’t Lean: You have people performing tasks that either shouldn’t exist or that could be automated. This might happen in billing, reporting, admin, or even in the field or on the shop floor. 
• Your Team Isn’t Equipped: Employees don’t always have the tools or the training to do more advanced tasks. AI can handle the grunt work so people can acquire new talents or tackle strategic projects—if you invest in that training. 
• You’re Not Innovating: Maybe the demand for your product or service is there, but you haven’t pivoted to capture it effectively. You keep adding staff rather than refining processes, adopting new tech, or rethinking the way value is delivered. 
• Your Business Model Is at an Inflection Point: If you’re truly not solving a big enough problem, no amount of staff or AI is going to make that better. In which case, your path forward might require a pivot—or yes, staff reductions. But for many, a rethinking of the offering (and the process behind it) can open entirely new markets. 

The Imperative to Grow

Here’s another often-overlooked angle: In an AI-driven economy, standing still effectively means shrinking. 

Once AI is widely adopted in your industry (maybe it already is), the baseline of efficiency gets raised. 

Margins tighten for anyone who isn’t keeping up. 

Your own team wants to grow. If you don’t invest in their professional development—particularly around AI integration or more advanced skill sets—they’ll see themselves drifting towards obsolescence. 

No passionate professional wants that. 

So the question is: Can you lead them? 

Because if you won’t, they’ll find another leader—one at a different company—who will. 

Lead them to embrace and integrate artificial intelligence tools to become more efficient, more productive, and more valuable to the business. 

That’s not just good for them; it’s good for you because it directly impacts your bottom line. 

After all, the more they grow, the more your business grows, and the more value you can deliver to your customers. 

Why Waiting 12-18 Months Is So Risky

Everything changes in cycles. 

Twelve months ago, many small business owners laughed at the idea of AI writing entire marketing campaigns or analyzing complex data sets in seconds. Now it’s common. 

If you play catch-up in 12 to 18 months, you’ll be doing so while your more forward-thinking competitors are already finishing their second or third iteration of AI deployment. 

They’ll be more streamlined, more profitable, and better positioned to snatch your market share. 

Don’t find yourself reacting to the marketplace in a year, slashing budgets and headcount because you missed the chance to optimize. 

By then, the morale hit to your workforce—and potentially your brand—could be severe. 

Instead, take action now.