Years before leading design organisations, I became obsessed with a question that still shapes how I lead today. Why do people willingly return to some experiences while abandoning others that promise the exact same outcome? While financing my studies at the Technical University of Munich, I taught fitness classes alongside researching motivation and behaviour for my Master’s thesis. I compared three training concepts with nearly identical physical outcomes. Participants exercised at similar intensity, burned comparable calories and followed structured routines. Yet Zumba consistently created greater confidence, stronger social connection and a far higher willingness to return.
I assumed the answer was the joyful latin music. It wasn’t. The breakthrough was the absence of constant instruction. Where traditional fitness depends on verbal commands—“left, right, lower, faster”—Zumba communicates largely through body language, leaving space for people to feel the music instead of merely executing instructions. That small design decision changes everything. People stop copying and start interpreting. They develop their own rhythm, style and confidence. Progress feels earned rather than dictated. Autonomy creates emotion, and emotion creates commitment.
Years later, leading Product Design and AI transformation, I realised I was solving the same problem. Most organisations treat AI adoption as an information challenge. More training. More documentation. More governance. But people don’t adopt technology because they understand it. They adopt it because they experience themselves becoming more capable through it.
Technology scales capability. The human experience determines whether that capability becomes lasting value. As AI becomes increasingly accessible, competitive advantage will depend less on who has the best models and more on who creates the conditions for people to grow through them. Because people don’t adopt technology.
People adopt the version of themselves they become while using it.