You can build a perfect Genie Room, and people will still open SAP or SAC and download the report intoExcel out of habit. The technology was never the barrier — the habit was. So at a UK enterprise Finance function, I encouraged leadership to stop treating training as "here's how the tool works" and started treating it as habit change. That shift changed everything.
A few things that actually moved the needle:
Teach prompting, not features. People don't need a tour of the UI — they need to learn how to ask. We spent the time on how to phrase a question, how to follow up, how to tell when an answer looks off. The skill people were missing wasn't technical; it was conversational.
Show the art of the possible first. Before any how-to, we showed them a question they'd never dream of asking Excel — answered in seconds. You can watch the moment it clicks. Excitement does more for adoption than instruction ever will.
Make it safe to try in small groups. Nobody wants to ask a "dumb" question in front of 40 people. So after we showed the features we divided people into smaller, 7-9 people, and safer break-out rooms for 25 min where people could experiment, get it wrong, and laugh about it. Confidence is built in small rooms, not big ones.
Let them teach each other. The best moments weren't when presenters talked — it was when people were sharing "look what I got it to do" with a colleague. Peer excitement spreads faster and sticks harder than anything top-down.
The lesson: I used to measure a training session by what I covered. Now I measure it by what people try the next day. A room only creates value when someone chooses it over their old habit — and that choice is won in how you teach, not what you build.
If you take one thing: budget as much energy for the behaviour change as you do for the build. Show the magic, make it safe to fail, and let people inspire each other. The adoption follows.
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