Culture remains the biggest barrier to improving how people work, according to 46% of CIOs surveyed by Gartner.

And, with the constant threat of artificial intelligence taking over routine tasks, sticking with outdated processes can be career-ending. Professionals who cling to worn-out routines not only risk limiting their growth. They are also becoming easily replaceable.

It’s a bit like insisting on using a horse-drawn carriage while the world races ahead in electric cars – sentimental, perhaps, but certainly not strategic.

The biggest threat to careers isn’t AI taking away jobs but people’s reluctance to evolve. As Shama Hyder, founder and CEO of Zen Media, puts it: “Your process is literally killing your career.”

The world doesn’t reward effort; it rewards outcomes. While some professionals are busy refining their workflows to perfection, others are outpacing them by delivering results faster, more efficiently, and with greater impact.

The market has no patience for nostalgia. It rewards those who adapt. Hence, holding onto outdated methods in the name of tradition, especially in the AI-driven economy, is inefficient and a one-way ticket to irrelevance.

Hyder has observed this pattern across industries, in which leaders and professionals are emotionally wedded to their processes rather than the value they create.

The CEO warned: “If your work is automatable, replicable, or easily duplicated, your process is already at risk ... No amount of, ‘That’s how we’ve always done it,’ will save you.”

Also Read: Change fatigue? How to survive the pressures of transformation

Emotional attachment to process can be dangerous

One of the most insidious career killers is the emotional attachment to a particular way of working. It’s easy to take pride in the complexity of a workflow, the elegance of a codebase, or the meticulousness of a report.

But, as Hyder points out, clients and stakeholders don’t pay for elegance – they pay for effectiveness.

“Clients don’t care about elegant code; they care about solutions that work,” she explained.

This resistance to change is particularly evident in teams that have invested years perfecting their craft.

Hyder shared the example of a CEO investing millions in AI to enhance operations. Yet, the team of developers balked at the idea of AI handling routine coding tasks, dismissing it as “not real development”. Their identity was wrapped up in the process, not the outcome.

Meanwhile, their competitors embraced AI, delivering faster and more effective solutions.

This is the crux of the issue: the refusal to let go of a process – even when it no longer serves its purpose – creates a dangerous blind spot.

In the race for competitive advantage, it’s not just intelligence that matters, but discernment, judgment, and the ability to focus on what truly drives impact, Hyder said.

Too much effort for too little impact?

The brutal truth, as Hyder states, is that “the market has never cared about your effort, only your results”.

This is a tough pill to swallow for professionals who take pride in their dedication. But in a results-driven economy, it doesn’t matter how long you spent refining a spreadsheet if someone else automated the process and delivered insights in half the time.

Consider industries that have been completely reshaped by technology. Taxi drivers once prided themselves on knowing every street by heart – until GPS and ride-hailing apps rendered that expertise unnecessary.

Financial analysts who once spent hours combing through spreadsheets now compete with AI-driven models that process data in seconds. The same transformation is happening across every field, from marketing to HR to law.

The successful ones measure their work not by how busy they are, but by the impact they create.

Hyder therefore urges professionals to ask themselves three critical questions:

• What part of my work creates genuine value that can’t be automated?
• If my current process disappeared tomorrow, could I still deliver what matters?
• Am I measuring success by how busy I am or by what I actually accomplish?

This exercise forces people to confront uncomfortable truths about their roles. If the bulk of one’s daily tasks can be outsourced to an algorithm or automated system, then the true competitive advantage lies in human qualities that cannot be replicated – critical thinking, creativity, and strategic decision-making.

Also Read: How do we manage workplace change?

Breaking free from comforting routines

Process-driven professionals often resist it because it threatens their sense of stability.

Hyder encourages people to break free and focus on outcomes instead. “In a world of constant change, clinging to process is comfortable. Committing to outcomes, however, is powerful,” she said.

Letting go of outdated workflows doesn’t mean abandoning structure. It means prioritising impact over routine, recognising when a process is no longer an advantage, and having the courage to pivot.

Adaptability, after all, is a core skill in the future of work. The people who will thrive in this future are not those who perfect a single way of working, but those who continually reinvent themselves to meet emerging challenges.

The real career threat today isn’t AI or automation but being closed off to change.

“While you perfect your workflow, someone else is stealing your opportunity,” Hyder said.