Future-Proofing Your Career in the Age of AI –

Why Taking Action Now Matters

By Amaze™, Experts in Career Transition and Potential Development | June 2025

Artificial Intelligence is no longer on the horizon—it’s here, and it’s reshaping the Irish workforce in ways we’re only beginning to understand. From administrative support to financial processing and even parts of the legal and health sectors, AI is automating tasks once thought uniquely human. In Ireland, sectors like retail, logistics, customer service, data entry, and insurance administration are already experiencing structural change. Redundancies are no longer a distant threat—they are unfolding quietly in companies large and small.

At the same time, AI is fuelling rapid growth in other areas. Roles in cybersecurity, AI ethics, digital marketing, green technology, data analysis, UX design, and human-centred coaching are seeing unprecedented demand. If you’re wondering whether your job is safe, now is the moment to pause and ask, “Am I ready for what’s coming?”

Don’t Wait for the Tap on the Shoulder

Many professionals wait until redundancy becomes reality before exploring other options. But by then, the momentum is lost. Taking action early means you gain clarity, choice, and a competitive edge. You avoid the panic, protect your income, and transition with purpose. As the saying goes, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.”

At Amaze™, we specialise in helping individuals across Ireland and the UK make proactive career transitions. Whether you’re a business executive, technician, sales professional, or operations leader, our 1:1 coaching and AI-informed insights will help you:

• Identify which sectors match your strengths

• Understand how AI may affect your specific role

• Build a realistic, energising plan for the next chapter

• Learn in-demand skills to stay relevant and valuable

• Protect your income while finding new purpose

Who Is This For?

If you work in a sector where routine, rule-based, or manual work is central, AI may already be nibbling at the edges. If you’re noticing fewer job listings in your field or if colleagues are quietly leaving without being replaced, it’s time to act. AI isn’t here to replace people—it’s here to replace tasks. But people who understand how to add uniquely human value—creativity, empathy, problem-solving—will always be in demand.

What You Gain by Starting Now

• Time to retrain before urgency strikes

• Confidence in your options and value

• Resilience against future disruptions

• The ability to design a career aligned with your values

• Support from trusted experts who see your potential

Take the First Step Today

Don’t wait for change to find you. At Amaze™, we believe the people who succeed in the AI era are not necessarily the most technical—but the most adaptable, curious, and self-aware. Let us help you become one of them.

Contact us to book a confidential discovery session.
Learn more at www.amaze.ie

 

Can everyone develop his or her potential?

When I talk to people about the concept of ‘development of potential’, a question that seems to arise often is whether everyone can develop their potential. It always amuses me that some people assume that they have less capability or right to expect to amaze themselves.

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If you are one of the 78% of the business leaders with whom  I have spoken to in 2005, the single biggest challenge you are facing is finding and recruiting excellent sales people. Inwardly you are exasperated. You took a lot of time, spent a lot of money and invested a lot of energy in getting the resource up to speed. Now  6 months into the relationship, you begin to realise that this is not the right person for your organisation.

Let’s look at the financial cost of making the wrong decision 6 months previous. How many hours of your time did you spend in the recruitment process, and how much per hour is your time valued at? How much did you pay the recruitment agency? How much have you paid this person in the last 6 months? What expenses have you incurred while working with them?  How much off-target are they? How much more revenue could they have brought in had they done a good job? How much will it cost to deselect this person? Add up all these figures. This is your “cost of poor recruitment”. Like it or not, you own this number.

Does the figure scare you enough to want to read on?

Here are the top 5 things that should set your alarm bells ringing when interviewing potential sales candidates for a job on your team,

Has this person a need for approval?

If they do, these people typically have difficulty asking hard questions, avoid confrontation and contentious issues and are afraid of loosing their prospects approval. They will sell well to people they get on with and will put more energy into creating the relationship than progressing the sales.

Do they get emotionally involved?

If this person is someone whom you think can get emotionally involved rather than remaining focused, expect they will loose control of meetings and their listening skills will weaken.

What records have they in their collection?

We all have about 55 beliefs and values that serve us well (e.g. “I am skilled at dealing with decision makers”) or can impact negatively on our effectiveness (“I hate making cold calls”). How many self-limiting beliefs does this person have?

What’s their buying process?

If this person were making a buying decision for themselves (a new car for example), how would they make the decision? Do they typically need to think things over, comparison shop, look for the cheapest option or think a small amount of money is a lot? Then expect them to be overly sympathetic to a customer who wants to do the same.

How do they relate to money?

If this is a person who is uncomfortable with money, then don’t be surprised if they overly empathise with their customer over the budgetary issues. Likewise you can expect them to stop short of digging deeper to unearth concerns and find solutions.

Do you want to get your sales recruitment right, hire the right person from  the beginning and spend your time in dealing with external customers as opposed to internal HR issues? Then get experienced help. Get an informed and skilled second opinion, someone who has a speciality in getting sales recruitment right first time. Someone like . There is a price for using such a resource.[/box]

You can also download the PDF 

 

Performance Lotto.

Thoughts on creating a high-performance environment; if you don’t want to leave it to chance.

How many of you have ever watched the Simpson’s on TV?  Love them or hate them, I fell off the chair laughing when Homer gave this piece of advice to Bart “If you really want something in this life you have to work for it. Now quite; they’re about to announce the lotto numbers”. How many of you check your numbers and dream about how all your problems would be solved if you won the lotto. All you need is some psychic to give you the 6 numbers for success.

As sales professionals or sales leaders, we sometimes wish that we could magically create a culture and environment that like the lotto made us an overnight success. Our pipeline is oversubscribed, closures rates are well ahead of expectations, customer satisfaction is at an all-time high and profitability is above target. Well imagine if someone, purporting to be a “sales psychic”, was to tell you that you could achieve such overnight success and that the only numbers you needed were

17, 5, 18, 20, 12, 19

Would you give them a go? Sure, you might be sceptical. Yet the chances are you would be prepared to try them.  Well, today may be your lucky day with a 100% guarantee that this combination will work. Having worked with sales teams over the past 13 years I am amazed by the number of sales professionals who said they radically improved performance, leaving nothing to chance and winning every time by adopting these simple guidelines towards creating a high-performance environment. So what are the ingredients present in sales relationships and sales teams that make them high-performance?

Reality is ball number 18. I am challenging you to look as honestly as possible at the sales environment that you operate in. Are all stakeholders looking at the same issues and calling them by the same name? Do we truly understand why we are winning sales, or why we are loosing them? Do we fully appreciate why others are selling or managing better than us? Are we honest enough to admit our shortcomings? Are we seeking outside perspectives from others who have no agendas and are not emotionally attached to the situation? Sometimes we prefer to say that sales were lost because of customers being stupid, having the worst territories, poor delivery by the service department, lack of proper pricing by the company or better products from the competitors. The sales person gives their reasons for failure. The manager sees these as excuses.  When challenged to change their mind or prove that there is no need to do so, both parties get busy on the proof.

In a high-performance environment, everyone explores, admits and agrees on reality; so are you truly prepared to “get real”?

Empowerment is ball number 5. This has to be the most overused word, the most misunderstood concept and least apparent process in sales teams today. We empower ourselves to the extent that we feel confident that we have the self-mastery and efficacy to do our job to the standard expected from ourselves.

As sales professionals or sales leaders, we know we have the skills, drive, energy and personal power to do the job expected. In a recent survey carried out in the US, only 40% of sales people felt that they were in the right job for them, that they had the personal motivation to do what the management team expected of them and that they had the relevant skills to complete the job. The bad news for sales professionals is that 60% of you are square pegs in round holes and wishing they were in other jobs. You are probably under greater stress to perform in a role that is not best suited to your profile. So, what is the bad news for sales leaders? You probably already have a good idea who is contributing to your team objectives and who are your poor performers. You probably spend a significant amount of your physical time and worry on those individuals. Amaze can help you carry out an interesting 20-minute exercise to determine “cost of poor performance”. You might be horrified by the answer but as the Chinese proverb says that “wisdom comes by calling things by their right name”

Solving problems is represented by ball 19 and is a key competency in a high-performance environment. Whether we are solving issues on behalf of our customers or addressing internal shortcomings in our organisation, out ability to solve problems is what differentiates the great from the

good.

The Shewhart cycle (promoted more recently by Demming) is a structured approach which helps introduce better work practices.

• Discover the problem as a gap between the current situation and the desired future state (ACT).
• Invent useful strategies (Plan).
• Produce results (DO)
• Evaluate results against the original problem (Check).

As a sales leader or sales person, do you feel you have the authority or skills to use a process like this to address some of the problems you are currently facing? If your answer is no, then you are not

working in an empowered environment and chances are you are a long way away from operating in a high performance environment.  The extent to which you are encouraged to solve these problems yourself, to offer recommendations that are implemented, to devise ways of addressing these issues in the future, is another measure of how high a performance environment you are operating in.

Uniqueness is ball number 21. I am reminded of the part of the film “The Life of Brian” where the whole crowd responded together “we are all individuals”. We are recruited by organisations for the individuality that has served us well in the past, and then encouraged to blend in with the culture that has evolved. How many times have we seen colleagues shunned because they were thought to be different? The term maverick is usually reserved for the most individualistic of our colleagues. However, think of the person on your sales team who is the most successful when evaluated by customers and management? Think about how they deal with internal staff? How do they solve problems? How do they communicate with customers and management? Chances are they are seen as different and unique. Sometimes it is merely their ability to uniquely execute simple tasks repeatedly in an excellent fashion. But the one comment that can be attributed to them is that they are “unique”.

The extent to which you are encouraged to be yourself, to draw on what makes you different, to build on the factors that have made you a success heretofore, to be communicated to in a manner that is meaningful to you, to be listened to and accepted is a real measure of the quality of the high-performance environment that you are operating in.

Links are represented by lotto ball number 12. There are a number of links to consider here. As a salesperson, how strong is the link between your customers and yourself? As a manager, do you allow your direct reports to make decisions about their roles? Are links formed between what you value as a person and what the organisation can offer you? Money may be what we are paid at the end of the month, but do those we work with know the link that really motivates us, that makes us get out of bed in the morning and personally motivate ourselves to achieve? Are the tasks and roles that we perform strategically linked to what the organisation is trying to achieve, and do you understand and fully accept that link? The stronger the linkage, the stronger is the bond between ourselves and the role we have. This leads to a greater desire, commitment and personal motivation to achieve success.

 

Top 10 reasons to hire a Development of Potential Expert

You cannot solve today’s issues with yesterday’s strategies. An experienced Development of Potential Expert (DoPE) helps you develop the capacity to handle the increased complexity of your situation. Consider the following…

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1. Results
2. Time
3. Awareness
4. Priorities
5. Balance
6. Communication
7. Options
8. Emotional Intelligence
9. Control
10. Clarity

Results

With two people working on your agenda, you are guaranteed to achieve a lot more than if you were doing it all on your own. One of our clients added 270k euro to their bottom line within 78 days of engaging with Amaze™ (Bet you’re curious now).

Time

For anyone in business, time is as scarce as water is in the desert. Short, focused sessions move you forward quickly. One of our clients reported in July 2007 that they added 9 extra hours of effective time into their week as a direct result of behavioural changes they made.

Awareness

Awareness of how your words, impact, and actions on others are crucial to influencing others. Your blind spots (we all have them!) could be fatal. A DoPE will help you understand perspectives you may not have considered.

Priorities

The DoPE is experienced in helping you identify what’s important now and in the future. What is the most important thing you need to do right now? What is stopping you from executing on this priority?

Balance

The pressures of juggling work-life balance are always present. Quality coaching powerfully facilitates your choices and allows you to establish a sensible balance.

Communication

Your effectiveness in understanding and being understood is critical to your success. A DoPE will help you develop your competence in communication, listening skills, delivering feedback, presenting your ideas, managing meetings, and creating an impact.

Options

To make the right decision, you need to have more than one idea. A DoPE will challenge you to generate practical and viable alternatives.

Emotional Intelligence

Studies show Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is more important than IQ in an executive, leader, sales professional, business owner, or manager. A DoPE will help you understand and develop higher levels of emotional intelligence. Amaze™ is accredited to measure, interpret, and deliver feedback.

Control

Having a personal development plan to act as a guide will put you back in control. With a map, a plan, and a performance coach you will not fail.

Clarity

You had it at one time but the rate of change has caused you to lose it. A DoPE helps you regain the clarity that allows you to accomplish anything you set your mind to.

The top 5 reasons why top performers leave their current role;

1. They don’t like how they are managed
2. They lack opportunities to learn
3. They lack control over their projects
4. They are not challenged
5. It doesn’t play to their strengths or excite them

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