This TED Talk features technology mentor Nadia Youssef recorded live at TED at BCG 2018.

So, imagine a company hires a new employee, best in the business, who's on a multi-million dollar contract.

Now imagine that whenever this employee went to go meet with her team members,

the appointments were ignored or dismissed. And in the meetings that did happen, she was yelled at

or kicked out after a few minutes. So after a while, she just went quietly back to her desk,

sat there, none of her skills being put to use, of course, being ignored

by most people, and of course still getting paid millions of dollars. This hot-shot employee

can't seem to catch a break, is that company's technology. This scenario is not an exaggeration.

In my job as a technology advisor, I've seen so many companies make the well-meaning decisions

to put huge investments into technology, only to have the benefits fail to live up to the expectation.

In fact, in one study I read, 25% of technology projects are cancelled or deliver things that are never used.

That's like billions of dollars just being wasted each year.

So why is this?

Well, from what I've seen, the expectation from the top management is high, but not unreasonable,

about the benefits from the technology.

They expect people will use them, it will create time savings, and people will become genuinely

better at their jobs. But the reality is that the people on the front line who are supposed

to be using these softwares and tools, they're skeptical or even afraid. We postpone the online

trainings, we don't bother to learn the shortcuts, and we get frustrated at the number of tools

we have to remember how to log into and use, right? And that frustration, that guilt, it's racking

up the more that technology is inserting itself into our daily

working lives, which is a lot. Brookings says that 70% of jobs today in the U.S. require at least

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