By Eric Stavola, MS.CIS, M.ED • May 4, 2026
I've sat in too many Copilot rollout meetings that start the same way. The question is always: "How fast can we deploy this?"
Sometimes it's dressed up. License counts. Phased rollouts. Training calendars. But underneath, it's the same mindset. Push the tool out. Hope people figure it out. That's not a rollout. That's a drop-off.
I've always admired Nick Saban for what he's accomplished over his career. I keep an Alabama helmet in my office because it reminds me of "The Process." Not the slogan. The standard. Seven national championships. Hall of Fame. But what's stuck with me has never really been the football. It's how closely what he built aligns with what I'm seeing happen with AI right now.
Saban has been talking about "The Process" for thirty years. People hear it and think it's a slogan. A motivational thing. Something for the wall in the locker room. It's not.
It's discipline. It's the refusal to let the outcome drive the behavior. Because the second you start playing for the score, you stop playing the game the right way. You tighten up. You rush. You lose focus on the small things that actually produce wins.
I see the same thing in Copilot rollouts. Leaders lock in on ROI by Q3. Productivity gains in 90 days. Adoption numbers for the board deck. So they design the rollout to hit the number. Instead of building a system that produces the number.
Here's what actually happens: A few top performers come up with clever use cases. The dashboard moves. Everyone feels good. Meanwhile, most of the licenses sit untouched. And the people who needed the lift the most never built the habits to use it well. That's the miss.
The shift is simple. Stop managing the outcome. Start coaching the reps. The wins follow. They always do.
One of the most honest things Saban ever said is that he never figured out how to coach bad players into playing well. So he focused on recruiting. That applies here.
Copilot doesn't fix disorganized teams. It doesn't fix vague thinking. It doesn't fix poor communication. It doesn't fix broken workflows. It amplifies them.
If your environment is structured, documented, and clear, Copilot makes you faster. If it's tribal, reactive, and held together with workarounds, Copilot scales the confusion. Fast.
That's the part most leaders skip. Because it forces a harder question: Is our team actually ready for this?
Here's the part I want to slow down on. Saban wanted Drew Brees. His own doctor cleared him. The organization passed because the medical staff didn't like the shoulder. That decision changed the entire trajectory of two franchises.
Now think about what Brees did next. He went to New Orleans. Won a Super Bowl. Set passing records. Helped rebuild a city after Katrina. And this year, he got inducted into the Hall of Fame.
The guy they passed on because he wasn't ready yet became one of the greatest to ever play the game.
I'm talking directly to the SMB leaders right now who are saying, "We're going to pass on Copilot for now. Maybe next year. Let the technology mature. Let someone else work the bugs out." I get it. The license cost feels steep. The use case feels fuzzy. Your team is already stretched. You don't have time to manage another rollout. The security questions feel complicated.
But waiting is a choice too. It's just one you don't have to defend out loud.
The companies that pass on tools like this don't usually fail dramatically. They just slowly fall behind. Their proposals come in slower. Their analysis is thinner. Their people burn out doing work that should have taken half the time. And five years later, somebody says, "Why didn't we get on this earlier?"
The Drew Brees you passed on is in someone else's locker room now. Winning.
If you're an SMB leader who's been saying you'll get to Copilot eventually, ask yourself: What are you actually waiting for? More certainty? More proof? The proof is already here. The gap between teams that learned to use this well and those that didn't will be the defining business advantage of the next decade.
Don't let your organization quietly pass on the Hall of Famer.
One thing about Saban that doesn't get enough attention: 668 degrees earned under his program. He focused on developing people, not just players. The same applies here.
Copilot isn't the point. Your people are.
Sure, you can measure licenses, prompt counts, and hours saved. Those are fine. But the real question is whether your people are getting better. Thinking clearer. Writing tighter. Making sharper decisions. A rollout that builds capability compounds. A rollout that just automates existing work makes you slightly faster at doing the wrong things.
If I'm leading this right now, here's what I'm doing this quarter:
Saban didn't win because he was the smartest guy in the room. He won because he stayed disciplined longer than everyone else. Same principles. Same habits. Year after year. While everyone else chased the next thing.
That helmet on my shelf isn't there because I'm a fan. It's there because every time I look at it, it reminds me that the work is the work. The standard doesn't move because the season has changed.
Copilot is the next thing right now. There will be another one soon. There always is. The leaders who win won't be the fastest to adopt. They'll be the ones who build a system where any good tool can actually take root.
That's the difference. And that's the work.