The ALeM Framework · Adaptive Leverage Model

Start small with AI. Then make it stick.

ALeM is a simple, step-by-step way for busy small business owners to get real value from AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and Claude. You don't start with a strategy or a big project. You start with one small win of about 15 minutes. Then you repeat a short cycle that turns that win into a habit that lasts.

Developed through doctoral research at the University of Hertfordshire and evaluated by an expert panel.

You were promised a pit stop. It feels more like cycling uphill.

AI is usually sold like a Formula 1 pit stop: fast, precise, and a whole team working in sync with the machine. Plug it in and everything speeds up.

For many small business owners it feels more like cycling uphill on your own. You're already doing everything else, and nobody is there to change the tyres. It's like being handed the keys to an F1 car when you've never driven anything faster than a bike.

The tools aren't the hard part. Almost anyone with an internet connection can open ChatGPT today. The hard part is fitting AI into a business when you have little time to spare and nobody else to hand the work to. Most advice on AI adoption assumes the spare time, budget and specialists that larger firms have.

The catch-22: you don't have the time to learn AI, because you don't yet have the time AI would save you. For a small business owner, the real cost of AI isn't the subscription. It's your attention.

How ALeM works, in one picture

One small win first. Then a cycle of three steps that you repeat whenever you're ready for the next task.

Diagram description: Start with a Quick Win of about 15 minutes. Then step 1, Sense, step 2, Seize, and step 3, Reconfigure. After Reconfigure, loop back to Sense for the next task.

↻ Reconfigure loops back to Sense for your next task.

Then repeat. Each time round, you add one more task. You can come back in at any step.

Most frameworks start with strategy or training. ALeM starts with a small win on purpose. A win builds confidence and shows you the value before you give AI any more of your time.

Start here · About 15 minutes · Low risk

Your first AI Quick Win

The aim isn't perfection. It's to get past the blank page and finish one real task. You don't need to know what to ask, because you let the AI suggest it.

Step 1: Open a tool you already have.

• Use Microsoft 365 (Word, Outlook)? Try Microsoft Copilot.
• Use Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs)? Try Google Gemini.
• Neither? ChatGPT or Claude are both good general starting points.

Step 2: Tell it about your business, then ask what it can do for you.

Copy this prompt and fill in the brackets:

Here is a short summary of my business: [2–3 sentences: what you do, who you serve, and your biggest bottleneck].
Based on this, list 5 specific tasks you could help me with right now to save me time. Don't do the tasks yet. Just give me the list as a menu.

Step 3: Pick one routine task from the list and finish it.

For example: a reply to a customer enquiry, a summary of a long document, or the first draft of a social post.

Fifteen minutes is a design target, shaped by expert feedback. It hasn't been measured in live businesses yet, and testing that is part of the next stage.

After the Quick Win: Sense, Seize, Reconfigure

Every step after the Quick Win is concrete and time-boxed. Work on one task at a time.

Sense: find where AI will help you most

• List the five tasks that take up most of your week or frustrate you most.
• Score each from 1 to 5 on time it takes, value to the business and how well AI could help.
• Pick one task, the one with the best combination of scores. Just one.
• Optional: ask your AI tool, “How are businesses like [my type of business] using AI for [this task]?”

Seize: choose one tool and learn just enough

• Choose your tool by four simple tests: cost, how easy it is to get started, how quickly it pays off and the skill it needs.
• Learn just what this one task needs. Give it 30–60 minutes, for example one short video or article, then practise straight away on the real task.
• Teach the tool your voice so the output sounds like you:

Below are three examples of my writing. Describe my style as a short bullet-point style guide (sentence length, vocabulary, tone). Use this style for everything you write for me from now on.
[PASTE 3 EXAMPLES: emails, posts or proposals you're happy with]

Reconfigure: make it a routine that sticks

• Write the steps down as a Minimal Viable Routine: the tool, the prompt you use, the steps and a final human check. A few lines is enough.
• Review it once a month. Is it still saving time? Can the prompt be better?
• When it runs on its own, go back to Sense and pick the next task.

Owners told us the hardest part is usually here. The technology is rarely the problem. Changing habits is. That's why the routine is short and written down.

ALeM Core: the owner's version

What you've just read is ALeM Core: a short, linear guide for owner-managers that starts with the Quick Win and can be used in one sitting.

It exists because of the expert feedback. The panel agreed that the full framework was sound, but said it asked too much of a time-poor owner. Instead of watering down the research, the framework was split in two:

• ALeM Core is for owners. It's short, practical, and on this page.
• ALeM Extended is for advisers, consultants and researchers. It's the full specification, with the theory, reasoning and edge cases (see Where ALeM comes from).

The Core hasn't yet been tested as a stand-alone tool, so what we say about how easy it is to use is our design intention for now.

Who ALeM is for

Support small businesses? Let's test this together

If your organisation already works with small businesses, through a Growth Hub, an incubator, a business-support programme or a chamber, ALeM is designed to fit around what you already do. The Quick Win can work as a short first session, and the Sense, Seize, Reconfigure cycle as a structure for follow-up support.

The expert panel observed that owners who complete one or two supported cycles tend to carry on by themselves. That's the kind of support partners are well placed to give.

The next step is a pilot at scale with enterprise-support partners. It would test three questions:

1. Do owners really get a Quick Win in around 15 minutes?
2. Do those Quick Wins turn into lasting routines?
3. Does it work beyond service businesses?

Where ALeM comes from

ALeM was developed through doctoral research at the University of Hertfordshire's Hertfordshire Business School. It started with in-depth interviews with micro-business owner-managers about what actually gets in the way when they try to use AI. Those findings shaped the framework, together with a well-established management idea about how businesses adapt: spot an opportunity, act on it, then change how you work so the change sticks. That's where Sense, Seize and Reconfigure come from.

It was then evaluated by an expert panel of independent industry and domain experts. They judged it coherent, useful and feasible with support. Their main criticism was that it was too heavy for busy owners, which led directly to ALeM Core.

What it doesn't show yet

• The evaluation was early and small-scale.
• The evidence comes from service-sector businesses.
• The framework hasn't yet been used in live businesses. That's the next stage.

Want the detail? Read the research behind it.

How the framework led to Thrivology Digital

The research kept pointing to the same thing: small businesses don't need more information about AI. They need help putting it to work. That gap between knowing and doing is why Thrivology Digital exists.

Thrivology Digital is the AI implementation practice founded by my wife, Carlene Nisbett-McBlack, and part of The Thrivology Company, where I am Head of AI Strategy. Carlene built the business, drawing on her commercial experience across global brands and founder-led businesses. The ideas behind ALeM inform how Thrivology Digital works. Start with the business, not the technology. Find where time is being lost first. Build one thing at a time into the tools the team already uses, then keep it working.

Thrivology Digital mainly works with service businesses whose teams are already stretched. If you're earlier on that journey, the Quick Win above is the best place to start, and a free discovery call will tell you honestly whether there's a fit.

What would you like to do next?