Leadership

The Capability Mirage: When AI Makes Your Organization Look Smarter Than It Is

I spent a good part of this week in conversations with some senior leaders, and I noticed something none of them quite said out loud. They believe that their teams are producing better work than ever. The decks are sharper; the analyses faster. The first drafts land almost finished. By every visible measure, the organization looks more capable than it did eighteen months ago.  And yet, underneath the polish, I could sense that there was something hiding in plain sight, something that has the potential to lead to catastrophic results if not addressed soon. When I reflected upon this, I […]

Leadership

Are you Shaping the AI Tool or is it Shaping You?

This past week has been very interesting. I have met with a variety of middle managers from a variety of organizations. These are generally good people, doing good work and been doing it consistently. They have built up deep expertise and the good judgement that goes along with it. Their instincts in their chose fields are often on target. They can read and respond to a room full of executives. One thing that was common amongst all of them, they have been using one or the other LLM model for work and have gotten good at it. And almost all […]

Leadership

Your Transformation Will Never “Finish” — Stop Managing It Like It Will

The one thing common to almost every conversation I have with CIOs of the largest organizations in the region is a quiet sense of overwhelm — at the sheer number of transformation and change efforts running at once, often in parallel, each demanding attention, budget, and the energy of the same finite set of people. The pace of change in the AI world has added fuel to a phenomenon that was already playing out. That overwhelm leads to burnout. And burnout, more than any technology gap, is becoming the single biggest reason these efforts fail to deliver on their ambition. […]

Leadership

Curating a High Peformance Culture

Premise: Let’s talk about culture. What is it? How is it built? Who is responsible for it? How to change it? There is a multi-million-dollar consulting industry that exists to solely answer these questions. Every leader worth following grapples with these questions constantly. They are trying to get the culture just right for their teams, so that they can perform at their absolute best, without burning themselves out. There are some who believe that the culture of any organization is created by their leaders. It mimics the leader and the value system of the leader. Some believe that culture is […]

Leadership

Which Kind of Leader Are You — Performative or Authentic?

Earlier today I read a blog post on Gapingvoid – Show Don’t Sell. In the post, they share stories of leaders (Gandhi, George Washington and Julius Ceaser) and how they found the cure for the skepticism of those they wanted to lead was but ACTION. It is not enough to state our intention but follow it up with action that is consistent with the intention. I see this happen all around me. Leaders have great intentions (or ideas). They call for innovation but are not willing to risk failure. They call for camaraderie but incentivize competition amongst colleagues. They call […]