AI is a brilliant amplifier of your existing view. So it's likely that your view of its benefit will be dependent on your role on the executive team.
Many CFOs will be excited by the potential cost savings that AI adoption and agentification offers.
Many CIOs will be using AI to improve cybersecurity and reduce the number of software platforms or Apps the company currently uses.
Many Chief Commercial Officers will see the opportunities to reduce customer lead times, as well as automate and focus customer communication.
Many CMOs will want to use AI to enhance their multi-platform go to market strategy.
Many CPOs will want to optimise performance management and understand how AI can enhance output. Some are even exploring how AI can drive a more solopreneur culture.
For many leaders AI has increased, not decreased, their workload and performance expectations. With AI meeting note takers, and various AI tools that can summarise and draft decks and presentations leaders may now be working more, not fewer hours.
This increased pressure was exemplified last week by a leader I was coaching. He told me that he regularly has 15 meetings a day, often back-to-back with barely enough time to go to the toilet or have lunch.
Time to prep for any meeting had disappeared and the time he needed to think about things was virtually non-existent.
I asked him how many of these meetings were focused on making decisions or planning the actions required to move projects forward. He was slightly baffled because this description covered all his meetings. He asked me if there were any other types of meetings.
Underneath this confusion is the belief that work and leadership is about doing things. The persistent thought that floods most leader’s minds is “what do I need to do next”.
This is what we, at Complete, call an “IT Addiction”.
When you ask leaders to itemise what they focus on, they will give you a long list of tasks, targets, goals metrics and outcomes. This is their “To DO” list. What is “IT” that I must do today. Hence the term “IT addiction”.
The vast majority of these tasks are operational and short-term. This is hardly surprising. Most leaders are hired to deliver performance, in the short-term. If they don’t, then that hiring turns into firing. So, their focus is naturally on this quarter’s results.
AI has amplified this “IT” focus. If leaders have saved any time, with AI-driven efficiencies, they use this time for more short-term IT tasks, amplifying the risk of overwhelm and burnout.
I suggested, to the leader I was coaching, that he should analyse his diary to see what percentage of his meeting were focused on short-term IT tasks; what percentage were more strategic IT tasks; and whether he had any other sorts of meetings.
“Other sorts of meetings” he asked.
“Yes, ask AI to analyse your diary to see if any of your meetings are all focused on short-term or even long term 'IT' issues - this will reveal how IT addicted you may be”.
Some meeting can have what we call, a “WE” focus. In these meetings the goal is specifically to improve the strength of relationship bonds, trust or connectivity with colleagues or customers. The meeting focus is NOT what you need to do about colleagues or customers, rather how can you develop your relationships and understanding of each other. The meeting is interpersonal not task or action focused, which is why we call these “WE” meetings.
He admitted that most of his meetings with others were focused on what needs to be done, and if there was any relationship building it happened informally while the IT focus was pursued. Relationship building was incidental. The goal was to agree some actions.
I also suggested there was a third type of meeting. To help him understand I said:
“Let’s imagine, as a neuroscientist, I could show you how to quadruple the speed at which your mind works and treble the quality of your thinking. If I could show you how to operate four times faster and with three times better quality than you’ve ever been able to do in your entire life, would that be useful to you?” I asked.
“That would be amazing” he admitted. “I could get my job done by the middle of the week and solve a lot more problems” he acknowledged.
I continued: “To do that you will need to have a meeting with yourself, where you figure out how to go four times faster and three times the quality.”
“Meetings with myself”, he asked. “I don’t have any meetings with myself”.
“Why not” I asked.
“I’m too busy doing things” he admitted.
“Exactly!” I said.
As leaders there are three dimensions to our lives:
- What we are doing, or the world of “IT”.
- How well we are relating to others, or the dimension of “WE”
- Who we are as human beings, or the dimension of “I”
Every issue we ever encounter in life, business or personal, all have an I, WE and IT dimension. And all the answer we seek also have an I, WE and IT dimension.
The challenge is that nearly all leaders we’ve ever encountered are IT addicted. They only tend to see the one dimension. For them all problems are IT problems, and all solutions are IT solutions. If we only see a one-dimensional world rather than a three-dimensional world then it shouldn’t surprise us when our problems become endemic.
For example, I was talking to a Healthcare company recently about the challenges they were facing which felt intractable to them. We quickly agreed that they needed to make some significant cost reductions.
That is the ‘IT part’ of their problem. But to change their future they would need the courage to make some very tough decisions. This is the ‘I part of the problem - courage. And to make sure the decisions they make will stick they will need the leadership team to remain aligned and cohesive, despite the undoubted resistance their decisions will trigger. This is the ‘WE part’ of the problem.
Moving the dial for them isn’t just about the IT cost reduction, it’s about the I courage and WE alignment.
We should never assume that the I and WE dimension will just happen as we discuss the IT dimensions.
The I and WE dimensions must be explicitly explored. As leaders we must develop the ability to break our IT addiction so we can become much more sophisticated in our I and WE capabilities.
If we develop as much sophistication in the I and WE dimensions as we’ve developed in the IT dimension then we can become 4-Dimensional leaders that understand the challenges we face in the three dimensions of I, WE and IT. We can develop our abilities in the 4th dimension, which is sophistication or amount of nuance and brilliance we can bring to all those three dimensions.
So, look at your own diary and see how IT addicted you are.
Diarise some time to think and cultivate your inner wisdom, your maturity and awareness of who you really are.
And if you really want to succeed and enjoy greater levels of fulfilment make sure some of your meetings with others are focused on building trust and understanding rather than just focusing on what you may need to do together.