"AI can not only improve short-term productivity of organizations but can also ... increase the organization’s collective intelligence."HBR starts well by pointing out the false dichotomy between thinking "about AI in terms of automation vs. augmentation... Augmentation doesn’t avoid automation, it simply hides it, usually in some l…

"My advice: Jump headfirst into AI with everything you’ve got."

Is your organization more like a jellyfish or a flatworm?The author's "Jellyfish and Flatworm story has been remarkably effective at helping ... [executives] visualize the impact of AI on their customers, their products, and their employees... this story is about why Knowledge Representation (KR) must be the core of any cost-effective lo…

insights into the complex relationship between AI and knowledge work, emphasizing the need for a nuanced understanding of AI's role in enhancing productivity and quality in different task domains - Harpa

"effectively deploying these capabilities for our organization... build skills, processes, and structures to effectively leverage these tools’ advantages:"identify processes benefiting from LLMs (content)implement processes to ensure content accuracy, security"identify roles that will be displaced and identify upskilling" requi…

"But all good comes with new risks. With conversational AI, this includes data leakage, IP ownership conflicts and reproducibility requirements. Team members must be aware ... how and when to use it and the corporate policies around appropriate use... key questions your organization should be asking:"what can(not) you ask an AI tool?how …

Systems with Design from Trust: assume most (not all) people have good intent."initially feel counterintuitive, even risky...social: they rely on human relationships. appealing: once you wrap your head around them, you want more."The discomfort is a symptom of how today's default setting is mistrust: "we’ve internalized the ass…

Liberating Structures is a pattern language that "provides a menu of thirty-three Liberating Structures to replace or complement conventional practices... [which are] either too inhibiting (presentations, status reports and managed discussions) or too loose and disorganized (open discussions and brainstorms) to creatively engage people ... to…

"forecasting the future is a complex and absolutely critical job. So how do you do it—and what comes next?"Fascinating series of short interviews with futurists. Some selected quotes:"When it comes to the future, you have two choices: ... build a great big wall to keep out all the bad news. Or you can build windmills and harness the…

Analysing the impact of cultural diversity on corporate performance by feeding half-million Glassdoor reviews through a "Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling" machine learning algorithm: "the “bag of words” approach... inductively infers categories... a statistical model that looks for words that tend to co-occur."Step 1:…

195 leaders in 15 countries over 30 global organizations... asked to choose the 15 most important leadership competencies... grouped the top ones into five major themes ... difficult to master... because improving them requires acting against our nature...high ethical standards conveys a commitment to fairness, instilling confidence ... when le…

Online communities are uniquely suited to promote wide-scale inclusion because of their collaborative rather than directive structure—they reward members for their unique contributions instead of forcing compliance to a standard... don’t just assume ... [they] will immediately foster widespread inclusion... prioritize investment ... [to] institut…

adrenalin had energised locked-down employees at first. Only at the five-week mark did enforced remote working start to breed anxiety... The prospect of ... a bland diet of videocalls and virtual encounters is draining... It is not hard to achieve commitment ... during a crisis. Doubters’ stock objection ... evaporated under pressure... But ... …

Begin unbiasing with education, accountability, measurement, and more

Covid-19 pandemic ... leaders are scrambling to manage the immediate fallout... also necessary to prepare for what’s next. Visionary leaders ... didn’t simply react ... also looked beyond ... guided — and guided their people in turn — by their vision for a better future...fundamental assumptions underlying your current business model may have been…

despite all the talk about culture, many business leaders remain confused... organizational culture is “the shared basic assumptions, values, and beliefs... taught to newcomers as the proper way to think and feel...think of culture as a management system... makes the idea much more concrete...staff... make all sorts of decisions every day ... in a…

The Theory of Constraints is deceptively simple... proposing a series of “obvious” statements... before you know it, you find yourself questioning the fundamental tenets of modern business and society...first statement ... every system has one bottleneck tighter than all the others... broaden the concept... to constraints of any kind... second sta…

managers often confuse a strategy’s design with its execution. Recognizing the difference between these two will have a major and positive impact... Strategy design involves detailing positions to take on ... strategic factors... decision criteria used by key stakeholders... the position that, for instance, Ford or Toyota as a company takes to woo…

A brief summary of my experience in building company structures and supporting processes, role definitions, etc.

a new idea has to replace an old one and the status quo has inertia on its side... to truly make an impact, you need small groups, loosely connected, but united by a shared purpose... start with groups small enough to convince a majority... We all have different thresholds for conformity ... threshold model of collective behavior... the exposu…

Any digital transformation includes the following core ingredients:Strategy — aligning vision, customer experience, processes and technology.User-Centered Design — mobile first and personalized.Agility in Delivery — iterative and adaptable.Integration of Software, Platforms and Technology — choosing environments and products that harmonize.Data, A…

when it comes to teams, many hands do not make light work... four to six members is the team best size for most tasks, that no work team should have more than 10 members, and that performance problems and interpersonal friction increase “exponentially as team size increases.”... if you are on a big team that keeps screwing up... try some subtract…

the GEM framework... to deliver value ... the company must never lose sight of ... growth, engagement, and monetization.... Growth is all about how a company finds new users or customers.... getting the right message in front of people who need what you have... “external triggers.” ... delivered through various channels.... The growth question to…

managers always have to balance the merits of teamwork... with the dangers of “groupthink”... Large groups are remarkably good, on average, at estimating such things as the number of beans in a jar or the weight of a prize calf. But that accuracy relies on the guesses being independent.... Modern communication methods mean that collaboration is mo…

In his new book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, Adam investigates who comes up with great ideas, how, and what we can do to have more of them.... They often procrastinate, and that's how they incubate ideas.... Their parents focus more on values than rules... One of the risks is, you know, you have everybody marching in a different…

appointing facilitators to help us make the most of each meeting....more effective, so you (and everyone else) can make the most of your time.more inclusive, because the loudest person won’t dominate the room.more fun. You’re digging into challenges, identifying what can actually get done, and moving on.Here are a couple of typical meeting challen…

to create a team that is collectively intelligent, you likely need to focus on three specific factors that he and his colleagues have identified in their research...

We’re bad at most things by default. The only way to overcome the deficit is with the right kind of practice....But have you tried to manage for hours? How do you even practice management?... professional managers don’t start as managers... Observation is no substitute for doing... Many managers over-involve themselves.... get in the way. It’s a…

Just one topic in this edition, sparked by Collaborative Overload (Harvard Business Review)... reported “time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50% or more”

time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50% or more...How much time do people spend in meetings, on the phone, and responding to e-mails? At many companies ... 80%, leaving employees little time for all the critical work they must complete on their own... In most cases, 20% to 35% of value-added collabor…