Thinking Out Loud

Alignment is not about the strength of the individual parts, but how well they work in relation to one another. Learn how organizations begin to drift, why misalignment creates friction, and how to recognize it before the consequences become difficult to correct.

There is someone in almost every organization who does something nobody asked them to do. Maybe they arrive a little early or stay a few minutes late. Maybe they are the person who notices the dishwasher is full and empties it every morning, helps the new employee who looks lost, or stays with a problem that technically belongs to somebody else. Nobody assigned these things to them. They are not in the job description, there is no KPI attached to them, and chances are n

Are you using AI to do what you've always done a little faster, or are you using it to do things you couldn't reasonably do before? I think that's becoming an important distinction. For me, Artificial Intelligence has become something like a well-trained, well-educated assistant. I spend a great deal of time working through ideas with it. Sometimes I know exactly where I want to go. Other times I have the beginning of a thought and want to challenge it, turn it around,

I have spent a lot of years around leaders. Some had impressive titles, some had none at all, and I have learned that the title tells you very little. Leadership tends to reveal itself when something goes wrong, when the plan stops working, when the pressure builds, or when someone simply has to step forward. There is a phrase generally attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: “Go to the sound of the guns.” I first understood the idea in a military context, but I have carried

One of the things I have noticed as I have gotten older is that experience does not necessarily make you more certain. In fact, I think it has had the opposite effect on me. Early in my career, I believed there was a right answer to most problems. If you understood the issue, had enough information, and knew what you were doing, you should be able to figure it out. There is still some truth to that, but after spending a lot of years managing projects, businesses, pe