On episode 306 of the Life Fulfilled podcast, Vistage Chair Mike Tetreau said the most important aspect of leadership is clarity. I couldn’t agree more, especially where AI is concerned.
Let me tell you about a CEO I’ll call Dan.
Dan runs a 120-person company. Last year, a peer at a conference told him his competitors were already using AI and he was falling behind. A month later, Dan directed his IT team to buy an AI platform. He announced it in a company-wide email and scheduled a training session.
Six months later, hardly anyone was using the AI tools. The people who were using them couldn’t say why or report business results. And in the break room, everyone was asking the same question: “Whose job is the AI going to replace?”
Dan had put the cart before the horse.
What he’d missed was that he already had a clear business plan. His company planned to launch a new product line in the spring. They were expanding into two new regional markets. And they had committed to keeping headcount flat for the year. That plan was his “horse.” It was supposed to pull everything else, including AI.
So Dan started over. He brought his team together and said, “Let’s focus on where we’re committed to going this year. We’re launching a new product and entering two new markets, and we’re doing it with the team we have. AI is a big part of how we’ll execute our plan without burning you out.”
That last sentence connected AI to the business plan. The fear didn’t go away overnight, but the conversation changed. People stopped asking, “Is this replacing me?” and started asking, “Where can this help me?”
That’s the Human Dividend™ at work. When strategy leads, AI serves the people carrying out the plan. When AI leads, people start to wonder whether they’re part of the plan at all.
Before your next AI decision, ask yourself one question: Can I explain in one sentence how this serves our business plan? If you can’t, the cart is in front of the horse.
Put the horse first. Clarity will follow.
