Everyone is talking about “a world of AI.” I am surprised that no one has led their Christmas advertising campaign featuring an Elf and an Agent. Maybe a voucher to buy more tokens under the tree?
While AI dominates the business agenda, I think three things are happening at once. And beyond AI, each asks leaders something different.
A world without friction calls for glue
Technology is removing human interaction from almost everything. Call centre bots. Automatic tills. Remote work. Voice notes. Online banking. Dating.
Much of this is progress. But the small human moments go with it. Eye contact. The conversation before the meeting. The colleague who notices. Coffee with others is an event.
Workday has the phrase for it. In its survey of 2,150 AI users at large organisations in the USA, AI feels “socially frictionless” compared with colleagues. A third rarely or never talks to colleagues about anything beyond the task in a given week. 16% have less patience for small talk. And, remarkably, 37% have turned to AI for “companionship”.
Meanwhile, our coffee shops offer an interesting window into changing social habits. According to Vypr, 57% of UK consumers visit coffee shops to socialise, but two in five drink-only occasions involved people on their own, often scrolling alone.
I know the world of work has changed and we're all "laptop warriors", but are we becoming so accustomed to frictionless interactions that we're losing patience with the wonderfully inconvenient business of being human? Human relationships aren't built by eliminating friction. They're built by working through it.
Glue is the breadth and depth of relationships that turn individual capability into collective performance. It used to happen by accident. Now it has to be deliberately designed. Remove the friction that slows work. Keep the friction that binds people together.
A world without clarity calls for acuity
Leaders operate in a world of constant noise: politics, markets, a never-ending stream of data and opinion, and AI that can generate a perfectly plausible answer to almost anything. It’s increasingly difficult to distinguish the real from the merely convincing.
Acuity is a lovely word. It means sharpness of thought, vision and hearing. Unlike most leadership qualities, it works in both broadcast and receipt mode. Listen. Discern. Then say clearly what you see.
A world of AI calls for coherence.
Intelligence is now spread across people, platforms and autonomous agents. Without shared purpose, organisations have built only clever silos with faster tools.
Glue holds the parts together. Coherence is what happens when they move as one. It may prove to be the last organisational advantage that cannot be automated.
So what value does a leader bring when machines can do so much of the rest?
Bind people together. Tell them the truth. Move them as one.
I have been taking this into business schools and client organisations this autumn. One question to finish.
Which of the three would your team say you are weakest at?
Not you. Your team.
Tell me below. Or better still, let’s have a coffee. It would be a worthwhile piece of friction.