We’re wrapping up one
strategy cycle and beginning another. The leader team is capable, smart &
funny, and pushed each another in a healthy way. (I’m their teacher.) This is
the first year we’ve seriously applied Agentic AI. What are we learning?
Strategy = What, Why, How
What are we trying to achieve? Why do
we want to do this? How do we intend to do it? Strategy entails
answering these questions with stories and making discrete choices. “We are
going to play here, and not there. We are going to this – and not
that. We need this kind of management system and those capabilities
to pull it off.”
How has always been our biggest constraint,
no? Do we have the data, manpower, and analytical horsepower? Can we grasp
& master the complexity in the market, and in our supply chain? Can we
anticipate & coordinate changes in demand & supply, while levelling up
the performance of our people, machinery, and value streams?
Escaping the Tyranny of the How
How does all this
change in an AI world? AI agents make the How much easier. Case in
point: igniting new Growth is a core theme in the strategy sessions I described
above. Key tactics entail selling existing offerings in new customer segments,
and new offerings in existing markets. We have a ton of historical data and
related content on the customer, what do they value, and why do they buy,
including a rich catalogue of social media content.
If only we could repurpose
this treasure trove and thereby run quick experiments to validate our Growth hypotheses.
But how are we going to do this? Such work requires judgement &
experience. We can’t hire more people and there is a ton of other work to do. Our
Growth-related teams are facing burn out & morale may become an issue.
The senior team
expressed all these concerns & clearly felt the tyranny of the How. But the
How was no longer our constraint. In fact, we able to engage young AI-savvy
team members who easily built an elegant AI agent that does the heavy lifting. The
AI agent scanned our voluminous inventory, clipped relevant content, and developed
necessary templates, and posting schedules congruent with the projects at hand.
Taste, finesse and judgement were needed of course to curate & mold the content
into a coherent experiment plan. Now we have to execute the needed sprints with
intelligence, reflect on results & pivot as required.
Shifting Constraints - From the How to the What
In other words, the
strategic focus is shifting from the How – to the What. The constraint
is now our imagination, experience, taste, and business savvy. It’s as if we’ve
found a magic lantern, rubbed it, and are confronted with a big blue Genie –
who will take care of the How. ‘Your wish is my command.’
And so, the
constraint is now: What do we really want to do? What’s our shining city
on the hill? What does success look like? What’s our ideal condition?
What does all this
mean for us? For a start, intuition, taste, and business savvy will become invaluable.
AI agents are like very smart research assistants. They’re great at the How but
not so good at the Why or the What. Savvy business leaders, by contrast, intuit
their customers & market, supply chain & factories, partnerships and
relationships with regulators, universities & other important players. They
have good taste and know that ‘This will fly, but that will not –
unless of course, we make these kinds of changes and present them in that
way.’ This is what I mean by taste – knowing how to do, knowing what
will fly and what will not.
Do we appreciate how
big a shift this represents & the implications for leaders? On a personal
level, my role as a teacher & mentor is evolving into curator of taste,
shaper of what’s possible, and nurturer of the imagination.
Best wishes,
Pascal Dennis E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org
No comments:
Post a Comment