Innovation – Grandpa Bob Encouraging Leadership

Measuring the AI Dividend

In the early 1990s, the term Peace Dividend appeared in headlines and boardrooms. The Cold War had ended, and nations began asking what they might gain by redirecting the resources once committed to defense.

Today the conflict is between our old ways of working and the new reality AI brings. After denial (it’s just a fad), anger (it’s taking our jobs), withdrawal (I’ll wait this one out), and finally acceptance (maybe I should learn how to use AI tools), the picture is clear. AI is here, and it’s reshaping how we think, learn, and work.

Which leads to the natural question. What is our AI Dividend?

Leaders everywhere are trying to measure it. Some ask how many people they can eliminate. Others ask how much more their existing teams can achieve. The real opportunity sits between these two questions.

Few leaders look at this across the right horizon. Every major technological shift starts out loud, then settles into a steady climb toward real value. AI will follow that same pattern.

The early dividends won’t show up on a budget line. They’ll show up in the work. Faster learning inside teams. More accurate decisions. More experiments completed in a week instead of a quarter.

When small gains compound, momentum builds. Work speeds up. Confidence rises. People will begin treating AI as a partner in thinking, not merely a shortcut for output.

At that point the important questions show themselves. Are ideas moving to action faster? Are we correcting less and creating more? Are our teams becoming more curious, more capable, and more energized?

The most valuable AI Dividend is actually the Human Dividend. As machines handle the mechanical, people reclaim their time and attention for creative work, deeper customer relationships, and more purpose-filled contributions. This dividend can’t be measured only in savings or productivity. It will be seen in what people build when they have room to imagine again.

In the years ahead, leaders who measure wisely will look beyond immediate cost savings and focus on what their organizations can create that couldn’t have existed before.

Photo by C Bischoff on Unsplash – because some of the time we gain from using AI will free us up to work on non-AI pursuits.

When an Idea Stops Being Yours Alone

There’s a quiet moment in meaningful work when your idea begins to live in someone else. You see it in the way they talk about it. You hear it in their enthusiasm. You notice how they add their experience and their language to it until the idea carries their imprint as much as yours.

It can feel strange the first time it happens. You know the origin, but they suddenly feel the spark of the idea for themselves. That’s the moment you know your idea has begun to grow.

Real success often arrives like this, but we don’t always notice it. People begin to adopt your idea, reshape it, and eventually believe in it with a conviction that can be surprising. They explain it to others in their own voice. They defend it. They improve it. If the idea spreads far enough, some will forget where it began. Your name may fade from the origin story. That loss of attribution can sting if you hold the idea too tightly. It should feel like success instead.

Leaders have a responsibility here. Ideas rarely spread through logic alone. They spread through emotional ownership that grows when people discover a piece of themselves in the idea. When that happens, they carry the idea farther than you ever could by insisting on authorship.

A leader’s task is to create the conditions for this transfer. You offer the early shape of the idea, then invite others to step inside and help build the next version. You ask for their insight, their experience, and their concerns. You let their fingerprints gather on the surface until the idea becomes a shared creation. People support what they help to shape.

As others begin to adopt your idea, they’ll need to feel safety in their new enthusiasm. They need to know they’re not the only ones who believe in this direction. A wise leader pays attention to this. They take the people who have embraced their idea and introduce them to others who have done the same. They form new connections, helping to create a small community where confidence strengthens and courage grows. When people see others adopting the same idea, they feel validated, understood, and ready to act.

This is how ideas gain momentum inside organizations. One person sees the promise. Another begins to shape it. A third begins to feel inspired. Before long, it becomes a shared narrative. It starts with your imagination, but it continues through their belief and conviction.

Once people begin to adopt your idea, you must release it. You may or may not receive credit for it. Either outcome is acceptable.

The goal was never to build a monument to your creativity. The goal was to move the organization forward. When others bring your idea into new conversations without you, your contribution has done its job.

Your attention can return to the horizon. There’s always another idea waiting for you, another possibility that needs your curiosity, another problem that needs new framing.

Good leaders plant seeds. Great leaders celebrate when those seeds take root across the organization.

Inspired by Dr. Michael Levin’s post, h/t – Tim Ferriss

Photo by Alex Beauchamp on Unsplash – a new idea taking root and growing beyond its beginning.

Why Curiosity Is the New Competitive Advantage

Imagine two managers sitting at their desks, both using the same AI tool.

The first asks it to write the same weekly report, just faster. Three hours saved. Nothing new learned. Box checked.

The second uses the AI differently. She asks it to analyze six months of data and search for hidden patterns. It reveals that half the metrics everyone tracks have no real connection to success. Two new questions emerge. She rebuilds the entire process from scratch.

Same tool. Different questions. One finds speed. The other finds wisdom.

This is the divide that will define the next decade of work.

For a long time, leadership revolved around structure and repetition. The best organizations built systems that ran like clockwork. Discipline became an art. Efficiency became a mantra.

Books like Good to Great showed how rigorous process could transform good companies into great ones through consistent execution. When competitive advantage came from doing the same thing better and faster than everyone else, process was power.

AI changes this equation entirely. It makes these processes faster, yes, but it also asks a more unsettling question. Why are you doing this at all?

Speed alone means little when the racetrack itself is disappearing.

Curiosity in the age of AI means something specific. It asks “why” when everyone else asks “how.” It uses AI to question assumptions rather than simply execute them. It treats every automated task as an opportunity to rethink the underlying goal. And it accepts the possibility that your job, as you currently do it, might need to change entirely.

That last part is uncomfortable. Many people fear AI will replace them. Paradoxically, the people most at risk are those who refuse to use AI to reimagine their own work. The curious ones are already replacing themselves with something better.

Many organizations speak of innovation, but their true values show in what they celebrate. Do they promote the person who completes fifty tasks efficiently, or the one who eliminates thirty through reinvention? Most choose the first. They reward throughput. They measure activity. They praise the person who worked late rather than the one who made late nights unnecessary.

This worked when efficiency was scarce. Now efficiency can be abundant. AI will handle efficiency. What remains scarce is the imagination to ask what we should be doing instead. Organizations that thrive will use AI to do entirely different things. Things that were impossible or invisible before.

Working with AI requires more than technical skills. The syntax is easy. The prompts are learnable. Connecting AI to our applications isn’t the challenge. The difficulty is our mindset. Having the patience to experiment when you could just execute. The humility to see that the way you’ve always done things may no longer be the best way. The courage to ask “what if” when your entire career has been built on knowing “how to.”

This is why curiosity has become a competitive advantage. The willingness to probe, to question, to let AI reveal what you’ve been missing. Because AI is a mirror. It reflects whatever you bring to it, amplified. Bring efficiency-seeking and get marginal gains. Bring genuine curiosity and discover new possibilities.

Here’s something to try this week. Take your most routine task. The report, the analysis, the update you’ve done a hundred times. Before asking AI to replicate it, ask a different question. What would make this unnecessary? What question should we be asking instead?

You might discover the task still matters. Or you might realize you’ve been generating reports nobody reads, tracking metrics nobody uses, or solving problems that stopped being relevant two years ago.

Efficiency fades. What feels efficient today becomes everyone’s baseline tomorrow. But invention endures. The capacity to see what others miss, to ask what others skip, to build what nobody else imagines yet.

The curious will see opportunity. The creative will see possibility. The courageous will see permission. Together they will build what comes next.

The tools are here. The door is open. Work we haven’t imagined yet waits on the other side. Solving problems not yet seen, creating value in ways that don’t exist today.

Only if you’re willing to ask better questions.

Photo by Subhasish Dutta on Unsplash – the path to reinvention

Providing Room to Fail

Organizational culture, not technology, is the hardest part of innovation

How many of your projects are truly innovative? If you have any, what’s your success rate? Would you consider your success rate to be all-star caliber?

This baseball analogy is almost a cliché, but it holds up. A professional hitter with a .300 average is considered excellent (all-star?). That means they fail seven times out of ten.

Now imagine applying this to innovation. What if only 30% of your projects succeed? At first glance, that sounds like a losing record. But if the successful projects provide 10x productivity increases, transform your customer’s experience, or massively boost profitability…30% success would yield incredible results for your organization.

This is the kind of opportunity in front of us today with AI. Tools are maturing quickly. The potential is staggering. Every company, large or small, is beginning to experiment.

Some will tiptoe. Others will dive headfirst. All will face a mix of breakthroughs and busts.

There will be tools that don’t deliver on promises, pilots that fizzle, and teams that struggle with adoption. But there will also be amazing homeruns. Projects that reshape the business and redefine what’s possible.

Many leaders today are focusing on which AI tools to purchase and how to train their teams. That’s the easy part.

The harder part is creating space for both the hits and the strikeouts. If people feel they must succeed every time, they probably won’t swing at all. They’ll play it safe and stick with what they know.

Innovation will grind to a halt.

Providing room to fail doesn’t mean celebrating mistakes. It means making sure your team knows that experiments, even the ones that fall short, are part of making progress. Leaders who demand perfection get compliance. Leaders who make room for failure get innovation.

As you lead your organization into AI and beyond, remember that your job isn’t to guarantee every swing is a hit.

Your job is building a culture where people are willing to keep taking swings.

Photo by Chris Chow on Unsplash

Optimize Today, Invent Tomorrow

Automation makes the machine run smoother. Innovation changes where the machine is going.

Automation hunts for efficiency. It tries to do what we did yesterday, but faster and cheaper. It targets the transactional and trims overhead. It removes steps and reduces friction. When done well, it buys back time.

Automation is valuable work and the price of admission for any organization.

But efficiency alone won’t differentiate.

Innovation asks different questions. Harder questions. Where are we trying to take our customers next? What experience would make them rethink what’s possible with us?

Innovation seeks to create new value.

Innovation needs space, a space that promotes bold and creative thinking.

It might mean dedicating 20% of a team’s work to exploring customer problems without predetermined solutions.

Or creating quarterly “innovation days” where normal metrics don’t apply.

Or creating time in leadership meetings for “what if” conversations instead of only “what’s broken” discussions.

Leaders set the tone. They can focus solely on efficiency, or they can ask questions that point their organization toward innovation.

If your new system creates fewer clicks, fewer steps, and lower costs, you automated.

If you created a new customer journey or opened a new market category, you innovated.

Do both well and you reshape the game.

Automation keeps us strong today. Innovation makes us irreplaceable tomorrow.

Photo by Ben Soyka on Unsplash

Planting Your Ideas…and Cultivating Them in an Environment of Trust and Collaboration

Imagine presenting your boss with a blank canvas, expecting them to sketch out the details of your plan—not impressive.

Instead, consider offering a detailed outline of your proposed actions, complete with timelines and expected outcomes. This approach allows your boss to review your thoroughness and provide feedback, while still enabling you to take the lead on the initiative.

As you consistently demonstrate the quality and reliability of your ideas, your boss may rely less on reviewing your plans in detail, knowing they align with your track record of success. This trust opens the door for you to play a more significant role in decision-making and strategy development.

Bosses appreciate having the opportunity to refine and improve upon existing ideas rather than starting from scratch. They usually don’t have the time or are unwilling to take the time to create from scratch. That’s your job.

By presenting well-researched proposals supported by data and evidence, you provide a solid foundation for collaboration. Offering multiple options allows your boss to feel involved in the decision-making process while subtly guiding them toward your preferred solution.

Timing matters. Choose moments when your boss is receptive and avoid times of stress or distraction. By seeking feedback and actively listening to your boss’s input, you demonstrate a willingness to collaborate, adapt, and learn.

Your goal is always to build a relationship of trust and collaboration. When this happens, your ideas have an opportunity to thrive and contribute to your organization’s innovation and growth.

You can walk around with your blank canvas, wondering why your ideas never get attention. Or, you can raise your hand, and share your ideas in a way that multiplies your boss’s (and your) effectiveness. I choose the second option every time.

p/c – Jonny Caspari, Unsplash.com

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Beyond the No Wake Zone

True adventure happens out past the buoys…

I get seasick easily, especially on sailboats (and fighter jets). I’ve been on a few sailing trips. They all had one thing in common. Once we’re outside the no wake zone, my nausea starts. Things go downhill from there until my head is buried under a towel and I try to sleep until we get to dry land. Needless to say, I avoid sailing trips.

I don’t have a problem on cruise ships, except in rough seas. Cruise ships are engineered to deliver a smooth ride for their passengers. Most swells go unnoticed. Passengers wake up in a new port almost every day, and the food and entertainment are usually spectacular.

Harbor cruises work for me. I can handle cruising around inside the no wake zone, looking at all of the boats in their slips, the nice homes on the shoreline, and passing other boats as they make their way out to sea. Christmas time, with all the lights and decorations is the best. It’s relaxing and safe. There are no swells to cause nausea and seasickness.

Every sailor knows the opportunity for new discovery lies beyond the no wake zone. True adventure happens out past the buoys, past the breakwater, and out in the wind and waves. Riding around in the harbor, or lazily enjoying a multi-course dinner on a cruise ship are fun and sometimes exotic. But, neither compare to the adventure of plying the seas in a forty-foot sailboat, with your hand on the tiller.

What about the risks? Staying on shore has risks. Cruise ships certainly carry risk (and sometimes, viruses). We may take comfort that others are managing our risks for us, but nothing is risk free. Storms and rough seas will hit, no matter who drives the boat. Understanding the risks, planning and preparing for them, and facing our challenges head-on is the only consistent winning strategy…at sea, and in life.

What about seasickness? I remember talking with a sailor in Tahiti. We had flown in for a vacation, and met my mother-, and father-in-law, who were sailing their boat across the South Pacific. The sailor was a friend of theirs. I mentioned my problem with seasickness, and how it would prevent me from making such a voyage.

He laughed and said, “The seasickness usually passes after three days at sea. After that, it’s an adventure of a lifetime.”

He was right.

What the Flock is Going on Here!?!?

Which are you, predator or prey?

Lots of animals live and move in groups. Cows, sheep, wildebeest, mackerel, geese, humans…just to name some examples. We’ve come up with lots of names for these groupings: herd, flock, school, gaggle, gang, company, industry trade group, union, political party.

Each of these groupings have one primary purpose: defense. There is safety in numbers, or so the saying goes. Groups moving in unison appear larger to predators. Their coordinated movements confuse and intimidate those who would otherwise do harm to the individuals in the group.

When predators attack, they pick the weakest and most vulnerable in the group to attack first. That’s okay with the group, since protection of the group as a whole is paramount. Any particular individual is less important than the survival of the entire group.

Predators often travel alone. Eagles, bears, cheetahs, sharks, jaguars, Tesla…all loners. Sure, some predators travel in groups. Lions have their pride. Wolves have their pack. Orcas and dolphins have their pods. The primary goal of a predator, whether alone or in a group, is offense. They work in a coordinated effort to maximize return on their energy investment…capturing the most prey with the least amount of energy output.

Nothing is safe in the animal kingdom. The food chain takes no prisoners. The hunter often becomes the hunted. The same is true in human enterprises. In the (hopefully) never ending capitalist cycle of invention, construction, destruction, re-invention, and reconstruction, the roles of predator and prey can switch on a moment’s notice.

An instinctive drive for safety leads to new alliances. Predators who would never think of joining a defensive flock are drawn in by the promise of safety from some new, common enemy. Defense against the enemy becomes the rule of the day. Thoughts of maximizing return on investment, or re-inventing the future, are replaced by a focus on defending the status quo of the flock.

In a uniquely human twist, the defensive flock may even take on a new mission. The defensive flock goes on offense. This flock actively seeks out the lone predators, the re-inventors. They marshal all of their creative energy toward destroying predators before their new ideas wreak havoc on the flock. Protection of the group is all that matters. The individual is less important.

Which are you? Predator or prey? Loner, or flock member? Are you a former predator, now seeking the safety of a new flock? Are you defending the status quo, or throwing in with the crazies who are re-inventing the future? Are you on offense, or defense?

Are you making this choice for yourself, or are you allowing the flock to make the decision for you?

On Being Right

Think back to decisions you made five years ago, two years ago, one year ago.

Knowing what you know today, would you have made the same decisions? Chances are, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and the passage of time, at least a few of your past decisions don’t look as good today.

Think about the decisions you’ll be making today, tomorrow, a year from now.

Do you plan to make the right decision? Of course you do. But, what will “future you” think of these decisions in two years, or five years?

What if the decision you made in the past was the exact right one, but needs to change today in the face of new facts? Will you make the new decision?

As automobile and air travel were being invented, imagine if railroad companies allowed their names (and missions) to change from railroad, to transportation. Railroad companies certainly had the capital and infrastructure advantages necessary to take a commanding lead in all forms of transportation, not just rail. Unfortunately, in the face of new information and disruptive innovation, they chose to hold onto their past “right” decisions. They chose to focus on being the best railroad companies, when they could have become the best transportation companies.

Making new decisions without the burden of always having to defend past decisions can lead to unexpected, and sometimes awe-inspiring, new opportunities.

Are you giving yourself and those around you the freedom to make new, better-informed decisions? Are you willing to be wrong in the past?