Artificial Intelligence (AI): Three Big Year End Decisions
At the end of the year, many CEOs and their boards take the opportunity to review risks and look at the business longer-term to ensure that they have a continued path to sustainable and profitable growth.
One of their main fiduciary duties is to think about the human capital side of the business to be certain that they have the leadership, talent, and pipeline to support the growth aspirations of the company. For 2024, and the first time for some, this will include the impact and potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
BIG DECISIONS ON AI FOR 2024:
As executive recruiters we have a unique vantage point to observe where companies are surviving or failing and get early visibility on the impact of latest trends, such as AI, and how the people side of the business determines their success or underperformance.
Here are three key questions, for CEOs and their boards, to better understand the impact and potential of AI on their business outlook. These questions include revisiting the company’s purpose and strategy, looking at business growth through the lens of change, and a need for new AI and Innovative leadership profiles to make it happen.
- PURPOSE AND STRATEGY: How does the new world of AI impact our purpose and strategy towards an assured path of sustainable and profitable growth? To use an historical analogy, what percentage of our business should stay working on a better horse based solution and what percentage should be focusing on creating the best automobiles?
- GROWTH THROUGH THE LENS OF CHANGE: AI is transforming every industry. For each of our business drivers what type of change and ‘level of impact’ will it take to bust through uncertainty and find a sustainable growth path and how can AI be an accelerator? Do we need iterative, innovative, or disruptive change?
- NEW LEADERSHIP AND TEAM ARCHETYPES: Do we have the best leaders in place to make it all happen? What are the new ‘AI and Innovative Change-Driven Growth’ profiles for our leaders, teams, and organization? How will we attract and develop the leadership and talent to support this?
PURPOSE AND STRATEGY:
The full potential of ‘Humans with AI’ is hugely transformative and akin to the era when we replaced the horse with automobiles. We still have humans in the driving seat but our means of transportation and what we can accomplish takes us into a completely different world.
AI has brought us to this crossroad and CEOs and their boards now need to revisit their purpose and strategy to be certain of sustainable growth in the new world of AI. Specifically, to agree what percentage of their business should stay working on a better horse based solution and what percentage should start focusing on creating the best automobiles?
For some companies this may challenge the board and senior leadership team to step outside their comfort zone to make ‘creativity’ the driving force of the organization.
GROWTH THROUGH THE LENS OF CHANGE:
Next year we will face a continuous stream of unpredictable events and increasing uncertainty of which AI is an enormous factor. Consequently, CEOs and their boards should now look at growth through the ‘lens of change’ which includes three ‘levels of impact’ on the needed transformation of the business…
- Iterative: Doing the same things better, faster, more efficiently or at scale
- Innovative: New things to add new value
- Disruptive: New things that make old things obsolete
For each of your business drivers what type of change and ‘level of impact’ will it take to bust through uncertainty and find a sustainable growth path and how can AI be an accelerator?
Iterative change, doing the same better is not enough anymore. At a minimum, this will take an innovative leadership approach, offering new things to add new value and making old things, that never added value to customers, obsolete.
NEW LEADERSHIP AND TEAM ARCHETYPES:
AI is already disrupting existing industries, creating new markets, and demanding a new set of leadership archetypes. However, when it comes to business growth, our research, and others, shows that it’s not all about AI. Rather, it is ‘Innovation’ that is driving growth and AI is an accelerator.
To navigate through this new world CEOs and their boards will want to ask, do we have the best leaders in place to make it all happen? What are the new ‘AI and Innovative Change-Driven Growth’ profiles for our leaders, teams, and organization and how will we attract and develop the leadership, talent, and pipeline to support this?
AI has shifted the business cycle to a transformational phase and you are either disrupting the market or being disrupted. Companies will need more Game Changers and GameChanging Leadership teams to navigate the way forward and open new business models and markets. Senior executives will need to focus, at a minimum, on an Innovative style of leadership. Shown below are the Leadership profiles.
IN SUMMARY:
The three key questions above have emerged from our recent research into the impact of AI on the people side of the business and work on GameChanging Leadership to find, in the new world of AI, a continued path to sustainable and profitable growth. Please click here to read more.
We hope this view, from the vantage point of executive recruiters, is a helpful stimulus for CEOs and their boards as they make the big decisions on how the potential of AI will transform their business outlook and the critical actions to put in place for a fast start to 2024.
Please let us know if you would like to talk through the leadership, team, or organization profiles to deliver ‘AI and Innovative Change-Driven Growth’ or how to go about selecting or recruiting proven GameChanging Leadership that can unleash the latent ingenuity within teams and across the organization to make it all happen.
Also, if you have found this topic of interest, please connect on LinkedIn for ongoing updates and I’m curious to hear your thoughts as we all find our way in the new AI driven world. Please call me on +1 972 977 4000 or email at peter@topgunventures.com to share your ideas, learnings, or questions.
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