Everyone Underwrites the Plan. Nobody Measures the Team.
Buying a company is an act of belief. The buyer believes the plan will hold, the earnings will grow, and the team will carry both. Two of those three beliefs get tested hard. The third mostly gets a handshake. That third test is management diligence. Here is what testing the earnings looks like. A forensic […]
Most Value-Creation Plans Die in the Same Place
Private equity nearly doubled its deployment speed and still missed plan. The constraint was never pace – it is which term in the change equation went to zero.
The Bench You Think You Have
In June I argued that the bench is the whole game. That post made the case for depth. This one asks the harder question: succession readiness. Not the person the chart names. The person who could actually do the job on Monday. Most leadership teams can produce a chart with successors on it. Still, very […]
The Bench is the Whole Game
Norway came into this World Cup with a simple plan. Go as far as Erling Haaland can carry them. It is thrilling to watch. It is also the most fragile way to build anything. Mark him, rest him, or lose him to a knock. Suddenly there is no second answer. France built the opposite. So […]
C-Suite Turnover Isn’t an Event. It’s the Weather Now.
C-suite turnover used to be an occasional event. A board managed it and moved past it. Now it is the constant condition every organization operates inside, and it runs at record levels across nearly every seat. When turnover is the environment, no company can anchor its stability on the people who happen to stay. The […]
What the Market Reveals About Transformation Readiness in Your Business
Most leaders I talk to hold two things at once. A real, long-term conviction that AI will reshape how their business works — and a board, this quarter, asking what the return on it has been. Those two timelines are at war. The gap between them is where most AI strategy quietly goes wrong, and […]
The Price Just Went Up on Humanity
The Price Just Went Up on Humanity
AI didn’t devalue human contribution. It repriced it.
In February, markets repriced Intuit, Thomson Reuters, Raymond James, and CBRE — not on bad earnings, but on a harder question: is the informational layer still a defensible moat? The answer, increasingly, is no.
But here’s what the panic sellers missed. When the commodity layer collapses — the research, the modeling, the deliverables — the layer above it becomes more valuable. Not less.
McKinsey now runs 25,000 AI agents alongside 40,000 human employees. Their CEO calls it “moving up the stack.” Client-facing roles up 25%. Non-client-facing roles down 25%. They’re not replacing judgment. They’re freeing it.
This is the capstone of a month-long argument. The conclusion is simpler than I expected — and more urgent than most firms are treating it.
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Beyond Automation: AI as a Strategic Thought Partner
The Conversation Is Too Small Most organizations are still talking about AI in the language of efficiency. How do we automate tasks? Reduce cost? Increase speed? That conversation isn’t wrong. It’s just incomplete. The real opportunity isn’t automation. It’s augmentation. AI’s most underutilized role right now is not task execution — it’s thought partnership The […]
Stinkin’ Thinkin’ is Killing AI ROI
The Problem With AI Isn’t Tools. It’s Stinkin’ Thinkin’ in Leadership. Most organizations are doing “AI work” right now—pilots, training, licenses, experimentation. And still, the value isn’t compounding. Here’s what I think is actually happening: The problem with AI isn’t tools. It’s stinkin’ thinkin’ in leadership and problem solving. “Stinkin’ thinkin’” is old recovery language […]
Transformation Readiness in the Age of AI: Fact or Fiction
Are we ever truly ready for transformation? Explore the messy reality behind organizational change, AI disruption, and what transformation readiness really requires in 2026.