#19 Courage (Part 1 of 2) — Why Nothing Starts
"We should be careful about starting something like this."
Some version of that sentence reaches me several times a year, and it's almost never about something large. The most recent case was 360-degree feedback: one department, a few weeks, software optional, entirely reversible.
Careful about a feedback pilot.
Nobody involved was blocking anything, and I want to be clear about that before I use it as an example. The caution was reasonable by the standards of the place. In organisations like that, nothing stays small: every initiative becomes a proper undertaking, a boulder to be set in motion. Capacity is thin to begin with, so anything new has to queue. By the time it reaches the front, the energy that started it has drained away. That's how most initiatives die in established companies. Not refused. Slowed until nobody quite remembers why they mattered.
Most conversations about AI in organisations are about capability: which tools, which use cases, which skills, what it costs, ...
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