I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the EmpowerHerAccess Global Prestige Awards gala last night in Bellevue, Washington hosted by Women in Cloud. If you aren’t familiar with this organization, it’s time you lean in. Led by a talented group of women with vision and the grit to get it done, Women in Cloud has 150,000 members in more than 120 countries and has driven over $600m worth of economic access. Plus, they dance. Oh, I have found my people!

It was a honor to be a finalist in one of the award categories and a huge shout out to Callie Goldsby who won for her transformational work. I had the immense honor of also witnessing Nathalie D’Hers, Microsoft CVP of Employee Experience be given the Icon of the Year award alongside other winners. While my dear friend Heather Cook got to celebrate alongside other authors as a part of the Iconic Leadership book releasing this September chock full of leadership guidance and real-world stories. It was a fantastic night, and it spurred more thought on a subject I think about often – the nature of leadership in this era of AI.

As a species we are at a turning point. AI capabilities are continuing to provide significant breakthroughs and new opportunities. The question is for who? Democratizing access to AI capabilities so they benefit everyone is not at all a forgone conclusion. Consider that only 15% of tech founders are female. We already know that research into women’s health issues is woefully underfunded with only 5% of global research funding directed to those subjects. Our voices globally are under constant scrutiny and attack.

Access to capabilities is being governed by commerce, not the public’s good. And while I do not believe that all data center construction is damaging to the environment, as technology leaders we have lost control of that narrative. We have failed to govern ourselves responsibly so there are multiple examples of poor implementations at a community level. Sadly, though this is a distraction from the deeper issue of data sovereignty, agentic identity and platform access.

What this means is that access, opportunity and democratization of these new capabilities is not a forgone conclusion. AI can be tech for good but right now we don’t know that for sure. We must step forward, claim our space and ensure that our sisters and daughters globally are afforded opportunities at a growing rate. Our considerations, our insights and our fundamental rights are not baked into the ecosystem at large. We must require it and frankly asking nicely isn’t the way. That hasn’t worked very well so far. We didn’t get the right to vote, open bank accounts or to divorce by asking nicely.

While I don’t believe in creating needless conflict I do believe in living in a “No Apology Zone”. Too often we do not see the power, influence and excellence that we bring to the table. We chronically undervalue ourselves and our perspectives. That leaves us vulnerable to manipulation and being taken for granted in our organizations and our lives. Many of us have been conditioned to apologize for things, on a daily basis, that aren’t actually our fault as a verbal signature of our female nature. It’s infuriating. We must use our own intelligence, experience, persuasive skills and data analysis chops to craft business cases that are undeniably the best way to proceed. Combine that with our wisdom to drive inclusive, impactful solutions to these issues. It is not about asking nicely. It’s about being compelling, data driven and engaging. It is about fully stepping into the power that we have inherently developed over time. It is about not taking “No.” or “Not now.” for an answer.

Think about the last time you proposed a solution at work. Here is the checklist I use to ensure people can see a vision they want to be a part of and believe will have impact. This is an executive summary format not a detailed white paper or prospectus format. You have permission in this format to use simple crafted language that allows people to see the bright future you are pitching without the cognitive load of understanding deep technical or new terms. Save that for once they are at least in part inside the world you are crafting for them AFTER they say yes. It goes like this:

• What problem are you solving. Be able to state this in clear simple language in a few sentences.

• What does success look like? State this up front. Pull people into your ideas with a vision they can see themselves reflected in. The language you select here matters. Use terminology that your audience is familiar with. If you must introduce a new term consider doing it later as you delve into operational or strategic details.

• Who is your customer? Who is experiencing this problem and what is their area of expertise? This may or may not be defined by their role.

• What is your solution? I often see new leaders over-explain the details before people have the vision. Or hop here first before defining the prior two items. Again, clear simple language and a few sentences is required at the beginning.

• How will it scale? A fantastic idea for 1000 people may not work for 100 million. Working at Microsoft and serving an audience (in this last year alone) of over 400 million people has taught me that scale, globalization and cultural differences matter to your proposed solution.

• What are the numbers? Total addressable market, proposed revenue, cost of goods, operating costs, gross & net profit, percent of share. These are the basics that you need to know without looking at the slide. Making money while minding the bottom line is key.

• What will be your biggest challenge? Don’t say the money. That’s never true. The challenge might be product awareness, sales cycle time, customer support costs etc. But don’t say securing the initial investment though that may be top of mind for you in the moment.

The MOST important part of this formula is your own confidence. Not hubris or arrogance but grounded confidence that when you proceed you will succeed. Those exact words are chosen on purpose. In every project I pitch I assume I’ll be moving forward and that allows me to look backward from a position of accomplishment rather than forward with the doubt of uncertainty. It’s fine if it doesn’t happen but in doing this I’m able to better see uncharted territory, anticipate objections and assess real risks. It also frees me from my logical mind and engages my full nervous system to envision the future.

Whether you use this list or some other, owning your ability to craft a future that contributes to this change in a positive way, reclaims our space and power and puts you in the driver’s seat of your own destiny is critical to our ability to thrive. You can practice this on small things at home and then take the practice into the workplace. Get comfortable with envisioning your own success and looking back at how you got there. Spend a bit less time envisioning the obstacles and difficulties and more in basking in the glow of your accomplishment. Trust me on this. It works.

In learning a new K-pop dance with a room full of talented leaders last night I was reminded: We must step forward, out of our comfort zones, and lead to ensure a future where more women can dance, thrive and create. Doing this at scale for millions gets me out of bed every day and I’m thrilled at the work in front of me. There are more dances and projects to lead and I’m here for it. Are you? Let’s do this dance together!

Title quote by: Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Roman Stoic Philosopher, 4 BC to 65 AD

These are not unprecedented times. They are simply the times we live in.

Violence, upheaval, disruption and injustice at scale have happened many times before. Our ancestors have endured much more. For me, that is not the issue.

The issue is how are WE going to respond? Staying calm, knowing verifiable facts, being open to new knowledge and taking action within your sphere of control is wisdom in action. That is what I attempt to do with my content and my life.

As a person of color having to accept the fact that people who look just like me can be unlawfully detained and imprisoned is not new. Especially if we speak up for what is rightfully ours. What is new is that the sphere of white privileged that has surrounded so many of my friends and colleagues is shrinking. That sphere is now reserved for those who blindly agree with the current regime. The ask for blind loyalty is also not new and does not discriminate by political or religious affiliation. It is also fleeting in that the requirements for entry into the sphere of safety can change, based on the whims of those in charge less likely to be constrained by facts, law or common decency. You may read this and think you are safe. But that is only for today.

Willful ignorance is the enemy of us all.

Willful ignorance is the enemy of progress, equity and empathy. When you shake your head, change the channel and go “back to your real life” you are willfully ignoring the suffering of “others”. In doing what seems innocuous in the moment recognize you are retreating to the sphere of calm your privilege affords you. As the group of “others” that you need to ignore becomes larger, the acts of injustice larger, soon you have to ignore even the suffering of your neighbors. Soon, your family members. Where does it stop?

Do you ignore it if they imprison your child because your child spoke up? What happens if they ruin the professional life of your spouse because they failed to remain silent? Does some part of you, now conditioned to changing the channel, think they deserved it? Do you ever stop to wonder who will bear witness for you when you are finally moved to action?

Privilege is its own weapon.

Privilege can be deployed as a weapon of intention on behalf of others. We can use privilege to attempt to insulate ourselves and ignore what is happening or we can use it to create a better, more just and open society for ourselves and our children. The simple privilege of me writing this blog is an example. It is using my ability to speak out on my platform about things that matter to me, and I believe to us all. We are not the first to face this question, but we are the ones facing it today.

The question remains: What, in your own way, are you doing with your privilege?

Some ideas:

• Call your Governor

• Call your State Attorney General

• Call your State Senator or Congressperson

• Attend local town halls and know your local representatives

• Volunteer for voter registration events

• Volunteer for community support charities e.g. delivering food, providing transportation or simply handling intake at some of these overwhelmed agencies.

All of these ideas focus on human connection - calling is more impactful that sending an email, volunteering in person more rewarding than writing a check. Writing a check however to your favorite organization is also worthwhile to continue to fund their work. It’s important to acknowledge that we are at a point where the right kind of human engagement is far better.

Above all it’s important to stay hopeful. This current tragic situation in the United States is a moment in time built on a legacy of racism, classism and misogyny. We can make it pass by focusing on good trouble, sustained action and speaking out.

We will prevail. The arc of the Universe demands it and so do we.

Participating in events in and around Davos can be a daunting affair. Even when you are with a familiar delegation of colleagues, the sheer scale of activities and voices can feel overwhelming. This year was my second and so I planned to mitigate this with a focused schedule and clear objectives. I realize what a tremendous privilege it is to join 10,000 +/- of my colleagues (3k for the official World Economic Forum and 6-10k for all the events) at what is arguably the epicenter of global policy, academia, thought leadership, founders and corporate organizations.

What I wanted, more than anything, was to leave with a clearer understanding of next steps in the big picture. How should leaders be looking at AI, quantum, tech acceleration and geopolitical influences as they plot their course over the next 12 months. Individual products, businesses and initiatives will have their own priorities but if I had to explain what is happening next, or what should be, to the average business unit leader what would I say?

More important, what would these thought leaders say? I’m excited to share here that I’ll be delivering a new podcast produced by Coffee in the Cloud called the Spin Free Zone. In this series we’ll skip the hype and have thought leaders help us focus on clear actions for our agentic future. I’ll share a post here when our first episodes drop later this month.

I do have to share with you about the “Trump Effect”. The event had a shadow of his arrival (though late), speech (too long) and exit (very fast) but not the way you might think. Given that I’m American and well trained in business etiquette I never brought up this topic. Others however were keen to ask about the real impact of Trump in our communities and our families. Are we really divided (yes) and not speaking to family members over this MAGA movement (also yes!)? They were trying to calibrate the snippets they see on television with a real American’s perspective. I did my best to represent a balanced view of our situation, where our rights, norms and systems of government have been relentlessly under attack and the impact of Project 2025 and the conservative right. I indulged myself in sharing a hope that we would have truly qualified people in the highest level of government rather than only those who pass a loyalty test. I spoke carefully, without too much passion, but with clarity about the issues that now face us and other countries around the world who are seeing a resurgence in this type of blind nationalism.

I also tried to represent why his rise was inevitable based on the large swath of people in the United States who have been left behind by career politicians of all flavors. How some flock to evangelical structures when their sense of self is so shaken things feel deeply uncertain. We had interesting discussions about class structures, institutionalized limits to upward mobility, the influence of money in politics and more. It felt like observing a moment in history from a unique perch.

So while that was happening I blissfully went back to focusing on my true purpose there - AI, business and what comes next.

To organize my own thoughts and learnings I’ve grouped them into the following categories: business strategy; governance & policy; technology & research; and human change management. I’ve distilled these insights from overall WEF conversations and sessions, the MIT Imagination in Action event, the Female Quotient panel series sponsored by Adweek and Microsoft and last but very much not least, unDavos 26 event full of change agents, disrupters and innovators. Let’s take a look at each category:

Business Strategy:

Reinvention not Upgrades in Place: Business leaders, having been convinced they don’t want to be left behind, are hurtling toward change. They are investing in AI while struggling to find the right business process to enhance or area in which to drive efficiencies. Collectively many of my peers and I aren’t convinced this is the right approach. Instead, we’d suggest a pause. Think about business reinvention to drive profitability, not with staff efficiencies, but with growth that improves, expands or invents new outcomes. Now that AI capabilities are at your fingertips how would you rebuild your business using these tools? Do more with more!

Holistic Cultural Change: I know, we’ve said this before but REALLY this time it is essential to drive end to end cultural change. Becoming a learning organization, investing in innovation, reframing your entire business and transforming your workforce must be done together, not piecemeal. The most successful organizations are embracing the AI frontier as an opportunity to rethink revenue streams, product lines, talent development and brand ethos. They understand that they must play a longer game, with shorter cycle times for change.

Governance & Policy:

International Cooperation: Though Davos was somewhat disrupted by the US President’s speech overall the mood was hopeful and clear. It is understood, certainly outside of the US, that international cooperation must be embraced to reap the most impactful benefits from AI while mitigating the risks. No one can afford to walk this path alone. Overall, there are choices to be made to ensure that this technology does not end up sequestered in a few companies or countries. We must collectively make these choices together, leveraging all our collective talent to accomplish this lofty goal.

AI Legal Personhood: An example of this type of cooperation is the call for an immediate ban on AI legal personhood. This call to action comes from those with academic and scientific areas and we would be well to heed their warning. Significant damage has been done by granting corporations legal personhood. The consequences of doing so with AI agents could be devastating. Imagine a corporation entirely staffed by AI agents. Who would we hold the accountability for that entity’s actions? That is just one scenario of course, but it should give us all pause.

Technology and Research

Open AI Capabilities: Infrastructure, compute, shared knowledge bases (LLMs etc.) that are readily accessible by all are needed to ensure that the benefits of this technology are equally distributed. We have a long way to go on this front especially given we still have internet access diffusion difficulties around the globe.

The Arrival of Superintelligence - In multiple forums there was disagreement about the arrival of superintelligence but agreement it is coming. Where and how remains unclear. The risk and impact of this however need to be mitigated. Conducting the proper research to enhance our current AI systems to be able to discern a fact from a lie is essential. This not only safeguards our engagement with superintelligence but improves our ability to mitigate the impact of deep fakes and more.

Human Change Management

Moving from Consumer to Builder: As we help land what is beneficial to people about AI we must combat the AI anxiety that grips the average worker. We must find creative ways to inspire them to use AI for more that the daily productivity gains baseline change programs taut as important. Owning your own knowledge, building off of it and monetizing that is important. Also think of how many great ideas needed technical or business support to see the light of day - AI can provide that support for individuals to do things they only dreamed of. This is the true potential of AI in society.

Talent Development: This is no longer the single domain of the Chief People Officer. Each business unit leader must think about the development of their staff with these new tools. Absolutely critical knowledge is within you workforce. How will you capture that information as well as ensure that you skill up every single member of your company to leverage these new tools. Employees must also ensure they are focused on their own well-being and career trajectory independent of what the company is (or isn’t) doing.

Conclusion

Reinventing business, codifying knowledge and ensuring access for all is our future. To ensure its advantageous for you make sure you are going from AI consumer to AI builder to AI inventor. This learning journey involves updating old habits, validating your knowledge and developing new superpowers. Hanging on to a past that no longer exists is a surefire way to limit your career and your business growth. The good news - we are all doing this together!

Share your thoughts in the comments or direct to me on LinkedIn or BlueSky.

There are moments in your career when the air feels different — where ideas move faster, conversations cut deeper, and the future feels palpably close. Heading into Davos next week for the MIT “Imagination in Action” event and the unDavos panel on “Crafting an AI‑Native Organization,” I’m buzzing with exactly that feeling.

Davos has always been a unique crossroads of technology, policy, academia, and global business. But this year feels distinct. The conversations aren’t speculative. They’re pragmatic, urgent, and deeply human. We’re no longer asking if AI will reshape how organizations operate — we’re asking how, how fast, and how responsibly. I’m privileged to be able to lend my voice and insights on leadership and human change management to the mix.

Simply being in Davos is electric. There are multitude of events via the formal World Economic Forum calendar. Policy makers and global leaders come together to discuss risks, issues and strategic direction. The street is transformed into a host of event venues for other organizations, including Microsoft, to host and craft their influence on world events. Premier organizations like MIT host thought leadership events and unDavos was born out of a desire to ensure a truly open exchange of ideas on a broad range of topics, from a truly diverse and connected community. What a joy to participate in both.

Learning at the Intersection of Research, Reality, and Responsibility

Attending MIT’s Imagination in Action Davos AI Summit is a highlight I’ve been looking forward to for months. The theme this year, as designed by IIA founder John Werner, is “the Inflection of Intelligence: Our World Reimagined” and the event CSAIL has long been a bellwether for where intelligent systems are heading, and this gathering brings together researchers, technologists, executives, and policymakers who are actively turning cutting‑edge research into real‑world impact.

Take a look at a compilation of some of the leaders, Nobel Laureates and more from last year’s event:

What excites me most is the spirit behind the event: imagination grounded in action. This is a time for me to learn, be inspired, contribute my thoughts and bring the experience to others both inside Microsoft and here for all of you!

As someone deeply focused on customer experience, adoption, and enablement, these conversations are invaluable. They help bridge the gap between what’s technically possible and what’s actually usable, trusted, and scalable inside organizations.

Speaking at unDavos: Crafting an AI‑Native Organization

I’m also honored to be speaking on the unDavos panel in the REWIRE track entitled, “Crafting an AI‑Native Organization.” This topic couldn’t be timelier. Last year was my first time attending unDavos and I was struck by the enthusiasm of the attendees and the welcoming tone of the event. It reminded me in fact of many of our Microsoft community events where I found my home more than 20 years ago. You can see for yourself via one of their preparation webinars on how to make the most of your time at the event:

An AI‑native organization isn’t defined by how many tools it deploys or how flashy its models are. It’s defined by how deeply AI is woven into decision‑making, workflows, culture, and values. It’s about redesigning the operating model — not just optimizing the old one. This also requires that leaders think differently about their workforce. The institutional knowledge required to make AI successful resides within your most seasoned employees. Becoming AI native means embodying the integration of human and AI into something beyond either independent of each other.

Register for my unDavos Panel

I’ll share the stage with:

Panelists & moderator Stephan Balzer

Panelist and unDavos leader, Stéphanie Kioutsoukis

Panelist, ⁠⁠Mark Turrell

unDavos creates space for more candid, less performative conversations — the kind where people can speak honestly about what’s working, what isn’t, and what we’re still figuring out. I can’t wait to learn from everyone.

Community Reporting to Share the Energy

I’m also happy to announce that I’ll be an unDavos Community Reporter and will publish my interviews and insights direct from Davos here and on my Coffee in the Cloud YT channel. I’m thrilled to bring a portion of this electric environment to my audience of leaders and change managers.

Being surrounded by technology innovators, academic visionaries, and business leaders who are collectively shaping the future is energizing in a way that’s hard to describe, but I’ll try! It reinforces the responsibility we carry as builders and leaders: to ensure the systems we create expand opportunity, empower people, and align with human values.

As I head into these events, I’m excited to listen, learn, contribute, and bring these insights back into my work — turning inspiration into action.

More reflections to come, straight from Davos.

Maybe it hasn’t hit your business yet. The disruption that AI is causing. Or maybe, like me, you are living and breathing it every day. It’s not the only disruption in global markets or on Main Street at the moment. I’ll leave it to others to detail the laundry list of ill-advised government policies (from everyone), unethical behavior and the tell-tale signs of untethered capitalism. I’m not an oracle nor have I been granted an MBA by a Ivy League school. What I am is a long-time student in the practical application of business strategy in the real world, with real people. So let’s talk about that.

We have businesses to run. They aren’t just for fun. They feed our families, employee countless people and contribute to an economy that should, in theory, support people improving their existence. When ethical business leaders are in charge that’s exactly what happens. We do exist you know. Business leaders, like me, who care about the workforce, the future and the legacy we are leaving. We are not the unicorns that popular culture makes us out to be!

On a daily basis that commitment to ethical operations and long-term investment is challenged by the realities of stock markets, shrinking margins and competitive pressure. If it was easy – everyone would do it. But that is another point – everyone SHOULD be able to do it. Many people dream of “being their own boss” and starting their own firm but are ill prepared for the daily grid of these ongoing challenges.

Having a great idea is not the same thing as having a solid business plan or the talented staff to execute it quarter after quarter.

No matter what the external pressures are today many businesses implode from the inside out or worse suffer a slow and painful death over time. An overreliance on the speed of product development rather than workforce investments mean lackluster deliverables. Too much investment in people with a blind eye to external competition means falling behind. So, what are you supposed to do?

Here’s what I’ve learned. As always take what you need and leave the rest. Remember, there is no silver bullet. Business management is something you practice and continually refine like the craft it is. There is no replacement for experience.

Number 1: STOP

Take a period of time to stop your daily hustle and step back. Complete a dispassionate review of your organization. Not the 3 month consultant version of a business evaluation. Your own “eval” based on your own empirical and intuitive knowledge of your organization. This applies to you whether you are CEO, a division or a team leader or whether you have that title or no. This work can be done at any level. Answer these question:

• On a scale of 1-5 with no “3” allowed how would your people tell each other they are doing?

• How are your sales – both with returning / existing customers and in acquiring new customers?

• What does your support queue look like? How quickly are you resolving any issues that exist?

• How healthy are your pipelines? Of product, committed sales and talent?

#ProTip – Put this prompt in your favorite AI tool you use at work:
Give me an example of a balanced scorecard for measuring the business impact of my team for my company’s objectives.

This will return some examples of generic metrics that you can use as inspiration for your own assessment. Add to this elements of employee wellbeing for an end to end picture.

Number 2: LOOK

Now that you have some data to work with where are the obvious challenges. This is where you want to dive more deeply. For the record, in order of importance are your people, your sales and your support. Without a healthy workforce the latter two can not be addressed.

Before running headlong into an action plan reflect. Look at yourself. How have you contributed to whatever challenge you are facing. Often, issues start at the top but leaders feel as if there is so little time to be retrospective that things go unaddressed. This is leadership opportunity for growth because frequently the only thing you can really change is your approach to a given situation.

Marshall Goldberg, a well-known executive coach, said “What got you here, won’t get you there.” and that could not be more true today. Adaptability, and your willingness to change, is your best superpower for these disruptive times.

Beyond adjusting your own leadership methods can you find areas for improvement in your product, sales or service spaces that are not extremely heavy to implement. These types of changes can be as simple as improving collaboration by having defined locations for customer content to creating Office Hours types of meetings to quickly unblock people attempting to close deals or solve customer problems. Look for obvious and quick things and ask yourself or your direct reports what change they’d prioritize if they were in a specific role.

#ProTip – Compile this list into a document or if you are using Copilot a Page in the Microsoft experience. Ask Copilot or other AI based tool what improvements might be easiest or most beneficial to implement. Evaluate the AI results based on your own knowledge.

Number 3: LISTEN

Now that you have information and some insight it’s time for relationship building. Pull in your influential staff members. Tell them what you are doing and then ask them what they think, and what they would do if they were you. This might take a minute because this conversation requires trust.

You may find that you are short on people who will tell you what you don’t want to hear. That’s another critical piece of information. Strong leadership means you have people in your circle who will freely disagree with you, pushing you to grow. Without that stagnation is unavoidable.

Do more listening than talking in these meetings. Don’t share your ideas or solutions yet. Let others do that. Conduct these meetings one on one unless you have a team that is mature and can truly share in front of each other. In case you don’t know that’s another red flag you aren’t spending enough time building trust between team members. Be mindful that different people share differently – extroverts may not have an issue sharing in a team setting but for an introvert that can be harrowing. Create the right spaces to get to the valuable insights of people you trust.

Once these things are done you should have achieved 3 things:

1. You have clarity about areas of opportunity

2. You know what about your own leadership approach you need to adjust

3. You’ve made a deposit into the trust account between you and your leaders

You are now ready to take some action. Its great if you can empower your leaders to take the action. People who have ideas often love to be the ones to actually implement them AND they have the passion to see it through. They are committed and want to be a part of the solution. Do not waste this talent on needing to be the one with the ideas or perceived power. Let your team lead when they can and if not lead that change yourself.

#ProTip - Being a coach instead of a do’er is often better in times of disruption. Whenever you can support others leading the change, do. Encourage, recognize and amplify their success at every turn to build momentum and well-being on the team.

Give this a shot. If you have more ideas share them in the comments. Whatever you do, don’t let the market disruption destroy your culture or ability to plan with your team. Building these muscles will allow you to be flexible and adapt to market conditions quickly. That is a superpower worth having!

I hear it a lot – people distracted with AI anxiety. They are wondering about their jobs and our future. They are focused on uncertainty and the worst-case scenarios that could occur. It’s driving me a little crazy.

AI is not what disturbs me. What disturbs me is folks not understanding their own worth.

AI can’t take what you don’t willing give up through inaction and fear.

Exhale, make a plan and get into action. This is YOUR career and isn’t up to others to ensure that it is protected for the future. AI is only one threat vector you need to be aware of. There’s reorganizations, corporate downsizing, market disruptions and so much more. So NOW is the time to get serious. For this article however I’m going to focus on AI as a potential career threat.

The value an experienced worker brings to the table cannot be replaced by our current iterations of AI. Even when we gaze into the future and see what’s next in an agentic world, humans have an edge that apparently many are dismissing. AI is a tool. It goes where we point it and with the information we give it. Current iterations use what we give it rather than spontaneously generating truly new knowledge. It excels at certain tasks but connection, intuition, humanity and multilayered emotional judgement are not on that list. Without human oversight, for ill or for good, AI is not capable of replacing complex human centric, relationship oriented tasks in business.

“Oh but it will be, Karuana! Just wait until….” That is the blah blah that people enamored with their own technology tend to say. But I remember all the other promises tech has made over time and the track record we have as an industry. Based on that empirical data I remain unconcerned. I’ve been a business woman since I was 6 years old playing with a plastic phone and deeply understand the elements of a successful career. I remain simultaneously unconcerned and motivated.

It goes deeper than that. Many workers do not feel in charge of their own destiny. They feel at the mercy of corporate big wigs and policies which are always in search of productivity and profit over the wellbeing of the workforce. This is the root of the anxiety that is prevalent today in certain sectors of our workforce. So what do we do? We can not sit on our hands, put our heads in the sand and simply take what the tech industry doles out. As with most things, we need an action plan. Here are my suggestions:

1. Build your skills: Whatever discipline you choose it is essential to be on top of your game. Now is not the time to sit back and cruise. It’s important to continue to invest in your own specific skill set to advance your professional reputation. In the trades, healthcare, manufacturing, real estate, media or oil and gas these industries, and many others, have a requirement for specialized skill sets not easily replicated without human support by AI. To put it plainly, being a bad ass at what you do is your first line of defense.

2. Specialize: A career does not often reward the generalist. Specialty knowledge is your second line of defense. For instance, I am not a general technology strategist. I have a specialty in Microsoft products, specifically Microsoft 365 & Copilot plus secondary specialties in human change management and media production. This gives my career (or my job search if I had to do one) a focus beyond the general IT Pro background. It also is FUN. I have specialized in things I enjoy and you can too. Work CAN be enjoyable when you find the thing you love and are good enough at it that you can make a living doing that work.

3. Invest in Relationships: This talent is drastically underrated in our tech industry. It is human relationships within and outside of your organization that provide further insulation for your career. When people know you, know what you can do and how you deliver they are more likely to bring you onto key projects and generally protect your livelihood with the company when they can. Outside the company, key contacts can ensure that if you do face layoff or want to proactively make a change you have warm introductions to hiring managers. Always build relationships with intention and authenticity ensuring they are not transactional for the greatest benefit.

4. Manage your Brand: I’ve written another article on this topic specifically but there is no substitute for telling your career story inside and outside of your organization. This is not narcissistic bragging. This is sharing your story, with wins and losses, in a way that clarifies your talent to others and allows you to further cement your specialties and relationships across your specific industry. If you don’t own your story, someone else will!

5. Learn Relevant AI: Yes, this too. You cannot ignore AI as a passing trend. It is not a trend, it’s a sea change and here to stay. Start small with personal tasks and then expand your use of AI into your daily routine. I use AI for research, blog ideas, rewrites, planning and more. It is immensely helpful when applied appropriately to my daily job and side hustles. I continue to think of new ways to apply its skill set to streamline my own personal productivity and that of my team. Much like the cloud I understand its capabilities, oversee its results and dream up new use cases. Knowing its limitations also makes me feel more confident in my own skills set.

All of these suggestions are designed to get you in action. Taking control of your career now that AI is a prevalent part of our lives is essential to combating any AI anxiety you are experiencing. Oh, and there’s one more thing – ignore the pundits and tech billionaires who want to opine about getting to Mars and what the next workforce will look like. They are forgetting fundamental elements of our humanity and the way people work separate from the technology.

Embracing a plan like the above, or another that you create for yourself, cannot completely insulate you from changes to the workforce that are a constant. What it can do is allow you to strengthen your position, fortify your skill set, heighten your brand and prepare you for whatever comes next.

Being in mindful, strategic action is always better than sitting in fear and anxiety. You owe it to yourself to get started today.

Let me know in the comments more of your ideas for protecting and expanding your career. Together we can make sure AI benefits us all.

Holiday weekends and vacations are often anticipated with excitement—a break from the routine, a chance to celebrate with friends and family, and an opportunity to recharge. But for many, these supposedly restful days can bring a surprising and often overwhelming sense of mental exhaustion. If you’ve ever found yourself feeling more drained than rejuvenated after a long weekend, you’re not alone. One explanation lies in a phenomenon known as “stress stacking.”

The Paradox of Holiday Weekends

On paper, a holiday weekend should be a time for relaxation and joy. In reality, it can introduce a unique set of pressures. There are travel plans to coordinate, social gatherings to attend, meals to prepare, and sometimes, family dynamics to navigate. Instead of letting go of stress, we often find ourselves collecting more of it. As women we often bear the brunt of this planning, execution and coordination exactly when the executive functions of our brains need a much deserved rest. I know, I’m generalizing but its my lived experience that most family planning comes from the matriarch of the group. Or, if you are like me, the person who takes on the role of family Camp Coordinator.

Understanding Stress Stacking

Stress stacking refers to the process where multiple sources of stress accumulate, layering on top of each other rather than dissipating. Unlike a single stressful event, which we might be able to address and move past, stress stacking involves a build-up: unfinished work tasks, last-minute errands, caregiving tasks, social commitments, and the emotional labor of meeting everyone’s expectations. Each additional stressor, no matter how small, adds to the mental load, eventually leading to exhaustion.

Stress stacking is exacerbated by the current times we are living in. Political and social upheaval, uncertainty both with government actions and financial markets, the unaddressed toll of the pandemic and the potential return to work mandates erroneously applied to everyone. I could go on, but you get the point. And yes, again there’s generalizations incorporated in my description but hey, look around if you aren’t paying attention to what others are experiencing!

Why Holiday Weekends Amplify Mental Exhaustion

There are several factors that amplify mental exhaustion during holidays:

• Disrupted Routines: Our brains thrive on routine, and holidays often throw our schedules into chaos. The lack of structure can be surprisingly taxing.

• Social Overload: Back-to-back gatherings, even when enjoyable, can drain introverts and extroverts alike.

• Unrealistic Expectations: The pressure to make the most of every moment can leave us feeling inadequate or disappointed if things don’t go as planned.

• Lingering To-Do Lists: Responsibilities don’t disappear just because it’s a holiday—if anything, they multiply.

• Societal Pressure: It may be fundamentally difficult to NOT take on the role of Camp Coordinator in your family unit leaving you feeling pressure to accomplish the task to everyone’s expectations.

Recognizing the Signs of Mental Exhaustion

Common symptoms of mental exhaustion include irritability, trouble concentrating, difficulty sleeping, and a lack of motivation. During a holiday weekend, you might notice yourself feeling impatient with loved ones, zoning out during conversations, or simply wanting to retreat from the festivities.

This can also be exacerbated by the regular symptoms of perimenopause, menopause or other underlying, untreated health conditions. Often in my own life I have not noticed I wasn’t feeling well until I shifted down from my “rapid response operations” mode of keeping all the balls in the air. All of a sudden, when I started to exhale and relax, something started to hurt. The truth was it hurt all along but I just wasn’t aware of my physical state enough to notice. For me, getting in tune with how I feel day to day has been a habit I’m continually building.

Managing Stress Stacking During Holidays

In a more normal historical period, without such profound and rapid stressors in succession, we would be able to manage stress one issue at a time. But we are not living in those times. New skills are required to navigate our current timeline with its assault of change, disruption and pressure.

While I’m normally viewed as a very social person when I’m not at my day job I require a lot of down time – to read, think and rest my mind and voice. I abhor adrenaline related hobbies and prefer to cook, rest and go places that connect me to nature, art and history. I find this allows me to reconnect with the bigger picture of life in healing ways. This year I even vocally resigned my position as Camp Coordinator for our family camping trip. While this led to some chaos it was great for me and even for others to be in charge of their own experience. I put my feet up, listened to music and took a nap. It was wonderful!

Here are some other ideas you can utilize to reduce your vacation stress:

1. Set Realistic Expectations: Accept that not everything will go perfectly. Focus on what matters most and let go of the rest. This includes other people’s expectations of what you are or are not doing.

2. Build in Downtime: Protect moments of quiet—even 10 minutes alone can help reset your mind. I have learned to schedule at a minimum am off day before and after any trip we take to allow myself to relax and regroup before returning to work. For me at this point this is not optional and yes, that means we leave things early sometimes. That’s OK. I’ve now learned to be assertive about my needs in ways my family understands rather than pushing myself beyond my limits.

3. Prioritize Self-Care: Don’t neglect sleep, nutrition, or exercise. These habits are even more important during busy times.

4. Communicate Boundaries: It’s okay to say no to some invitations or delegate responsibilities. Even when things don’t go as planned that can be a wonderful time to have spouses, children and extended family learn how to operate for themselves.

5. Reflect and Reset: After the weekend, take stock of what worked and what didn’t, so you can adjust for next time.

When I speak of these ideas in public often other women will say, “Oh, but the kids…” or “Oh, but my partner…” Yada yada, blah blah. Stop it! Neither your kids nor your partner want you to be exhausted, unwell or mentally fatigued. If you explain that you simply NEED time to rest, recuperate and reconnect they will understand. And, if they don’t or you have trained them to not believe you when you communicate your needs then you have some work to do for yourself to set healthy boundaries that show you respect yourself. Modelling this behavior for our kids is essential to their own mental health and wellness.

Prioritize Yourself to Serve Your Community

Holiday weekends can be both a source of joy and a trigger for mental exhaustion, especially when stress stacking goes unchecked. By recognizing the signs and taking proactive steps to manage your mental load, you can protect your well-being—and maybe even reclaim the restful spirit these holidays are meant to provide. This in turn makes you unstoppable as you serve your community, both large and small. This time in life requires all we have to offer. I for one am learning to deeply care for my own needs so I can continue to serve in all the ways I love to.

Now, back to that nap!

The age of artificial intelligence is marked by rapid transformation, disruptive innovation, and a relentless pace that can feel both exhilarating and overwhelming. As a leader, it’s easy to feel like you’re caught in a skid on a slick road—instinct tells you to slam on the brakes, but real wisdom comes from “leaning into the skid.” By accepting the pace of change and steering with intention, you can guide your team safely through the chaos and uncertainty. However, this constant acceleration brings real risks: change fatigue and burnout.

Leaning into the skid doesn’t mean surrendering to chaos.

Here are three key tips to help you and your team guard against these challenges while leading boldly in the AI era:

1. Normalize Rest and Reflection

In a culture obsessed with productivity, rest can feel like a luxury. But especially amid ongoing transformation, intentional pauses are vital and an essential part of the #PeopleFirst strategy. Build structured downtime into your team’s schedule—whether through regular “meeting-free” hours, reflection days, or simply encouraging people to use their vacation time. Reflect on what’s working, what isn’t, and what can be improved. This not only recharges energy, but also sparks insight and innovation. It can also set an excellent example for staff and other leaders in your organization.

People need mental space to rediscover curiosity, creativity and calm.

2. Communicate Transparently and Set Clear Priorities

AI’s rapid evolution can make priorities feel like moving targets and it is not the only societal, technical or organizational change that people are dealing with. Combat overwhelm by being clear about what truly matters right now. Communicate the “why” behind new initiatives, and transparently acknowledge the uncertainty inherent in the industry. Empower your team to focus on high-impact work by regularly reassessing goals, clarifying expectations, and ruthlessly prioritizing what moves the needle.

Proactive and repeated communication provides structure during times of change.

3. Foster Psychological Safety and Resilience

Change fatigue often stems from fear—of failing, of falling behind, or of not being able to keep up. As a leader, creating an environment of psychological safety is paramount. Encourage open dialogue about stress and workload, celebrate learning from mistakes, and provide resources for mental health and resilience. Model vulnerability by sharing your own challenges. When people feel safe and supported, they’ll be better equipped to ride out the twists and turns of AI-driven change.

Psychological safety is a precursor to a high performing team. Investing in it yields measurable results.

Leaning into the skid doesn’t mean surrendering to chaos—it means accepting the reality of constant motion and guiding your team with steadiness and empathy. By prioritizing rest, clarity, and psychological safety, you’ll not only guard against burnout, but also unlock your team’s creativity and adaptability in this remarkable era of AI. High performance teams are a result of investing in well being and clarity. Together we can make sure to drive meaning and satisfaction through this era. Share how you guard against change fatigue in your teams or ask your questions below!

When people talk about professional branding a lot of folks groan. “I’m too busy for all that.” They are confusing the nebulous process of becoming some kind of influencer with career management. I have always said that if you don’t manage what people know about you someone else will. YOU are the author of your story. It’s not smart to let random ghostwriters, or worse no one at all, manage this process.

I’ve given presentations on this for over a decade because its critical for everyone, but especially women and people of color in technology, to take an active role in managing the storytelling that surrounds our careers. Stereotypes about us still exist and are fueled by misinterpretations and in some cases malignant disinformation about our skills, capabilities and personalities. I do not want that narrative existing unchallenged. If someone says something disparaging about me, I at least want to have earned it myself.

Generative AI has made this even simpler. You don’t need to pay for a class or a coach to start doing this work today. While both are helpful and may provide you with further details I’m a fan of diving in and experimenting with your own hands on the keyboard. I recently had the opportunity to share what I’ve learned with a newly updated presentation at the Microsoft 365 Community Conference during a lightening talk. Check out he video of this content below. This talk is 15 minutes long and will give you the simple steps to get started including how to tailor a prompt to build your own personal branding plan. This is something you would have needed to pay someone to help you build and now you can have Copilot or ChatGPT do for you. It’s a great place to start.

In technology more than some other industries your LinkedIn presence is a cornerstone of your personal brand. It’s probably time for you to take your presence there more seriously. Post regularly on select topics and for goodness sake update that profile picture! There’s more nuance to it than that but remember you are not competing with other people. This principle is essential to great storytelling for your personal brand.

You are ensuring that your digital presence on the world’s largest professional network represents YOU in a way you can be proud of.

My goal when I do this work for myself is not to gain thousands of followers. I’m not trying to be an internet influencer or quit my corporate job to create content all day long. What I DO want is someone to go to my profile and get a reasonably deep understanding of what my skills, experience and capabilities are.

Spend a moment identifying what you are trying to do. Are you:

· building a base of your brand for career advancement,

· looking for work,

· owning your narrative so it best reflects you, or

· sharing knowledge as a part of your legacy plan?

You can do any combination of these things but it is helpful to understand your objectives as you get started.

Whatever you do I implore you to own your story. You are its author, architect and primary character. What do you want to say? How do you want to share it? Don’t be afraid to get started. You don’t need a “grand plan”. You just need to find your voice and use it!

It is important that we give ourselves time to practice this art in the new era we find ourselves in. Few truly know how to do this well. Storytelling is a craft – full of quest and continuous learning. We can however prioritize a return to humanity and a continuous drive to meet the needs of our changing workforce. If this new technology doesn’t serve them, we will create yet another gap that must be bridged in our society and that we cannot afford.

The Power of Storytelling in the Digital Age

We know that storytelling is one of humanity’s oldest tools for connection. From fireside tales to modern cinemas, narratives have shaped our understanding of the world and our place within it. In the digital age, as information bombards us from every direction, the stories we tell—and how genuinely we tell them—have become crucial differentiators. Brands and creators who wield storytelling effectively can cut through the noise, forging emotional bonds that facts and figures alone cannot.

When it comes to AI products, the temptation is often to highlight capabilities: faster computations, greater accuracy, cost efficiency, or scalability. While these are undoubtedly important, they rarely linger in the hearts of audiences. Instead, it is the journey—the context, the struggle, the triumph, and sometimes the vulnerability—woven through a story that truly captures attention and fosters engagement. Authenticity is vital because AI, by its very nature, can feel impersonal, abstract, or even intimidating. Storytelling reclaims the human element, infusing AI with purpose and relevance.

Storytelling is also a powerful tool in our careers. Those who can inspire customers and colleges are a valuable asset to an organization and more importantly to themselves. Careers are no longer defined by the organization we work for, but instead the meaning we choose to derive from our work. Our craft of storytelling can empower us to seek that meeting and create it for others beyond the vanilla “vision” and “mission” statements of old.

Storytelling is a superpower of enterprise champions, those who endeavor to drive meaningful adoption of tech inside a company. I’m embedding below a short instructional video I produced for my Microsoft 365 Champions around the globe to illustrate some of my points from this article.

What Does Authentic Storytelling Look Like?

Authentic storytelling is defined by honesty, relatability, and emotional resonance. It rejects pretense and embraces imperfection, inviting audiences to see themselves within the narrative. For AI products, this means moving beyond slick demos and polished videos. It means sharing the why as much as the what, revealing not just what your product does, but how it fits into—and, crucially, improves—real people’s lives.

• Transparency Over Perfection: Audiences want to know the journey behind the product, not just the finished artifact. Sharing challenges, iterations, and even failures creates trust. For example, instead of presenting an AI chatbot as a flawless assistant, reveal the hurdles faced in training it to understand regional dialects or nuanced emotional cues.

• Relatable Characters: Whether it’s the developer who stayed up late debugging, the customer whose workflow was transformed, or the community that beta-tested the product, stories are made memorable by personalities. Humanize the technology by foregrounding the voices and experiences of those it impacts.

• Context Matters: Place the AI product within a broader context. Why does it exist? What inspired its creation? How does it solve a problem that people genuinely care about? Instead of generic promises, offer concrete stories—perhaps a small business owner who automated inventory and saved their store, or a caregiver who found more time for their loved ones thanks to a smart scheduling tool.

Authentic Storytelling in Action: AI Product Case Studies

Let’s consider a few illustrative examples.

Case Study 1: The AI Tutor That Listened

Sunil, a high school student in a rural town, struggled with math. Conventional classes overwhelmed him, and private tutoring was out of reach. His school adopted an AI-powered education platform designed to personalize learning. But the story didn’t just focus on the system’s adaptive algorithms. Instead, the creators highlighted how Sunil felt seen—the software noticed his unique learning pace and adjusted, offering encouragement and breaking complex problems into manageable steps. The developers shared their own uncertainty about whether the platform would connect with students, recounting feedback sessions where they learned to fine-tune the AI’s tone and pacing. This narrative transformed the product from a faceless tool into a compassionate companion that genuinely cared about students’ success.

Case Study 2: The Voice Behind the Code

A startup launched an AI-driven voice assistant for people with disabilities. The marketing campaign didn’t lead with technical specifications. Instead, it followed Maria, a single parent with limited mobility, as she navigated daily challenges. Through Maria’s eyes, we saw pitfalls—the assistant sometimes misunderstood slang, or missed subtle cues. But as developers listened and iterated, Maria’s feedback helped shape a more responsive, intuitive product. This ongoing dialogue between user and creator highlighted the AI’s evolution not as a finished product, but as a living, growing companion, shaped by authentic human needs and voices.

Strategies for Implementing Authentic Storytelling

How can creators and marketers in the AI space integrate authentic storytelling into their audience engagement strategies?

• Start With the “Why”: Simon Sinek’s famous mantra, “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it,” rings especially true for AI. Begin every story by articulating the core problem your product addresses, and why it matters to real people. This roots your narrative in purpose.

• Elevate User Voices: Feature real users and their experiences. User testimonials, interviews, and case studies should go beyond surface-level praise to explore journeys—what obstacles did users face, how did they adapt, and what role did your AI product play in their transformation?

• Embrace Vulnerability: Authenticity thrives on vulnerability. Share your setbacks and lessons learned. Admitting that an AI product is still learning, or that some solutions required unexpected pivots, builds credibility and relatability.

• Visual and Multimedia Storytelling: Leverage video, audio, and imagery to bring stories to life. A behind-the-scenes video of the development team, or a day-in-the-life reel following an end user, can foster a sense of intimacy and immediacy.

• Create Dialogue, Not Monologue: Invite your audience to participate. Solicit feedback, host webinars or AMAs (Ask Me Anything), and foster communities where users can share their own stories. Engagement is sustained when the narrative is co-created.

The Impact: Why Authentic Storytelling Matters for AI Products

AI can often seem unknowable and can make people feel unexpressed anxiety or inadequacy. AI asks us to take a meta view of our day, our jobs and our tasks to understand how best to leverage this new tool. Our job, as technologists and storytellers, is to make it accessible to the average individual. Authentic storytelling has an opportunity to demystify the technology, making it inviting, and—most importantly—meaningful. By rooting the AI’s utility in lived experience, creators can dispel fears, build trust, and foster a deeper sense of connection.

Moreover, as audiences become more discerning, they can easily spot inauthentic or purely transactional narratives. Brands that invest in genuine storytelling reap the rewards: not only heightened engagement but also ardent advocacy and long-term loyalty. In the rapidly evolving world of AI, where competitors abound and skepticism runs high, the most enduring differentiator will be the ability to tell true, compelling, and empathetic stories.

In the rush to innovate, it is easy to overlook the heart of all technology: the people it serves. Authentic storytelling is not a mere marketing tactic but a fundamental practice for audience engagement, especially with AI products that touch on the most sensitive and personal aspects of our lives. By anchoring narratives in honesty, vulnerability, and real-world transformation, creators can bridge the digital divide, inviting audiences not just to use their products, but to believe in them.

In the end, it’s not just about teaching machines to understand humans, but about reminding humans that, behind every AI, there is a story worth telling—and hearing.

It is so very simple today to allow cynicism to color our perception of the future, with and without the influence of AI. Not just at my company, but around the world the startup founders and innovators I’ve been privileged to meet have a vision of something grand and meaningful that will provide lasting benefits to humanity. There are risks to manage, but we have a greater understanding of those risks given our shared history. We are not doomed to repeat these mistakes because, large and small, technical, and societal, we are living in the shadow of those missteps.

In many cases the quality of our shared future boils down to the stories that we are telling today. How we craft our stories of workforce transformation, AI enablement and product innovation will play an outsized role in their success because storytelling is about how you make people feel, not what you teach them. It is about the audience, not the storyteller. Storytelling has the power to inspire, educate and empower. It is an underused superpower of today’s leader.

Think about the last story you experienced – in any medium – that truly impacted you. For most people this will be a work of fiction, a movie or book, but for others it might be a story shared by someone you love or discovered on TikTok. What captured you about the story? Was it something relatable or something where the experience was so far from your own you were curious to learn more? Was it the delivery? How did that story make you feel?

Now, think about the last technical presentation you attended? Can you remember the top three points the presenter was sharing? Did you know exactly what you were supposed to do when you were done? How did you feel listening to the presenter?

Unfortunately for some the first experience will bear little resemblance to the second. You may not remember anything from that tech talk but a hot room or the technical difficulties of the online meeting room. Worse, you may not remember feeling anything. Of course, there are exceptions – those good and genuinely great speakers who motivate you to get out there and do something, but that is not always the norm in our business.

As a profession it is time for us to own our poor storytelling, filled with overselling, inaccuracies, and factual overload. I’d argue that we have failed to make a case for the power of science and technology to be a force for good. People neither need nor want a parade of features and screen shots without the human connective tissue – the emotion – of the story. They want attainable inspiration. Relief. Opportunity. They want to know, at a human level: What’s in it for them?

It’s time for our “A” game. We must collectively find a way to humanize these advances and inspire generations of workers who will be directly impacted by the changes we are making to want to learn more. This can be a positive, opportunity-filled moment, but we have a responsibility to ensure that it is. We have an opportunity to meet the moment and land a shared vision for this inspirational future that opens the door for others. Our greatest failing would be to create, or rather widen, the gap between those who can achieve more with technology and those who feel unable to leverage these new wonders.

I’ve developed a simple framework to illustrate improving your storytelling craft. The three pillars of storytelling that I teach; style, story and outcome have the power to drive change. Being mindful of maturing your style, crafting your story, and driving to a clear outcome are all hallmarks of well thought out presentation. It is essential to commit to human-led storytelling, putting the needs of our workforce, business leaders and society as a whole at the center of the way we share our product innovation. We must clearly define what’s in it for them.

The craftwork of this is clear when someone can deliver a presentation that seems both informative and personal, somehow resonant with the experience of the audience. I strive, at each conference or webinar, to do just that with some success. My abilities in this area come from a study of screen writing, film making, psychology, change management and marketing. These disparate areas of study have merged over thousands of hours giving presentations into fluid knowledge and from there into a methodology that with practice can change the way you relate to yourself and your audience. These pillars can be taken at a surface level, delivering small but measurable improvements in your ability to inspire and drive change. With an attitude of deep craftwork they can highlight your leadership ability, inspiring others to do the same.

I take this craft seriously and give it the attention it deserves. I also realize that my own preparation and storytelling style is not for everyone – it is what works for me and what I have developed over time. As I mentor others on their career journeys it is an area woefully underrepresented in our typical technical or business degree programs. It can lack heart when solely approached from a technical or marketing perspective. I believe storytelling should firmly be in the wheelhouse of leadership skills for those who are interested in making history, not just witnessing it.

Stay tuned for more on this subject as I share more on my framework and methods. As always, take what you need and leave the rest. Above all, be YOU. No one else can. What works for you as you prepare for a presentation? Share your tips below so we can learn from each other.

Once again conversations about hybrid work are in the news. Ugh. With all the societal, technology and economic changes afoot you’d think we could put this one to bed already. After all, the research gives us clear guidance. From Microsoft Work Trends Index to McKinsey, we’ve talked this one to death. For the majority of information workers there are productivity and employee wellness gains to be had by working remotely, at least part of the time. There’s no doubt that there are situations where intentionally bringing people together with is valuable. Overall, and certainly in information worker fields, remote work is cost effective, productive and has the opportunity to producer greater work life balance, especially for working caregivers.

But instead, we have people like Jamie Dimon winging on about how people “don’t pay attention in Zoom meetings…”. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have many regrets for having his audio leaked to the world, no matter what he says now about cursing. He might regret us all getting to see his authentic self. But this is not personal. This issue isn’t really about him at all. He’s a convenient target that represents a swath of existing business leaders.

This conversation is about an outmoded and ineffective architype of leadership that blames organizational productivity problems on workers instead of on themselves.

If people aren’t paying attention to your meetings that’s on YOU, not the audience. Your meeting is boring, poorly structured or really should have been an email. I host hundreds of large and small meetings every year. No one is falling asleep in them. You must earn and retain your attendees’ attention. This is not the job of the attendee.

Employee engagement is not afforded you because of your title in an organization. Earning and retaining the attention of your audience is the job of the meeting organizer and presenter.

Too often people schedule meetings and make age-old mistakes. Meeting organizers and presenters fail to take a cold, hard look at how utterly boring they truly are. They are not saying anything engaging, doing it in an authentic way or leveraging the most basic of storytelling principles to engage the people they work with. They are disrespecting people’s time by being poorly prepared and further disrespecting it by foisting the problem off on someone else. It is possible to build a healthier meeting culture when you prioritize the outcome of that investement of your time.

These presenters also fail to embrace the fact that they are inauthentic in how they conduct themselves. You cannot tow the company line every single minute of the day and truly connect with anyone. Are you YOU at work or not? How do you show up? Is there any humor, levity, or personal connection when you start your meetings or throughout them? Do you ever admit your own mistake first, before others can point it out or it randomly comes up? Face it – these people who are complaining about inattention in meetings have their own complex issues to solve. My issue is that instead, they blame and punish the workforce.

What about your information? Is your presentation well-structured and provided as pre-read material? Did you use a single PICTURE to engage the visual senses of your audience? Does your meeting invitation have an agenda that includes topics to discuss and the expected outcome of the meeting? Did you differentiate between required attendees and optional ones?

Let’s not forget that a return-to-work policy impacts caregivers more intensely, who are often female. If you are working while raising little humans, you are well aware that things come up. The ability to run out and attend a school function or bring your little human home because he or she fell ill at school without worrying about your job is fantastic. The same is true if you, like me, have responsibilities for elder care. Being able to attend a doctor’s appointment with my elderly mother and then take a meeting remotely allows me to balance all the responsibilities I have with less stress.

All the great presentation skills in the world won’t save you if you are disrespecting your audience by being poorly organized.

This also extends to people who STILL have not learned how to operate the remote meeting technology. This is especially important if you are frequent meeting organizer. Whether you use Zoom, Teams or Google Meet do yourself a favor and take the 101 course which are linked in this article. Seriously - figure out the settings. Spend some cash on a better microphone and get a new camera. It’s 2025. Reference my equipment recommendations on my #BetterMeetings Amazon list if you’d like some items that I have personally used. Stop blaming the tech for your inability to show up in a professional manner. All services will fail sometimes but 90% of the meeting problems I see (and I see a lot of meeting problems, even inside Microsoft) are because people act like global, enterprise technology is supposed to be so simple and “just work”.

That’s not true. That is a product manager’s fantasy. It’s a worthy goal that has not yet been achieved, by anyone. Hybrid meeting technology is not an Etch-a-Sketch. Especially when it includes executive meeting rooms. Even in the back of a driverless automated car, if you don’t know how to enter an address you’re going to have a bad day. Take the time, yes even on a Saturday, and learn the system that your professional reputation is represented through. If you are always the one who can’t present the slide deck, can’t be heard because your microphone is bad or is constantly complaining about the tech, you just look ineffective. If you haven’t bothered to educate yourself about the remote meeting tools, then the problem is YOU not the tech.

We are always going to have to drive the technology we have to the outcome we desire. We are in charge.

In the creative arts rehearsals are the norm. No one expects to put on a highly choreographed show without practice. So why do you walk into a meeting room and set about hosting a meeting for more than 10 people without understanding the correct dance moves? A little improv is sometimes needed when someone’s machine freezes, the Wi-Fi goes down or one of the 1000 other things that can go wrong actually does. But I’m pretty sure you are getting my point. If you want to put on a well-choreographed show, you need to put time into mastering your craft.

Great hybrid meetings are part art and part skill. Excel at both.

Then there’s the issue of trusting your workforce. There is not a single person on my team, or in the organizations that I deliver value with, that I do not trust in the business sense of the term. This means that, until proven otherwise, I believe they will deliver what they say they will. To ensure that happens there are team checkpoints, data dashboards, status reports and executive read-outs. Some of these mechanisms for management are conducted via email, Teams posts or other collaboration and communication tools. Microsoft is not kindergarten, and we don’t get participation awards. Our overall culture is one of high-level performance and excellence. It is one where your mistakes or outright failures are reviewed, learned from and then put behind you. With few exceptions, it is a shame-free zone.

This positive performance-based culture does not happen overnight and must be nurtured at all levels. I can tell you that for sure, I do not worry about what my team, which is all over the country, is doing on a random Tuesday. I KNOW what they are doing. They are delivering on our mission. Not just because Microsoft and their manager said so, but because they are empowered with information and the freedom to deliver in creative and predictable ways. Exceptions to this rule are managed directly. Many so called managers are not taking the time to educate, mentor or course correct their teams. That’s why no one wants to come to the dumb meeting or why performance is off. It is not, at all, because they don’t sit in the same lifeless pods on the same floor of your office building.

A high-performance team is crafted - lovingly and with a firm hand. It does not arise overnight because you published another set of revenue targets and OKRs. Your people will immediately know if you believe in them, are invested in their success and will provide the appropriate air cover for them when needed. Human connection IS important but mandating a strict return-to-work (as if we weren’t working all along) without flexibility and nuance is a fundamental management error that lacks humility and emotional intelligence.

Clarity of objective, freedom to learn, a bias for collaborative action, dedication to employee advancement and leadership authenticity are elements of creating a high-performance team. Are you doing these things?

Lastly, many corporations have deep investments in real estate. They’ve invested millions in creating office spaces where, pre-pandemic, we were all required to commute to, no matter what. No one wants to take a loss on that real estate. That is not an issue that rests on the shoulders of the workforce. It is a issue for every CFO who needs to find a way to make that investment have a useful return.

There are always exceptions to every situation, every policy. We’ve all known someone who has taken advantage of the hybrid work policy. The rest of us should NOT be punished because a random employee is flakey. Bob’s manager should handle that and leave the rest of us alone.

We, the productive, who are home with our superior coffee, adorable pets and cozy athleisurewear below the waist, are just fine, thank you. Please leave us alone and go fix what is actually broken. It’s not hybrid work.

By Karuana Gatimu

Date: February 8, 2025

I hope we can all agree that leadership is part art, part skill and part experience. To me, the idea of a “natural born leader” is outdated. You might have natural leadership abilities, but a true leader is crafted by experience, honed by the wisdom acquired through those experiences and operationally talented enough to deliver results and team morale. On an average day it’s a tall order.

In IT and in the tech sector in general it’s been a hard road to embrace empathetic leadership styles. It hasn’t been our nature to embrace our emotional intelligence as it has in other industries. We’ve had seasons of inclusion, diversity, empathetic leadership etc. but in my personal experience the individual who truly embraces those things as part of their leadership principles vs having them as convenient talking points has been rare. We seem to idolize the techbro – some sort of swaggering and often toxic masculine stereotype, which leaves little room for the innovators I have come to know. It’s silly and counterproductive to the long-term health of your core competitive differentiation: your employees.

That has to change. Not because of some squishy discussion about employee health & wellness. Nope, because of clear, cold bottom-line issues. Employee turnover, burnout and discord are a threat to your bottom line. Cultivating a leadership culture that empowers employees to do their best work and deliver results is in your best interests. Why? Because exceptional IT leadership can be a differentiator to the entire company. There are tactical changes you can make to bring this about.

It’s about the money – Enable clear revenue objectives.

Too often we discuss IT in the context of security, threat management and risk. This makes IT perceived as an expense of the business rather than viewed as a revenue generating function. I’m not referring to your placement on the profit & loss statement. I’m referring to the perception of IT by other functional business leaders and your boss. This narrative that we are expensive and only useful for help desk and threat management needs to change. I write this during the initial years of widely available AI capabilities, but it has always been true. If you are not discussing how your IT solutions and services are driving revenue growth, you are missing a clear opportunity to protect your people and budget.

That means delving into how you are supporting your sales and marketing groups to better, more effectively do their jobs. Focusing on supporting them, engaging with customers more deeply, understanding customer insights and objectives and resolving issues with more speed and clarity. This type of work can also be deeply meaningful to your staff and provide new and exciting career opportunities, unearthing little used talents of your people.

Stop being the “Department of No.” – modernize IT engagement practices

To do the above – frankly to be invited into the room – it is essential that you modernize your methods of engaging with business leaders. Not only to change how you discuss your wins, progress, and issues but how you discuss the work itself. Many years ago, as we were modernizing Microsoft IT, we embraced the idea of Business Program Managers that specialized in various functional areas. These were individuals who had deep knowledge of HR, marketing and sales systems and the business acumen to engage with leaders in those areas. They were not typical IT folks who talked about features and risks, earning the “Department of No” moniker which yes, was a real thing people called us. Often with backgrounds in consulting, these individuals were focused on business outcomes and treated those functional leaders as if they were customers of IT, not just people asking for difficult things.

That change in staffing and approach yielded deeper results, better relationships, and less shadow IT. A win for everyone. The practice has continued to evolve in Microsoft IT and in other modern IT departments I’ve encountered around the world. It’s time to double down on this method.

Kill your “Badgile” Practices – Finish the Transition to Agile IT

I’m not sure if I coined the term “badgile” or not but I’ve certainly seen the situation multiple times and came to use this term in my presentations. It is the poor application of Agile practices. Again, pulling on my experience in corporate IT, it is when an IT organization ditches the long and unwieldy waterfall method of project management for a faster iterative approach but fails to finish the implementation. What gets ditched about mid-way in the transition is arguable the most important parts of Agile IT management: feature specifications validated by stakeholders, ongoing business engagement and employee feedback. This leads to a bunch of stuff getting delivered that doesn’t make anyone truly satisfied.

Many of us know that managing an ongoing backlog of feature requests is at the heart of Agile and has the potential to lead to true continuous improvement & delivery for IT. This was the hope of leaving waterfall behind – the ability to deliver incremental improvements at the speed of business instead of scoping long projects – moving toward continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) methods that software companies had long embraced. Without stakeholder engagement in the setting of these priorities and even in your daily standups you are not building the deeper relationships that will transform the view of your function. Many business leaders have no idea what is involved in “deploying a simple form” etc. They don’t need tactical details, however having them at the table in each monthly prioritization meeting is critical to your success, driving a sense of shared accountability for the outcomes you are investing in.

Further, once deployed true feedback from the employees who use the features, not just their managers or leaders, is essential to providing deeper insights on overall process improvement. TALK to these people – don’t just send them a survey about their satisfaction. There is literally no replacement for this process.

Your Wall of Text Comms are Terrible – Improving IT Communications

“An e-mail is not a communications campaign.” I do not know how many times I’ve said this when consulting with organizations about why their employee engagement and product adoption programs are not delivering results. A degree in computer science does not prepare you to communicate, or motivate, humans. Consequently, it is imperative in your quest to transform your IT department to engage professional communications people in your product roll outs and feature release plans.

IT must embrace human-centric communications about IT changes and deliveries. This means you will have meaningful and often fun communications campaigns that do not lead with detailed steps about how to do things. You will not bury the lead in your story about the amazing features and products that are available to help people with long wall of text emails. Nope, not today. You will have graphics, slogans, and bullet points! That is the way.

To deliver value, at the pace of business, in the era of AI and beyond we must complete this transition to Agile IT. Talent diversity will enable successful teams that can sit alongside their business stakeholders to achieve and surpass the goals they’ve set forth. Connecting IT service management to business objectives, and embracing different sorts of skills in IT has the potential to make work more meaningful and valuable to everyone involved. It’s a process, but the outcome is worth the effort.

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You hear the crunching of the snow under your boots, which this year at least, keeps melting and refreezing, and catch snippets of conversation. Your limbic system knows you are in a place that matters. You feel that thing in your stomach that’s between fear and excitement while desperately not wanting to say something stupid. Oh wait, maybe that’s just me.

I’m told that this year one eye was kept on what was happening in Washington DC while the rest was focused on Davos itself unlike prior years when Davos only cares about Davos. This was due to the change in administration in the United States and tone of the new US President. I was listening and learning while keeping one eye firmly on the hilly ground so I didn’t fall on my tush in front of pretty much everyone who matters in the world. Davos is a very slippery, hilly place!

Being more of a diplomat myself and a believer that you earn the right to be unfiltered with people I’m personally not much for Trump’s style, policies or approach. To me global business success is created by collaboration and healthy competition not threats but this blog isn’t about his methods.

Having never been to Davos before and getting different perspectives from all over my network of people I was thrilled to be invited to attend this year to host a panel on AI & Automation at the MIT event. Here’s what I heard and what I’m going to remember for my next trip:

What I heard: “Hi, I’m … ”,

My takeaway - Stop networking, start connecting.

The social glue that makes these events worthwhile happens before, during and after the official sessions. The people I met, ideas I learned about and knowledge exchanged was priceless. Pausing to truly understand the other person’s perspective, position, technology and policies allowed me to go deeper into topics and make more meaningful connections. This approach let me feel inspired at hte end of the day instead of exhausted from attention overload. Don’t hesitate to start a chat and introduce yourself. It’s an essential skill in this environment.

#ProTip - bring physical business cards as well as have your LinkedIn or WhatsApp profile sharing setup. Sometimes service is terrible so these don’t work. That physical card is always a good backup and sometimes nicer. Running out of cards? Take a picture of your business card so you can text or AirDrop it to someone. Blinq is also cool but if you have multiple personalities like me you need a paid account.

What I heard: “… not sure I understood the point about…”

My takeaway - Do advance research & set engagement goals.

What do you want to learn at Davos? What influence do you bring? Is there a particular organization you want to connect with? Have a plan since it is be easy to get off track without one. Ask questions. Since so much of what we are discussing now in the area of AI is new, there are a great deal of unknowns. Figuring it out together is the point of these events.

With so many talented people wandering all over the town and speaking it’s easy to feel out of place, especially if, like me, you are new to the happenings across the different venues. I firmly believe folks who end up in Davos are there for a reason including all the AMAZING event organizers who kept the place humming along and remarkably on schedule.

While I spent a good deal of time talking about the evolution of AI itself, I spent even more time talking about operationalizing responsible AI principles, the evolution of leadership, inclusion at scale and the neural / emotional states required for learning. These are topics I’m passionate about and I do not hesitate to contribute them to conversations. Even from scientist and deeply technical founders these conversations were welcome. Do not devalue your own experience or underestimate your unique ability to educate & influence others.

What I heard: “Oh, come with me to _____. It’s only an hour and down the street.”

My takeaway - Set boundaries and respect them.

I did not attend any of the official parties. That was by design. For me to be present, walk miles while not falling in the icy streets and truly learn, I need rest. Many others go hard and I respect that. For me though, I was happy to return to my hotel, capture some of these thoughts and be ready for the next day. I almost slipped up since I was having so much fun with some of the people I connected with on Thursday but managed to honor my own word to myself and go back to the hotel after a spectacular dinner. For me that’s progress.

#ProTip – Bring your own snacks from COOP (convenience store everywhere) and layer your clothes. It was freezing outside but oh so hot inside most of the venues. Layers are key. Traction is essential so wear good boots. Ladies, it’s winter business casual attire which no one could tell me ahead of time. Food was surprisingly scarce or bad until you got to dinner. Make reservations!

What I heard: “Yes, lets connect after Davos and discuss _______ in more detail.”

My takeaway - Take notes and have a post event to do list!

This is something I’ve been doing for years. I happen to like Microsoft ToDo because it easily accommodates all my different personas (Microsoft employee, side hustle, board seat etc..). I have a post event to do list with names and pictures that captures the most important people I want to continue conversation with. If you don’t make it in the list, it’s likely not going to happen!

What I heard: “AI needs…” [choose one] “policy…”, “regulation…” “governance…” “enforcements…” made by people who understand it.

My takeaway - Deep understanding of the 2^nd and 3^rd order consequences of our innovations today is essential to creating those same policies, regulations and governing bodies of the future.

While many in academia and business dislike advising government bodies our ability to lean in, in places like Davos and beyond, is fundamental to our ability to ensure positive outcomes for this technology and mitigate existing and unintended risks. The problem I observe however is that there are many versions of what a “risk” actually is. What is risky to me, for instance repeating the rise of social media and its downfalls both past and current, is just fine for those making a living in that sector. Our ability to collaborate on unacceptable risks will be put to the test.

#ProTip: I’m proud to work at Microsoft who has pioneered, with other organizations, our Responsible AI principles. I talk about these constantly because unlike other documents full of high-minded ideas, ours are built into our product engineering practices. Ask yourself, your potential vendors and business partners if they have done the same?

Conclusion

I hope to return to Davos at least one more time to put my learnings from this initial trip to good use. What I know is that I’ll make the most of the connections I made, the lessons I learned and the issues I was educated on. I’m convinced we stand at the edge of a new world that many will not recognize in a few short years. I’m excited to play a part in ensuring that leaders of every size organization have the skills they need to transform their businesses & workforce in positive ways. We just have to be mindful of those 2^nd and 3^rd order consequences along the way.

Let’s get to it.

Meanwhile, Switzerland is beautiful. Reflect on what you’re learning and take in the beauty of the space. After all, if you are away from home it’s important to make it worthwhile!

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If you work in a Fortune 100 company you have a plethora of consultants, vendors and experts to help you implement AI in your organization. Even if I broaden that to the Fortune 1000 there are many people who will intelligently guide you through the process for a fee or as a part of you purchasing their services. This article isn’t for them.

For the rest of us a superior technology implementation may feel out of reach. So often technologists, myself included, have made promises that we didn’t deliver on. We told you things would be faster, simpler and “better” but somehow you still don’t feel that is true. This is not necessarily a measurable sentiment. But you feel it in your gut so you trust it, as you should.

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AI is a hugely important moment for humanity. It is important that you pay attention because, like the personal computer and cloud before it, AI isn’t going anywhere and yes, everyone WILL be using it. The question is will you? When? And can you safely and effectively reap real benefits for your business. The answer is “Yes, but…” or like many IT professionals will respond, “It depends…”

If you run a mid-size business with a dedicated IT department stop here and don’t proceed until you read the previous article, “Want to implement AI? Repair your IT Department first.” It addresses fundamental issues most IT department have that should, dare I say must, be addressed before you venture into this new area. Trust me and do this. You can send me chocolate later.

If, on the other hand, your IT group, either internal or outsourced, is reasonably functional you can proceed with the four keys pillars of an AI implementation.

1. Security

2. Staffing

3. Business Priorities

4. Workforce Management

You’ll note that I have not yet mentioned anything about the technology itself. Not fancy prompts or capabilities from vendors, including my own (Microsoft). That’s because that’s not the most important thing for the rest of us. I can pretty much guarantee you that your security posture and data estate are not hygienic, meaning that you have holes that could be compromised. Your data is the magic that, beyond the entirety of the web, will make AI truly work for YOU. It is the institutional knowledge that grounds the vendors’ AI experience in a relevant dataset, yours. This improves the reasoning that the large language model does on your behalf, improving the responses you will get. You still must, and I do mean MUST, check them for accuracy however they are much more likely to be relevant when grounded in your own data.

The issue is that you don’t want everyone to have access to all the data. You have confidential and proprietary content in your data estate, no matter the size of your organization. Every field service person should not see every employment contract or deal memo. This is where the foundational security work comes in.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Microsoft’s capabilities attempt to make this much easier for any organization that has Microsoft 365. You can learn about these classification capabilities and tools via this documentation. If you don’t know about Microsoft’s Copilot tools I recommend starting here. For what it’s worth I think they are useful tools when positioned correctly and are backed by Microsoft’s Responsible AI principles at every step. Even if you choose another supplier, I feel the Microsoft methodology should be the benchmark you compare others too. I say that not only as an ardent fan and employee of Microsoft but also as an IT Professional with decades of experience.

Whatever AI toolset you choose, you first must think about your information architecture.

This refers to how you classify and segment your data, in your documents, your CRM system if you have one, in financial datasets and elsewhere. This can be simple or complex depending on your organization, but it must be done.

The primary reason this is not already completed is your staffing plan. WHO is accountable for this work? Do they have help? Have you done and continually enforced basic security at a user level that will protect you from the threats that bad actors wish to visit upon us? Not sure? Then it is time to start. MFA, strong passwords, classification, separation of roles. These are relatively basic concepts for enterprise corporate IT professionals however the further you get away from the Fortune 500 the less they are implemented. Training your staff on security in repeatable ways is essential to having a savvy workforce that does not inadvertently compromise your system.

Now, I want you to hear this part. This isn’t already completed NOT because you are failing, inattentive or lacking in knowledge. It’s because you are juggling a thousand and one priorities already and figuring out how to train your people to save truly confidential files differently, or segmenting your database is difficult and probably not on fire. It won’t be until it is. That’s why you have to stop right now and alter your staffing plan and priorities to address this.

OK – one more side note. Microsoft has a free program for this call FastTrack. They help with migrations, security, and license implementation for Microsoft 365 and Copilot capabilities which is the Microsoft Generative AI tool. It’s FREE. Use it. Again, don’t go it alone! And if you aren’t using Microsoft does your vendor provide a customer success program when you purchase their software? If not they should. Purchasing a service isn’t enough. Every organization needs to ensure customer success for long term satisfaction.

While this information architecture work is going on and you are working with your partner or vendor of choice on your implementation plan, an essential task is selecting your business scenarios.

Think about your business and decide what will help it grow the most, help you control costs or improve the well-being of your employees.

These scenarios will assist you in prioritizing your AI implementation. You don’t have to do everything at once, and likely shouldn’t. Your perception of this technology will change as you gain experience. Some suggestions are:

· Employee onboarding

· Employee training or process Q&A

· Customer inquiries

· Customer service tickets

· Creation of customer quotes

· Customer onboarding

· Product development

· Product delivery – including manufacturing improvements

· Marketing campaign creation

· Creative ideation and production

· Communications, both internal and external

These are basic business scenarios that every business can benefit from improving. Of course of you are in a high tech or engineering field there are other entry level, but specialized scenarios that you’ll want to consider. Every organization can and should be considering AI improvements and agents for these foundational elements.

What you are creating is a competitive edge. The quality of your AI use will differentiate organizations and beyond that will become a basic customer expectation. This is AI for the rest of us. Implemented in scenarios that provide personalized, actionable experiences and remove the repetitive tasks from our workforce.

Workforce management is the final key pillar. It’s time to change your approach to skilling your workforce. You are probably making training available, even online or with support, doing a bit of onboarding and hoping that your employees will figure it out. You even treat yourself like this. This has been the way due to your own time crunch. It won’t work in this case.

Learning how to interact with AI and use it for your own benefit and that of your team requires building new daily habits and working differently than before. I can personally speak to this as it took me time to get to my own personal “ah ha!” moment with these tools. Now, I constantly ask Microsoft 365 Copilot to summarize and categorize my communications channels (Outlook and Teams) for priority communications, tasks I need to accomplish and drop it in a daily table for me. It summarizes strategy documents, helps me create content, understands meetings I missed including the sentiment of the conversation and so much more. I had to change my daily habits and now I am that much more production. This took a daily effort at first.

Supporting the change in daily habits is why you need community. Well managed communities for your employees are the single most effective way to ensure success of any technical implementation. The key differentiator is bringing together a few people who will ensure that community is vibrant, has new training content and ideas and provides assistance when other employees get stuck. This isn’t the Help Desk. Community managers escalate to a help desk when the problem is a technical one. This is peer-to-peer productivity and operational support for employees.

That is a high level description and I’ve written a good deal about this in other locations as part of my job at Microsoft where my team runs many communities of this type as well as one, the Microsoft 365 Champions program, that is dedicated to those who run communities within their own organizations. I will share my thoughts in this blog as well from agnostic perspective in further articles. Another amazing location to learn about this is the CMX organization who produces the CMX Summit each year, bringing together community managers from around the globe and from different sizes & types of organizations. It’s a fantastic place to learn the art and science of community management at scale.

We’ll that’s enough! I’ve given you to do in one blog article. Stay tuned here and subscribe as I write more about AI implementations, business value and leadership topics for those in IT and beyond. Our world is changing. Now is the time for us to lean in, take the reins and ensure these changes benefit the greatest amount of people. Working together we can make sure the future is meaningful and productive for us all.

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CIO’s have had a challenging job for some time. Reduced resources, ever increasing complexity of technology, lack of skilled workers and most of all the never ending flood of security risks. It’s a difficult job. AI can, and should, be expected to make it easier in some respects but not if you don’t do the one thing you’ve been resisting: Change.

I’m not going to write an essay on AI implementation. Nope, that’s for later. First we must address foundational issues that still plague many IT departments around the world at a time when we must all be on our A game. As an IT leader you need technically competent, engaged and engaging employees. You must traverse the gap between technology and business every day and support your organization in delivering on its customer promises.

No, you aren’t an Agile shop - you’re practicing “Bad-gile”

Many corporate IT departments were swept up in the Agile development craze. Unfortunately, only a few actually transitioned to true Agile practices. Instead, they implemented what I call, “Bad-gile”; a mish mosh of faster projects with less definition and even worse stakeholder management. They actually missed the point of what Agile was supposed to bring to IT which was a greater ability to speed delivery and deeper relationships with our stakeholders.

The time where this could be tolerated is over. It is time for all CIO’s to face and be rid of the things that are blocking them from greatness. What I’m writing is based not only on my decades of experience in corporate IT but the privilege of getting to talk to many IT professionals and leaders in the course of my work at Microsoft. Follow along with me here.

You have more work and less people - That logically means you must capture and prioritize your backlog of work more efficiently. How can you prioritize if you don’t have deep meaningful understanding of your workforce and customers? You got it - you can’t. This lack of insight into the business value you can deliver leaves you vulnerable to all sorts of political and financial shenanigans that occur every day in corporations around the world. Time to fix this.

Own, deploy and analyze listening systems that capture data from customers and employees.

Go TALK to employees to find out what is working in their area. Conduct research. While other departments may own similar processes no one is going to look at the information with your lens. Honor your own wisdom about your organization which is quite different from HR or Marketing. Prioritize 1:1 or 1:few small meetings with your most important leaders, fans and foes, to invest in your relationships. You are going to need them.

You need engaged talent, and different types of skills for the future we’re being asked to build. For too long we’ve indulged a stereotype about IT professionals. Similar in some ways to developers (because often we are wearing both hats) we have a reputation for not really liking to talk to “users”. We can be gruff and off putting to some. Our communication style does not always lend itself to understanding, instead diving deep into the hard won depth of our knowledge and leaving the average stakeholders behind. All this is true. That’s because “Sally”, who’s brilliant at network management, really should not be writing the front line onboarding guide’s section on security best practices! A person with user facing communications skills needs to partner with Sally to get this done in a way that non-technical humans will understand. We need a varied set of skills to bring everyone in the organization along for this next decade of change.

It’s time for IT to formally embrace diversity of skill set within the wall of the modern IT department. Communicators, trainers, adoption specialists, product and service managers while all technically competent lead with different but essential skills. Our job as IT leaders is to blend these people into a cohesive team. We can not allow a division between the user enablement folks and the deep technical folks. Our leadership has failed them in this way. Each of the many roles I could articulate here from corporate developer to network manager to user experience designers is essential to your future success. You must change the way you lead, to meet each of these people, with their different motivations where they live. If you don’t understand those motivations, see the paragraphs above about listening systems and 1:1 meetings.

Lastly, we must improve our skills at following the money and capturing some for ourselves.

All too often I hear from IT leaders about the financial crunch their teams are under. No matter the profitability of the company money doesn’t seem to flow easily into IT. That’s our fault. Referring to points #1 and #2 - we weren’t listening and we didn’t hire someone who can deeply communicate with business users, like the heads of the departments where money exists. Shadow IT doesn’t exist only because we failed to delivery quickly. It also exists because marketing, sales, customer service and basically ANY other department gets money before we do. They are better at it. Time to change this.

As leaders we must dedicate a portion of our time and leadership skill to improving our ability to hunt. We must hunt on behalf of our teams to bring opportunity, resources and funding into our realm. We can only do that when we speak the language of the decision maker and offer something they truly want - results that they define. This is alongside the results we must deliver like security, accessibility and operational up-time. Our job is to make other people the hero of their own story while in turn being hero’s ourselves. Would it hurt us to hire someone in IT who has enterprise sales in their background? Who can clearly articulate the business value of the project at hand, without a bunch of techno-jargon? Features don’t sell projects. Decisions are primarily based on emotion, confidence, and above all, HOPE. Once we get that tentative hope from our business partners we must deliver on it or be very clear what is in our way. As leaders we are in the business of relationship not technology. This is the fundamental shift in thinking we must embrace.

We haven’t historically been that comfortable with emotions in our world. That has to change if we want to create a better future for our IT department employees. We must hunt projects for our business stakeholders so they choose US to deliver for them and not yet another 3rd party vendor or goddess-forbid hire a dev team themselves.

If you can’t tell, I’m not a fan of distributing accountability for IT systems across departments. I view that as a response to our failure to keep up - not with the delivery of capabilities - but with the relationships across our companies that allowed us to expand. We failed the hunt so people decided to hunt for themselves.

So, before you embark upon the next great transformational project in your organization, which AI of any flavor purports to be, fix and be rid of these foundational problems.

You want every business leaders in your company to talk about how essential you are to their success when you aren’t in the room. You need them to like working with your teams because they feel heard and supporting in their business objectives. You want the happy morale of your diverse and talented team to be its own recruiting magnet so you won’t fall prey to the IT talent shortage with constant employee churn.

If you can honestly say all these positives are mostly true, then you are ready to proceed forward and implement AI. We’ll talk about that next. Thanks for dropping by.

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Here we are in 2025. Welcome. What got you here won’t get you to the next level. It’s time for evolution on your terms. Making conscious choices about your direction, personally or professionally, is my key to moving forward with intention rather than having the winds of industry blow me along. Keeping clarity of purpose is an effort but for me it's worth it.

Since the pandemic I’ve embraced a mode we call #PeopleFirst. It places a priority on relationships. In the business of technology we tend to focus on features and functions. That’s essential as a product manager but there’s more to be done. The active connection between people and their technology is of primary concern. What does the technology help people accomplish? Is it enhancing our relationships or helping us to discover new connections? This is the actual point of technology – to enhance connection, reveal knowledge and help us intentionally create the future.

Implementing a #PeopleFirst strategy means that you are deeply aware of the needs of your customers, workforce and industry. It means you have spent time listening to the lived experience of those you serve. You step forward to understand first and solve issues later. Given that the backlog of work always exceeds the time available it is the needs of your customers and workforce that will allow you to prioritize your efforts for the greatest impact. It's been my experience that focusing on delivering people-centric impact yields revenue and efficiency results but it also drastically changes the conversation and the nature of your relationships.

People are the great differentiator in your organization. The degree to which you invest in their wellbeing, skills and opportunities will determine your success.​ Operationalizing this idea is at the heart of a people first plan.

Our careers, industries and the technology we create can be meaningful when governed by being of service to these people. This is the art of meaning – making the intentional connection between the needs of customers and your workforce to the innovation we spend so much of our time focused on.

As AI capabilities flood the market we are faced with choices. Are we dazzled by these new capabilities or saddled with apprehension about the risks? I personally don’t believe this is the way to look at AI or any other capability we invent. How does this technology move our mission forward? How does it allow us to reduce the digital divide? How can we use technology to create opportunities, especially for those for whom opportunity has remained elusive.

In black and brown communities around the world the digital divide exists. It’s a fact not an idea. It takes people like you and I to bridge that divide. It takes investment, understanding and determination to use technology to lift others up. Hard work is the requirement to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. My entire career is a testament to this dynamic. Yes, I have gotten opportunities, but my hard work and dedication has taken them to the next level allowing me to provide for my family and do work that I adore.

This next year of AI innovation requires something different from us as leaders. I’m personally committed to the #PeopleFirst methodology and crafting the art of meaning into my daily work as a technologist. I'm focused on delivering value rather than solely on driving efficiency. Content production, delivering technology adoption and communities of scale are my chosen tools but my passion is empowering others to take charge of their individual journey. AI presents us with new opportunities for innovation and true transformation. We must first orient ourselves around a primary mission to ensure we are not swept up in the techno-babble that serves as product marketing today.

As we enter 2025, what is your mission? Who do you serve? What impact do you want to deliver for your career, your family or your community.

Now is the time we can think big, drive for fundamental change and empower those around us. We can build the skills we need and leverage these new capabilities to allow us to deliver positive change at a rapid rate and a grand scale. But first, we must intentionally understand who we serve and what choices are we making.

Let’s do that together. Comment below, join me on Bluesky, LinkedIn or at an upcoming event to continue the conversation.

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