Doug Conant, Founder & CEO of ConantLeadership
Introducing the 2nd version of Doug Conant’s new month-to-month letter, a restricted management collection: EQ Solutions to AI Questions.
To My Fellow Leaders and Learners within the ConantLeadership Group,
Welcome to the second version of my new restricted collection, “EQ Solutions to AI Questions,” wherein I provide considerate, human solutions to urgent management questions which were generated by AI.
In our first version, I went into nice element about our accountability as leaders within the age of AI, and detailed a few of my foundational beliefs about management.
I recommend you learn that full publish to get a deeper sense of my viewpoint and the pondering behind this collection—however I’ve additionally summarized among the key factors from that introductory piece beneath as a reference that will help you interact with this second version.
About this Sequence
1. This restricted collection talks about, and leverages AI, however it’s not primarily about AI. Like all of my writing and instructing, it’s at the beginning, in regards to the craft of management.
2. It doesn’t matter what the futures holds, this rings true: The extra omnipresent machines turn out to be in our lives, the extra differentiating it is going to be for us to lean into our humanity as we interact with the world as leaders, lecturers, pals, and members of the family.
3. As AI turns into extra ubiquitous, we now have a twin accountability:
- We should faucet into AI’s energy to supply data, spark dialogues, and enhance our examine of our craft. We are able to’t be technophobes within the face of innovation.
- Concurrently, we should acknowledge that AI shouldn’t be a panacea. We must always lean into the vitality of actual, genuine self-reflection and interpersonal interplay—to be as humanistic as attainable in our management life.
4. We can’t be “synthetic” in any approach in our management; we have to be genuine, true to ourselves, and true to the folks with whom we dwell and work.
5. At ConantLeadership, my boutique management company which empowers fashionable leaders with the tenets of “management that works,” we outline management as: The artwork and science of influencing others in a particular path.
- The “science” of management is primarily about enter—studying what works, learning different leaders, staying up-to-date with finest practices, and gaining and honing mastery and data in your particular space of experience and so forth. AI might help with this half.
- The “artwork” of management is primarily about output—the way you uniquely metabolize your data, expertise, and values, and apply them to your interactions with the folks with whom you reside and work. This half is as much as you. And I imagine the “artwork” is the place the magic lies: It’s the way you, and solely you, present up for different folks in a nuanced approach, leveraging your distinctive relationships and expertise to attach interpersonally with the folks in your group and in your group.
6. AI has nice capability to deepen our dialog across the “science” of management. As Greg Satell just lately wrote in his weblog Digital Tonto, we must always consider AI as “a device to create dialogues for ourselves.”
On the finish of the day, AI might help us ask higher questions, and it could actually undoubtedly assist us enhance our management. But it surely’s nonetheless as much as us to reply the decision. To progress from good to extraordinary, we should use our emotional intelligence (EQ), together with our useful (FQ) and mental intelligence (IQ), to guide folks, make choices, act on our data, synthesize our knowledge, and construct relationships.
And so it’s inside that spirit that I’m scripting this letter to speak extra straight with you, the folks within the ConantLeadership group, on this new restricted collection.
EQ Solutions to AI Questions #2
When you spend any time on LinkedIn, you could have seen a characteristic referred to as “collaborative articles.” These articles give customers the chance to reply prompts which might be generated by AI primarily based on matters which might be pertinent to LinkedIn customers. The AI helps generate the questions but it surely’s the human customers who’re prompted to put in writing the solutions.
Within the curiosity of utilizing AI as a device to spark dialogue, we’ve chosen among the most related AI-generated management questions on LinkedIn and can present a considerate, emotionally clever reply to share with you straight as a gesture of connection and shared studying.
Within the first version, I answered the AI query “What are some revolutionary methods to acknowledge and have a good time group strengths?” You’ll find my reply right here.
This version’s AI query is: ‘What are the commonest errors leaders make when driving change?’
And right here’s my EQ Reply.
There are two large errors leaders make when driving change (and they’re interconnected): They transfer too quick, they usually anticipate computerized buy-in from stakeholders.
To keep away from these errors, there are two concepts to think about.
1: Individuals don’t care how a lot you understand till they understand how a lot you care.
A typical mistake leaders make is that they anticipate stakeholders to care in regards to the firm agenda with out having first sufficiently demonstrated that they care in regards to the stakeholders’ agenda.
Earlier than leaders can earn buy-in on a change initiative, they have to first solicit enter in order that constituents really feel heard and valued.
Change is a gaggle effort. Individuals is not going to care about you till you care about them.
Leaders should set the path and align the sources however they have to additionally guarantee they’re listening, incomes belief, and constantly securing an enterprise-wide dedication to the shared objectives that may drive change.
This straight connects to the second concept.
2: Go gradual to go quick
Once I speak to leaders about change I at all times say, “Sluggish is quick and quick is gradual.” Possibly you’ve heard the expression, “measure twice, lower as soon as,” or, “haste makes waste.” These apply right here too.
This comes again to management being an artwork and a science. The “science” part helps you devise sensible plans for transformation and innovation however you’ll at all times want the “artwork” part to carry the folks alongside.
With out the folks to carry your change technique to life, even essentially the most good plans are lifeless within the water.
The bottom line is constructing an strategy that’s sustainable whatever the inevitable adjustments within the market—moderately than merely reacting to adjustments as they arrive.
It’s about being intentional moderately than incidental.
An enormous problem is having the self-discipline to decelerate moderately than mirroring the chaotic surroundings of the world wherein you’re working.
We used to say it was a VUCA world (Unstable, Unsure, Complicated, Ambiguous). It’s nonetheless all of these issues and extra.
Now, some consultants describe the world in much more bewildering phrases, as BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, Incomprehensible). Both terminology captures the scope of the management obstacles we face: The one fixed is change.
Amidst a sea of quickly accelerating advances in know-how, it may be tempting to hurry up your tempo too, demanding extra, higher, sooner. However paradoxically, the extra you rush in a chaotic surroundings, the extra you’re prone to delaying your entire effort sooner or later since you haven’t taken the time to correctly place your self for fulfillment.
As an alternative, decelerate. Set up the precise ideas and framework that may assist you to be versatile because the world continues to alter. Construct belief. Get the precise folks on the bus. Guarantee persons are aligned with the transformation earlier than it even begins; be sure they’ve pores and skin within the recreation in order that they’re invested within the success of the initiative.
The stronger your basis is upstream, the extra resilient within the face of adversity your enterprise shall be downstream.
“A considerate response is usually higher than a fast one.”
Look to the Mission
One highly effective technique to place your self for fulfillment is by creating the next ambition for the group. Look to the mission.
Once I grew to become CEO of Campbell Soup Firm with a mandate to show the group round after a interval of tumult and low efficiency, I knew we would wish a mission to anchor the trouble. We didn’t rush. We neatly thought-about all of the inputs. We talked to folks, listened, discovered, constructed belief, and devised a mission that might face up to the winds of change.
Finally, we arrived at these phrases: “Nourish folks’s lives, in all places, day by day.”
Our aim to “nourish” utilized to each stakeholder, each worker, each buyer, each shopper. Even when issues went sideways, our mission of nourishment by no means modified.
It’s vital to do not forget that the world is evolving so shortly that one thing about your change-plan is at all times going to be incorrect and you’ll have to course-correct. So it’s important to take the time to get the mission proper.
There’s a poetic concept right here of embracing two truths: The dual constants of change and changelessness. When you’ve taken the time to reach on the ideas that inform your mission, these stay nonetheless and enduring, buoying you afloat because the ever-fluctuating tides of the BANI world roil beneath.
“Let’s permit the know-how to be quick so we might be gradual.”
Discover the House
Viktor Frankly well-known stated “Between stimulus and response, there’s a house, and in that house, we now have the ability to decide on our response.” This concept applies to nearly each space of life and, not surprisingly, it’s related to main change too.
Whenever you’re devising a plan for transformation, after you’ve adopted all the recommendation above: You’ve taken time to construct belief; you’ve solicited the very best concepts utilizing all of the sources at your disposal from consultants, to AI, to market analysis and past; you’ve established the ideas and better ambition that may drive the trouble; you’ve pressure-tested it with key stakeholders and socialized the agenda with all people concerned.
Then: Conceptually, there’s a house. Earlier than liftoff. One final likelihood to sit down with the roadmap that you simply’ve constructed to be sure to know the course intimately. Get so grounded in the way you’re going to carry the plan to life that even essentially the most livid storm can’t knock you off track.
This precept applies in small moments in addition to large. Sure, it’s sensible to seek out the house earlier than a momentous transformation or launch begins. But it surely’s additionally sensible to seek out that house in on a regular basis moments that may have a robust affect on the folks you’re employed with. That is usually the place the “artwork” of management lies, in the way you reply to folks in hundreds of little interactions.
Contemplate this your reminder to pause, to problem your knee-jerk impulses. If an inner alarm is blaring, telling you to rush, that’s a very good signal to take a beat. Discover the house. Take the time to decide on your response. Decelerate to hurry up. A considerate response is usually higher than a fast one.
It’s on this capability to control our inner rhythms that we as soon as once more differentiate ourselves from the machines.
GenAI is speedy and on-demand. It aggregates info and responds to our prompts inside fractions of a millisecond.
So, let’s permit the know-how to be quick so we might be gradual. Let’s be exact with our phrase, empathetic in our interactions, and beneficiant with our time. That’s how we construct relationships, drive change, and create enduring management legacies.
Sincerely,
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Do you may have an perception so as to add to the EQ reply to this AI query?
We wish to hear from you. Drop us a line along with your ideas and we might characteristic your response in a future ‘EQ Solutions to AI Questions’ letter.
Advised Studying
Listed here are some latest sources we’ve discovered illuminating on this matter:
On the lookout for extra EQ insights on this matter? Discover these sources from ConantLeadership:
In regards to the Creator: 
Doug Conant is Founder and CEO of ConantLeadership, Chairman Emeritus of CECP, former CEO of Campbell Soup Firm, former Chairman of Avon Merchandise, and co-author of two bestselling management books, TouchPoints, and The Blueprint.
This restricted collection is written in partnership with Amy Federman, Editor in Chief and Director of Content material at ConantLeadership.
(Header photograph by Ross Findon on Unsplash)
