AI’s Newest Employee: Who Bears the Burden of Your Digital Coworkers?
Digital coworkers are no longer hypothetical. AI-driven agents—agentics—are creeping into every function, every decision process, and every interaction within organizations. In some ways, they are the executive dream—they don’t need coffee breaks, demand raises, or call in sick. And yet, they’re reshaping work in ways few leaders are prepared to handle.
Sitting in the Fire, With Maria
Global leaders deal with chaotic and changing situations, often filled with tension and conflict, which can make people feel excluded and prevent #community building. Two disparate yet connected fields grapple with the continued emergence of ethical dilemmas: #Technology and #AI, and #DEI. As much as we think these fields aren’t related, how we manage #conflict, check our assumptions, and navigate connection is what creates the path forward.
Part 5: The Ethical Imperative: Redefining Organizational Culture in the Age of AI
As we conclude our exploration of the evolving data culture in corporate America, we find ourselves at a critical juncture. The pendulum swings we've observed—from the data-driven efficiency focus of the 1990s to the purpose-driven revolution of the 2010s—have set the stage for a new era of complexity. The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) is not just another technological advancement; it represents a fundamental shift in how organizations must approach skill development and organizational design for data, purpose, and ethics.
Part 4: The Trilemma of Modern Business: Navigating Data, Purpose, and Ethics in the AI Era
As we stand at the precipice of a new era in corporate evolution, the landscape before us is far more complex and nuanced than we could have imagined even a decade ago. The simple dichotomies of the past—efficiency versus humanity, data versus intuition—have given way to a trilemma that threatens to reshape the very foundations of organizational structure and leadership. This piece aims to unravel the intricate web of challenges facing modern businesses as they attempt to balance data-driven decision making, purpose-driven cultures, and the looming ethical considerations of the AI age.
Part 2: The Dark Side of Data: Unintended Consequences and Ethical Dilemmas
As the new millennium dawned, the data-driven paradigm that emerged in the 1990s had become firmly entrenched in corporate America. Organizations across industries were collecting, analyzing, and acting on data at an unprecedented scale. However, as with any transformative shift, the rise of data-driven management brought with it a host of unintended consequences and ethical challenges. This article explores the darker side of the data revolution, examining the limits of metrics-based management, the human cost of extreme efficiency, and the emerging ethical dilemmas of the data age.
Transparency and Explainability Don't Equal Trust
Trust is transitioning from institutional to "distributed," shifting authority from leaders to peers, which is often overlooked and perpetuates trust issues. If trust is predictable, it isn’t needed – is it? If the inner workings of AI, government, and the media were just more transparent, if we knew how they worked, we think we wouldn’t really need to “trust” so much. It would be more predictable.