There are two ways to harness AI.
- One is to use AI as a cost-reduction technique – we’ve seen this in dozens of organizations – Amazon, Facebook, Blok, IBM, Klarna, HP and so many more. For these leaders, AI is code for head-count reductions.
- The other is to use AI to help existing employees become more productive and successful – both as employees, and also as productive human beings and contributors to society.
Here is the difference:
Group 1 sees people as disposable and as a drain on profits. Often, leaders in Group 1 simply send an email to employes telling them that their services are no longer required, and not to come into the office tomorrow! Their credentials, access to buildings, computers, phones and more are instantly severed.
Group 2 sees people as the most important asset in their organizations – not as a disposable means of production, but as human beings with families, mortgages, and car payments whose lives are worth uplifting. They ask, “How can AI contribute to each person’s work and life, and therefore to our organization?”
The key difference between Group 1 and Group 2 leaders is CHARACTER. Different leaders make different decisions, depending on the quality of their character.
Which one are you?
Well said Lance. I’ve shared this with friends. Thanks.
Stephen, why is this so hard to appreciate for so many? Is it just greed and leadership-via-spreadsheet?
So brilliantly and succinctly stated, Lance! We need more leaders like you and like those in Group 2 who really want to develop PEOPLE. Thank you for this!
Mary, thanks for your comments. Are you able to help people be in Group 2?
Lance, you’ve named the right variable — character. I’d add one layer: character alone doesn’t survive a broken operating model.
The leaders I see struggling aren’t always Group 1 by choice. Many have Group 2 values and Group 1 architecture. Fear cascades down hierarchy. A people-first CHRO gets overridden by a CFO running a cost-per-head model. Without structural design that holds the values, character gets arbitraged away by quarterly pressure.
This is exactly where your CASTLE principles do their heaviest lifting. Courage, Authenticity, Service, Truthfulness, Love, Effectiveness — these aren’t soft aspirations. They’re the load-bearing walls. When they’re genuinely embedded in how an organization makes decisions — not just posted on a wall — they create the resistance that keeps Group 2 leaders from drifting into Group 1 behavior under pressure.
What Group 1 is missing is this: customer experience will drop, and financial results will follow. Organizations that flourish live in a congruent space — one that serves their people, their customers, and their financial responsibilities simultaneously. These aren’t competing priorities; they’re a causal chain. We’re already seeing the correction play out — retailers who ripped out cashiers for self-serve kiosks are quietly bringing humans back.
So right, Bill. Keep changing the world!