
Methods of the Masters
A blog on the art & science of creative action.
The Most Important AI Role Has Nothing To Do With Code
When organizations think about AI transformation, they immediately focus on technical roles: data scientists, developers, prompt engineers. But what if the most important AI role in your organization requires zero technical expertise?
Stop Measuring AI Usage (Start Measuring AI Impact)
Behold the great AI measurement delusion: Organizations tracking usage metrics are missing the only thing that matters—impact.
More use isn't better use. Better use is better use.
Show, Don't Tell: Your Team Won't Use AI Until They See You Using It
Last week a CEO asked me the same question I hear from every executive: 'How do I get my team to use AI?'
My answer shocked him.
Think Differently About Meeting Prep: From Manual Grind to AI-Enhanced Efficiency
Deeply practical guest post by former NCAA and NFL punter, now tech executive, Zoltán Meskó. I met Zoltán at Stanford’s annual Campbell Trophy Summit last summer, and he stayed in touch, telling me all the cool stuff he was trying - check out how AI is changing the way he works.
Stop Making Peace with Pain: The Hidden Cost of Normalizing Inefficiency
"I don't really have any pain points to automate," a CEO told me during an AI workshop last week. "I don't do repetitive work like other people in the company do."
Then he mentioned how he spends six hours manually editing every report his team sends him… I had to stop him right there.
You Need an AI Manifesto
The piece of data from Section’s latest AI Proficiency Report I can’t stop thinking about: Silence on AI breeds more AI skepticism than an outright AI ban. So if you’ve been gathering your thoughts on AI, now is the time to put them in writing. In this special guest post, Section’s CEO, Greg Shove, will tell you how.
Use AI to Use AI: The Meta-Skill Nobody’s Talking About
Learning to work with AI isn’t really a technical challenge. It’s a human behavior change effort. AI skill building is about far more than learning new tools. It’s about unlearning old ways of working.
45 Minutes That Saved 20 Years: The Story of An Unlikely AI Hero
AI is transforming industries. Designers are compressing month-long workflows into minutes. Scientists are using AI to condense years of research into days. But what about decades into minutes? Meet Adam. He doesn’t have a LinkedIn account. But in 45 minutes, he built an AI tool that'll save his organization thousands of days of work every year.
Never Too Old to Learn: How Experience Gives You an “AI Edge”
Growth mindset expert Diane Flynn shares insights and advice for a more experienced generation of workers who might feel somewhat hesitant to embrace the collaborative superpowers of GenAI.
Stop Hiding Your AI Use (And Make Your Team Stop, Too)
Right now, in boardrooms and Slack channels across the globe, leaders are inadvertently creating a culture of AI shame. They're reinforcing the very hesitation they should be helping their teams overcome. It's time for an intervention.
Beware the Siren Call of the Wrong Question
The first question an innovator must answer is not “can I make it?” but rather, “should I?” This has become something of a mantra among CEOs I work with, as a needful protection against the gravitational pull of the organizational bureaucracy.
Host A Science Fair
While the winding road to innovation often only makes sense in retrospect, that doesn’t mean you can’t bend the odds. One of my favorite prospective strategies an organization can employ is the classic science fair... but you must approach it correctly.
Who Will Lead the AI Charge?
NYU Chief AI Architect Conor Grennan makes a strong case for why GenAI shouldn't be an IT capability, but rather, championed by HR. He argues that the folks responsible for human behavior change need to be leading the charge.
Make Room for Thinking
Sprints are a fantastic tool to drive innovation with efficiency. But sometimes you’ve got to be inefficient in order to create effectively. A few reflections on a troubling trend I'm seeing emerge among would-be innovation practitioners.
Your AI Task Force is Missing the Point
Undisputed "Beyond the Prompt" fan favorite Jenny Nicholson drops by to share some insights from her adventures helping folks innovate with AI. Important lessons for any leader looking to unleash their teams with this transformative technology.
Catalyze AI Success: The Power of Dedicated Innovation Capacity
In the past year, I've witnessed a fascinating phenomenon across organizations embracing GenAI. Two "identical twins" in the AI race, similar in their approach to AI adoption -- engaged senior leadership, extensive training, numerous opportunities for AI integration -- whose outcomes couldn't be more different.
Scrape Your Knees: Why Falling is Essential to AI Mastery
Most folks’ biggest mistake in collaborating with AI is expecting to get things perfect right out of the gate. But learning to use AI is just like any other motor skill: you’ve got to fall in order to create new neural pathways. Here, I share some insights on falling forward, productively.
Ethan Mollick: “Latent Expertise: Everyone is in R&D”
Special guest post from Wharton professor and “accidental AI expert” Ethan Mollick. He joined the podcast a couple months back, and then he blew our minds with this exceptional post on how companies can do much more with AI than merely improve efficiency.
Beware Prompt-Hoarding
If you are to succeed in your quest to realize the gains promised by GenAI enthusiasts, you must regard every quick and easy prompt pack with skepticism. “The Ultimate Prompt Guide” promises to bestow a wizard-summoning ability with a blue-pill-like ease. No, you will not know Kung Fu after downloading that prompt pack.
Lose Your Thumbs, Find Your Voice
For all the hype about Natural Language Processing (NLP), it’s easy to forget that typing isn't all that natural. For many, it’s a bottleneck to our thought process. In the age of AI, we can bypass our fingers and thumbs entirely in favor of actual “natural language”: the spoken word.