A “Washing Machine” sits in each company ready to toss you into a cycle of doing. If you let yourself and others enter it, you have shut the door on the full potential of the humans who have come alongside you to create something of value. These people have a conscious or unconscious need for meaning in their lives. If you are the leader: by title or by ownership, you have a choice to make. You can recognize that each person is searching for alignment and see your role as inviting them into your journey, or you can determine what you can extract, and mine it until it doesn’t produce the return you need.

What kind of builder are you?

This Great Conversation suggests that there is a way to build for value that does not subtract from another. And that ultimately this path can change you and our world.

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The Great Conversation

The world spins off wheels (models used by any human organization to achieve success in the market). But what if the wheel begins to slow or suddenly stops?

In this great conversation we face the existential question: Are we ready for the change that is upon us? This change is multi-faceted. The change is a wheel that can release the energy of the market, the organizations within a market, and the people that help push and pull it into significance. But it needs leaders who see the change and help others through it.

We want revolutions in the wheel, not a conflagration.

In this Great Conversation, we immerse ourselves in the variables and potential root cause of this change. A strategic "integrator" joins us. Someone who has spent time in the military, consulted with Fortune 500 companies, and consumes data that speaks to the evolving socio-economic road ahead.

Automation scares people. Always has. And it should if you are waiting to see what happens next.

As we conversed and I reflected on the technology transitions I have been through for the last 50 years, I realized this is the perfect time for every leader, including me, to lend a hand. The perfect question came to mind: Can I help others on this AI Path to Value™?

Read more: at The Great Conversation

“Isn’t it time to stop holding people accountable?”

You are a leader. You take on a role called owner, executive, or manager. Or you are part of a team. You are trying to get things done. And you have laggards among you. What is the common response"?

Hold them accountable!

This is a logical next step. Measures of performance. And if you aren’t measuring up, bad things happen. You have been there. It starts with a conversation. Then when that doesn’t work, talk with HR. Maybe they can help. After all, in this culture of litigation, it doesn’t hurt to document. And you find yourself and your company accelerating down the path of correction. After all, you need to “hold them accountable”. A Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) may follow. And it screams to the employee and to their peers, that you have now been given a path to exit, not a path to value. Someone has to pay for this lack of accountability.

And this is where a Great Conversation with Aaron Schmookler, the founder of The Yes Works, creates the foundation for a new idea.

Aaron has a company that promises to unleash your people from this death spiral. It seeks to provide agency to the worker and to the business. And the agency starts with the gift of clarity. Owners and leaders: Are you clear what your mission is? Have you articulated that to your people? Do they know how they contribute to your definition of success? Do they know what the reward for that success is? Do they understand it, want it, and have the skills / capacity to achieve it?

If so, then they are personally accountable to themselves! As Aaron might say: “The greatest kindness one can give another is agency over the consequences of their actions.” When we err, it is a learning. When learning is applied, we grow. When we grow, we have taken a step on a path to value.

This demands a great conversation with your leadership team. It just might be the beginning of a reformation in how you identify, onboard, and mentor your people until they are unstoppable.