The Two-organizations Problem

A few months ago, I sat in a board meeting at a financial services firm where the CEO was walking the directors through the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) transformation. The slides were impeccable, detailing AI adoption rates by function, time saved per workflow and a clean line from pilot to scale. The board seemed satisfied that they had the information they needed.

Just 24 hours prior, I had sat with the engineers who actually built those tools. What they described was a different company. Two of the most senior engineers had already started looking for new roles, citing the gap between what was being claimed in the room I had just left and what they experienced every day.

Both versions of the AI transformation story were true; however, neither was complete. This example illustrates what I call the two-organizations problem. I have seen the same pattern at companies across financial services, fintech, enterprise software and AI, both from the inside during my years as an executive and now from the outside in my advisory work with boards and CEOs. Industry varies. Size varies. The pattern does not.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Harvard Business Review.