Adsum Insights Blog

 

AI Knows. Do CEOs?

This is the third article in my series on cross-company improvement initiatives. 

In the first article, I used chatGPT to stack rank twenty cross-company initiatives based on "known" impact.  You can see those results here.

One of the cross-company initiatives that ChatGPT surfaced and ranked was efforts to improve team effectiveness.

In my second article, I highlighted that improving team effectiveness was not specifically called out as one of HR's top 2025 priorities in the Gartner Survey. I was surprised by that given the impact improving teamwork can have.

The second article went on to argue that even though it is almost impossible to get an accurate read on the ROI of any cross-company improvement initiative, companies still need to decide if they are going to leverage them as a vehicle for improvement or just rely on  "within function" optimization efforts.

AI Designs a Company-wide Improvement Program

I asked ChatGPT to...

  • ...design an organization-wide...
  • ...decentralized (distributed ownership, localized decision making and adaptation of approaches) initiative...
  • ...that would improve effectiveness, close to the work...
  • ...be scalable...
  • ...and have the highest likelihood of improving organizational results

"A culture of improvement grows by seeing it, not just talking about it."

Here are the six elements of ChatGPT's program:

1) Micro-Skills Platform for Everyone.  ChatGPT said to Think: "LinkedIn Learning meets Peloton — everyone on their own journey, but part of a shared movement." (!!!) 

Create a learning system that is:

  1. Modular (5–15 min bursts)

  2. On-demand (embedded in flow of work)

  3. Targeted (role- and context-specific)

Training Topics: giving and receiving feedback, decision-making, influencing without authority, conflict resolution, agile methods, value stream thinking, rapid alignment methods (like Working Agreements, Decision Protocols).

My comment:  I love the targeted skills training aimed right at people working together.  And while I see the logic of modular and on-demand, those approaches are tougher to implement. Just having digital/video versions of those courses that employees could easily access would provide great leverage and would be easier to get up and running.

2) Team Operating Model Boot Camps.  Essentially every team 're-launches" itself by co-defining purpose, setting shared norms, operating rhythm, etc.  

My Comment: The second lever in AI's answer to a decentralized approach to improving organization outcomes is improving teamwork.  I love the notion of getting the team to relaunch itself.  But the team would have a more successful relaunch if it had a model that laid out the key elements of high-performing teams and then collected data to see which dimensions it was doing well on and where the friction was.  As I have said before, I think the Rocket Model is the best team-based assessment on the market.

3) Peer Coaching & Shared Learning.  Pair people across teams for 5-minute weekly "peer connects" to share hits and misses and to have someone outside the team to be vulnerable with about shortfalls. ChatGPT also noted that "Social Learning beats corporate training every time." (!!!)

My comment: You could pair people across teams, but that would be a lot to get off the ground.  I would start by pairing managers to share notes about what is working in helping the team operate more effectively together.  That would be easier to get launched and have a larger, "force multiplier" quality.  Finally, it's hard not to love ChatGPT's editorial about social learning over corporate training.

4) Clarify & Improve Decision-Making. ChatGPT recommends each team be taught how to use a decision canvas to help make individual and collective decisions. ChatGPT has this lever "to push control to the edges with clear guardrails."

My Comment:  I love the focus on improving decision making.  I would also make sure everyone understands DACI/RACI models.  Just the act of clarifying who the decision maker is sidesteps a lot of confusion and wheel-spinning. Where necessary, the team might challenge who that decision maker is and what the process should be.  And as ChatGPT advises, pushing decision making close to the work would warm the cockles of the heart of anyone who has ever set up an Andon cord on an assembly line.

5) Visible Learning in Action. Every team shares 1-page “What We’re Learning” updates in some public forum: Experiments, Wins, Learning, Questions. ChatGPT added that it is important to reinforce the norm of transparent learning over performative reporting because "a culture of improvement grows by seeing it, not just talking about it."

My Comment:  This is the first time ChatGPT called out "culture." Organization-wide improvement can't be sustained without a culture that supports it.  Experiments, wins, learning, wonder questions...at a team level...that's what continuous improvement is. With this public step, the organization is trying to make failed experiments and learning OK.  It is also shining a light on lessons and best practices to move from continuous improvement on individual teams to a culture of continuous improvement.

My add would be that If the organization took one more step and wove these sharing forums into QBRs and other formal meetings it would send the message that these are not one offs...they are part of "the way we work" and just as important as the other results that are about to be reviewed/discussed.

6) Recognition for Real Teaming, Not Just Heroics.  Provide recognition for collaboration, shared ownership, and team-level innovation, such as peer-nominated “Teaming Champions” each quarter. ChatGPT says: Stories are more important than metrics in early stages. (!!!) 

My Comment:  The organization has to show it cares about individual effectiveness, collaboration, and teaming.  Most companies recognize great sales people, product breakthroughs, above and beyond customer service, etc.  It it wants more collaboration and higher performing teams...as a norm...it will have to consistently recognize teamwork and team-based accomplishments. 

Putting This Six-Part Program on Steroids

I thought ChatGPT's program was remarkably well-designed.  Moreover, the approach would not be hard to get off the ground...my guess is two months to be launched, and consultant-independent in four months.

You could turbocharge this six-part approach with a very modest amount of centralized tracking.  ChatGPT didn't include centralized tracking because I asked for a decentralized. bottoms-up approach. 

But if you added some of these to the approach: 

  • Tracked the number of people who have taken the various modular training programs...
  • Tracked the number of teams that had done an assessment of team effectiveness...
  • Created and curated an internal website to share best practices and tracked the teams that posted their one-page lessons learned...

...and then created a scoreboard of these elements...by business and function...you would see 10X the impact.

 

Is Belief the Biggest Barrier to Creating a Collaborative, High-performing Teams Culture?

As well-designed and scalable as the AI solution is, I have not heard of many organizations engaged in anything like this.

Is AI ahead of leadership teams in thinking about this?

Do leadership teams think their more "within-function" improvement initiatives are enough?

Or is the fact that we are not seeing more companies doing this a question of belief...belief that getting people and culture to change is even possible?

We have arrived at a moment when many are starting to believe in possibilities that would have been laughable a few years ago...super intelligence, unlimited clean energy, robo-taxies...that fly!

But if you ask, “How can we make a culture that helps us drive 20% better outcomes?, you're likely to get a lot of quizzical looks and head shaking.

Renowned executive coach and consultant Joe Hudson speculates that the reason many don't believe people and cultures can change comes right out of their own experience:

"Most people haven’t really figured out how to have a great marriage, or how to raise their kids well, or be with themselves in a way that is great. It’s very hard to create a great culture, if the culture in your head is toxic."  ~Joe Hudson, The Art of Accomplishment, Episode 125

Not only are companies not implementing cross-company improvement programs that AI can design, in Part 4, I will share ten signs that, despite all the rah and rhetoric, may indicate your organization doesn't care that much about the effectiveness of the teams operating within it.

 

Dennis Adsit, Ph.D. is an executive coach, organization consultant, and designer of The First 100 Days and Beyond, a consulting service that has helped hundreds of newly hired and promoted executives get great starts in challenging new jobs.