Applying DMAIC to AI governance is a category error. The framework cannot detect bias drift, value misalignment, or harm that compounds inside a low-variance model. You get control charts. You don't get governance.
New on Phronesis: why process engineering tools fail AI design, and what a phronetic governance architecture actually looks like:
https://enterprisephronesis.substack.com/p/dmaic-is-not-a-governance-framework
#AIGovernance #HRTechnology
Your organisation has an AI governance framework. It has almost certainly never governed AI.
What it governs is software procurement. The gap between governance posture and architecture is where enterprise AI risk accumulates - in the deployments that succeed, not the ones that fail.
New in Phronesis: four structural requirements of genuine governance. Operational and buildable today.
Legacy back-office tech isn't a technical debt problem; it's a human flourishing problem. It actively repels the talent you need to build the future and strangles the curiosity required for innovation. Your ERP is your culture, codified. Choose wisely.
BCG's new piece points to "agent-led orchestration" as #AI's next step. When AI executes, the uniquely human contribution becomes strategic and ethical oversight. A profound shift for leaders.
#AIStrategy #Leadership #FutureOfWork
https://www.bcg.com/publications/2025/ai-is-outpacing-your-workforce-strategy-are-you-ready
An piece in HBR posits that AI is not a source of sustainable advantage, but a great leveller. By design, it learns from everyone's innovations and makes insights cheaper for everyone else.
This raises a question for leaders: if AI makes data-driven strategy a commodity, what becomes priceless?
The answer must be the inimitable, human elements of our organisations: culture, trust, and our unique ways of working together.
https://hbr.org/2024/09/ai-wont-give-you-a-new-sustainable-advantage
A thoughtful BCG piece suggests we're focused on the wrong thing with AI and innovation. Giving everyone tools creates variation, but value comes from selection and amplification. This requires a culture and a system built on trust and respect for employee ideas, not just top-down directives. It reframes the workplace as a living system, not a machine.
https://www.bcg.com/publications/2025/how-every-employee-can-become-an-innovator
We are asking the wrong questions about AI. Instead of "How do we automate jobs?", we should ask, "How do we augment our people?".
The shift from role-based tasks to skills-based work is not a technical problem, but a cultural one. The article notes that HR's true role is to be the architect of this transition, fostering the psychological safety and trust required for people to partner with technology. This is how we create a flourishing workplace.
https://hrexecutive.com/the-augmented-human-why-hr-is-the-architect-of-an-ai-powered-future/
The EU AI Act isn't a tax on innovation; it's a leadership test.
Most see a compliance hurdle. See instead a rare opportunity to build a competitive moat made of trust. Proactively embedding fairness and transparency into high-risk AI is how technology becomes a humanising force.
#AI #Leadership #HumanReverence #FutureOfWork
https://hbr.org/2025/09/how-smes-can-prepare-for-the-eus-ai-regulations
Will have to read this one today -> Governor Newsom signs SB 53, advancing California’s world-leading artificial intelligence industry.
We often deploy AI tools with a narrow focus on efficiency, forgetting that technology shapes culture. The default outcome? AI reinforces the organisational silos that disconnect our people and undermine strategic goals.
True value emerges when leaders treat AI not as a departmental toy, but as an enterprise-level instrument for unity.
https://hbr.org/2025/09/dont-let-ai-reinforce-organizational-silos
A key insight from Hugging Face's Thomas Wolf on the MIT Sloan podcast: AI is built to regress to the mean. It predicts the most likely next step, reinforcing the status quo. This makes it a great assistant for incremental tasks.
However, true breakthroughs—in science, art, and business—come from challenging convention, from pursuing the unlikely idea. As leaders, our challenge is to use AI to handle the probable, freeing up human talent to explore the improbable.
Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic) has some... *concerning* news about the "AI" industry.
Okay, it's bad news. Like, *really* bad news.
The problem is that it won't just affect the siloed techbros and their megacorps.
https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/econopocalypse/#subprime-intelligence
The paradox of AI at work: adoption is surging, but ROI is stagnant. A powerful HBR article identifies the culprit: "workslop".
It is defined as AI-generated work that appears polished but lacks substance, shifting the burden of sense-making and rework to the receiver. This isn't just inefficient; it is a failure of leadership that erodes trust and disrespects people's time.
https://hbr.org/2025/09/ai-generated-workslop-is-destroying-productivity
In her book "Resistance to Evidence," Mona Simion frames the refusal to update beliefs on available evidence as an "epistemic malfunction." For leaders, this is not just an abstract error. It is a failure of reverence.
Ignoring data on burnout or a failing strategy signals that comfort is valued over truth. This erodes trust and makes it impossible to build a flourishing workplace where people feel respected.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/resistance-to-evidence/147AC15A7EA89095A820FF16B1D0525A
ABC, not ANC
A gov report on AI ethics reveals the gap between policy and practice. The real work isn't writing principles, but building governance. It's the 'how-to' for embedding fairness, maintaining human oversight, and building trust. This is how leaders ensure technology becomes a humanising force, not just an automated one. It's reverence in action.
There is a short-sighted trend of using AI to eliminate entry-level jobs. This treats human potential as a cost to be cut, rather than an investment to be developed.
These roles are the primary pipeline for future leaders and a source of ground-level innovation. A leader acting with reverence uses AI not to replace people, but to redesign work, freeing junior talent for the creative and collaborative tasks that build a flourishing workplace and a stronger society.
https://hbr.org/2025/09/the-perils-of-using-ai-to-replace-entry-level-jobs