Why Discipline Beats Strategy Almost Every Time

​A manager I know spent $40,000 on an AI-powered strategy platform, which produced a comprehensive growth plan. It included a market analysis, competitive positioning and a plan for the first quarter. It was a great growth plan, but, you see, there was a problem with the execution.​

When the manager and I met, I asked him how it went with the implementation of the AI-powered strategy. He fumbled and couldn’t provide details about the calls his team made or the critical metrics. As great as AI was at creating a plan that might have worked, the manager had checked out and moved on to other things.​

Unfortunately, it’s not an isolated story, as executive-first execution and leadership are getting disrupted quickly by AI. AI is sophisticated and can create in a fraction of the time what would have taken weeks or even months. But tech can’t compensate for leadership that’s not disciplined in execution, and that’s an expensive lesson to learn.

The Gap AI Exposed But Didn’t Create

If sales aren’t meeting their goals, one reason may be that management doesn’t genuinely understand or appreciate the need to leverage tech like AI. But ​AI has the capacity to hold a mirror to every organization and department. For some organizations, AI implementation might mean sending automated responses to inquiries until there’s more substantive issues that require a human. It could also mean using predictive analytics on leads to scale growth.

The team of our three social enterprise companies has been thrown quickly into the deep end of the pool. Our marketing team, for example, has to keep up with changes not only in search engine optimization (SEO) but also in generative engine optimization (GEO) and answer engine optimization (AEO). But here’s the thing: As the founder, I dove into the deep end as well.

When we saw changes in our lead funnel last year, we moved swiftly to reorient. That included hiring a new strategist and having long and deep conversations with my team, which are ongoing almost daily. I’m fortunate that the team works well and has experience together, but we’re used to having tough conversations and challenging everyone’s thinking, including mine.

In the age of AI, it’s not easy because every day is like drinking out of the fire hose, but that’s the lay of the land. Every team member and manager, including myself, is continually upskilling, clarifying priorities and holding each other accountable. At this time, no team leader can afford not to know the details, and that takes discipline.

3 Disciplines AI Will Never Replace

Business leaders and workers need to produce results, and this is where humanness matters, because we can make meaningful judgments that AI can’t. AI follows its programming and instructions. Humans have moral and ethical judgment hardwired into our beings, and that matters more than ever in an environment like ours.

AI isn’t replacing everyone and everything, and nuance matters. By that I mean the unglamorous, repetitive work of disciplined thinking and decision making. I believe that the leaders and workers who are thriving right now and not just surviving show the following disciplines that require meaningful human judgment—and yes, discipline:

1. Hiring The Best And Paying Accordingly

Yes, algorithms can and are increasingly incentivizing performance pay. But to ensure the best team, leaders have to be disciplined. It’s easy to get tempted to pay cheaply, but it’s the wrong approach. Leaders need to remember that most people can, do and want to do great work, but they have to earn a decent living. I have members of my team who have been working for decades and are still innovating. Retention doesn’t happen by accident. It results from consistent, disciplined investment in the business and the right people.

2. Leading People, Not Positions

A corrosive leadership assumption is that because AI knows and can do so much, authority flows from hierarchy, but that’s not the case. As I mentioned earlier, my marketing and sales team have amped up their learning and experimentation due to AI. We’ve been able to stay at the top of our industry by operating with flat, non-hierarchical structures. Everyone on the team is in on the conversations, including any junior or new team members, which builds essential discipline and trust.

3. Looking Through The Windshield, Not The Rearview Mirror

Disciplined leaders and workers aren’t nostalgic. They don’t waste time defending how things “used to” work. They’re not going to invest time or energy in past structures. They’re about moving forward at all times and maintaining momentum. That takes discipline because it’s essential to continually make decisions, see what works and what doesn’t, learn and keep moving forward. Tech can provide supporting “evidence” for any position. Teams can easily drown in data. But they have to use the right data strategically to keep moving forward.

The Real Question

The way I see it, we’re at a crossroads between AI enthusiasts who believe tech solves every human problem and the skeptics who think AI, robots and tech will replace every human. I believe it will not be either extreme if disciplined social, political and business leaders make the right ethical judgments.

The best leaders and workers are those who are willing to be disciplined in the fundamentals. They’ll get up every morning knowing they don’t know everything or can do even a fraction of what AI can do. Regardless, they have the discipline to keep having discussions, learning, being aware of how decisions impact things and keep moving the ball forward.​

Source: Forbes