The External Hire Gamble: When Boards Bet on Someone Else’s Blueprint
A decade ago, external CHRO hires were the exception, not the rule—a sign of crisis or a last resort. In 2026, they’re the default.
A Bridge to AI
Two lenses on AI transformation: workplace strategies for navigating change (A Bridge to AI) and global forces reshaping how we live and lead (The AI Inflection Point). Deep Dive essays, tools, and the PIC™ Diagnostic for Premium members.
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Special Mid-Year Deep Dive – Before the Door Closes: A Practitioner's Guide to the Agentic Vendor Gap
What to look for, what to ask, and how to update the governance cycle before the agent is already running
The Governance Vacuum Has New Landlords
How the control-plane race is filling six months of structural silence — and why it looks like a solution
The Mirror Is Honest. That's Not the Problem.
A windshield isn't a rearview mirror.
Signed, Sealed, Already Running
What AI agents are doing inside your vendor relationships that a quarterly review could miss.
Resetting the Compressed Clock
How to reset your own rhythm, read your team's, and act before the crisis makes the decision for you.
The Question Nobody Is Asking the People at the Top
Image created using Ideogram.ai The AI Inflection Point (TAIIP) | ~1,233 | Reading time: 5 minutes Two papers landed recently—one from the NY Fed, one from economists at Warwick, LSE, and Oxford— documenting something the labor market has been feeling for two years without being able to name. The broken entry-level job market for young white-collar workers isn’t primarily an AI problem. It’s a…
The Clock Change Nobody Announced
Image created with Ideogram.ai THE CONNECTING POINT (TCP) | Words: 1,290 | Reading time: 5 minutes Twice a year, much of the world changes its clocks. And twice a year, the friction that follows is immediate, measurable, and oddly surprising, as if we forgot it was coming despite the fact that it comes every year. The week after the spring change, car accidents rise. Heart attack rates tick up.…
Seeing the Terrain: How to Navigate the Architect Transition Without a Map
There is no job description for the person who gets into the room before the mistake gets made.
The Cleanup Crew Was Always the Architecture Team
The AI Inflection Point (TAIIP) | Words: ~1,915 | Reading time: 8 minutes
You Already Know Where It Breaks
Image created with Ideogram The Connecting Point essay | 791 words | 3 minute read There’s a kind of knowledge that doesn’t come from courses, credentials, or leadership retreats. It comes from proximity—from being close enough to the places where things fail, for long enough, that you stop being surprised by what breaks. Soon, you can see around corners: sensing the weight of a decision made…
Surgical Before Scale: How I Beta Tested the PIC™ Diagnostic
The PIC™ Diagnostic is live. It went live quietly. No fanfare. No countdown. No launch day confetti. Just the tool, a small circle of intentional testers, and the work of making sure it does what it’s supposed to do before I opened the door. That’s how I build. Surgical before scale. Why small by design. I’ve spent decades watching organizations launch things before they’re ready. The enterprise…
It Started at 3am
The curve climbs toward the aha. The question is — do you see it coming? My muse doesn’t keep business hours. She woke me up in the middle of the night with something I couldn’t name yet. Just a pull. An insistence. I didn’t question it — I got up, grabbed a stack of flip chart pages, and started covering the walls of my home office. Then the hallway. Wherever I found room. I wasn’t sure what I…
The Friction Is the Data: Reading the Room When the Room Is on Fire
Deep Dive | Shaping Tomorrow | Words: ~1,883 | Reading time: 8 minutes
The Governance Vacuum Is an Invitation — If You Know How to Read It
🌐 The AI Inflection Point (TAIIP) examines the AI era from the outside in, showing how infrastructure, policy, and power shape outcomes — when decisions made far upstream quietly determine what workers, communities, and institutions experience downstream. Curated monthly. Image created using Ideogram The AI Inflection Point (TAIIP) | Words: ~1,708 | Reading time: 7 minutes The Vacuum Is Already…
After the Exodus: The Reinvention Window Is Open — But It Won't Stay That Way
The Connecting Point (TCP) | Words: ~1,566 | Reading time: 7 minutes Image created with Ideogram Disruption Doesn't Announce Itself as Opportunity Most people experience disruption as loss first. The layoff. The reorg. The leader who quietly relocates. The team that gets disbanded. The product that gets sunset. The industry that shifts underneath you while you’re busy doing your job well. Only…
LinkSwap: Backlinks Without the Cringe
I’ve been using LinkSwap for a few weeks now. The pitch: swap backlinks with great writers in seconds. No cold outreach. No admin hell. (Disclaimer: I was part of the LinkSwap beta team.) What I didn’t expect: LinkSwap would offer me opportunities to build trust connections with writers new to me—writing things worth reading. Check out the post by and that explains it all: I Built A Tool Every…
Building Permission Structures for Gray-Zone Systems: A Strategic Guide
How to design governance that makes ambiguous decisions legitimate—before crisis forces the conversation
The Governance Lag: Why 2026 Is the Year Gray-Zone Systems Become Undeniable
How responsibility vacuums scale from boardrooms to communities
Why Smart Teams Freeze: The Responsibility Vacuum in AI Implementation
When everyone sees the problem but no one can own the solution