There is a phrase I hear constantly from senior leaders right now: We do not have time to slow down. Everything needs to move faster. Decisions need to happen faster. Teams need to adopt AI faster. Organizations need to experiment, learn, adapt, and somehow stay ahead while the technology itself continues to change.
I understand the urgency, but I also keep wondering: What happens when we move so quickly that we stop creating the conditions for good decisions?
That tension was at the center of my conversation with my friend Lisa Duerre, CEO and co-founder of RLD Group. Lisa is an AI Leadership Alignment and Leadership Systems Strategist who helps organizations reduce fragmentation, strengthen cross-functional execution, and build healthier leadership systems.
Lisa and her team recently conducted applied research based on interviews with 25 executives across functions including product, engineering, HR, IT, legal, marketing, and sales. They wanted to understand what was helping leaders navigate AI, where alignment was breaking down, and what organizations could do differently.
Their findings landed with me because the problems were both incredibly timely and very familiar.
AI Amplifies Fragmentation
If teams already communicate well, share information across functions, and make decisions with clarity, AI may help them accelerate those strengths. If an organization is already fragmented, AI can accelerate that too.
Silos move faster. Unclear decisions create more downstream confusion. Teams experiment independently without sharing what they learn. People repeat work someone else has already done. Leaders are so focused on implementation that they do not stop to ask how one team’s choices affect another part of the organization.
We are not simply introducing another technology. AI is moving across workflows, teams, functions, and traditional organizational boundaries. The cracks that were manageable at a slower speed become harder to ignore when everything accelerates.
RLD Group’s applied research identified three root drivers of that fragmentation: silos, a lack of explorer mindset, and underdesigned conversations and collaboration.
What struck me was how closely those three findings connect to conversations I have been having with leaders all year.
Silos Become More Expensive at AI Speed
Silos are certainly not a new organizational problem, but when AI is changing how work gets done across functions, the cost of staying inside our individual lanes gets higher.
Lisa talked about asking simple questions: Who am I not talking to because I am too busy? Which team touches the same workflow we do? Who else may already be solving this problem?
Those questions reminded me of my conversation with Keith Ferrazzi about cross-functional teaming. One of Keith’s messages was that leaders need to expand how they define their team. Your team is not simply the people who report to you or the people who sit inside your function. The work may require you to operate as a team with people throughout the organization.
Imagine one team developing an effective way to use AI and never sharing what it learned. Another team may be experimenting with exactly the same problem, making the same mistakes, and spending the same resources.
Or one department may make an AI-related decision that changes a workflow without bringing in the other functions affected by it.
Cross-functional communication can feel like one more thing on an already full calendar. But when we skip it, we often pay for that time somewhere else through rework, duplicated effort, confusion, risk, and unrealized value.
Leaders Need an Explorer Mindset
The second driver Lisa identified is a lack of explorer mindset. This immediately reminded me of my conversation with Michael Park of ServiceNow. We talked about the need to stay curious as AI evolves: to test, question, experiment, and even push back on what an AI tool gives you rather than accepting its output blindly.
RLD Group’s applied research adds an important leadership dimension to that idea because exploration requires psychological safety. People need to know they can experiment without every attempt having to work. They need to be able to tell the team, “I tried this and it failed,” question assumptions, and learn from approaches that did not produce the expected result.
Leaders need to model that openness as well. If they experiment privately and only share polished successes, everyone else misses the learning that happened along the way. When the organizational message is “move faster, get it right, and do not waste time,” people are unlikely to explore very much.
We Need to Design Better Conversations
The third driver of fragmentation is what Lisa calls underdesigned conversations and collaboration. I love that language because most organizations do not have a shortage of conversations. We have meetings, Slack messages, emails, check-ins, working sessions, and leadership calls. The question is whether those conversations are designed to produce the clarity we need.
This reminded me of my conversation with Rebecca Hinds about meetings. One of the ideas I have carried from that conversation is that meetings should be intentional. We should know why we are bringing people together, what needs to happen while they are together, and how much time that actually requires.
Lisa takes that same thinking into AI leadership. Sometimes better alignment does not require a new committee, a new process, or another hour-long meeting. It may require one better question.
Asking who else needs to know something, who may already have solved the same problem, what another team could learn from our experience, or what assumptions we are making can change the trajectory of a conversation. A well-placed generative question interrupts autopilot and brings curiosity back into a situation where pressure may have narrowed our thinking.
Slow Down a Little to Go Faster
This was the part of our conversation where I kept coming back to what I hear from leaders every day. There is no time to reflect, no time for another conversation, no time to experiment, and often not even much time to breathe.
Lisa challenged that assumption. She described bringing people together for a focused, well-designed hour and how that conversation can actually give people time back. Teams leave clearer about what they are doing, why they are doing it, where people have concerns, and what others are already learning.
The hour is not necessarily the cost. Misalignment is the cost.
This is the balance I think leaders have to find right now. We cannot move so slowly that the world passes us by, but we also cannot move so quickly that we generate confusion, rework, burnout, and bad decisions. We need to slow down just enough to go faster in a way that is thoughtful and sustainable.
That does not mean every conversation needs an hour. One of my recurring pleas to leaders is to stop automatically booking meetings for 30 or 60 minutes simply because those are the defaults on the calendar. If you need 42 minutes, book 42. If the conversation requires 12, take 12 and give people the rest of their time back. Intentional does not have to mean slow.
From Protect Mode Back to Innovation
Lisa offered another line I have been thinking about since we recorded: What you are doing to protect is not going to help you innovate.
When humans feel overwhelmed or threatened, we naturally move into protection. Our nervous systems are doing exactly what they were designed to do. The challenge is that fight-or-flight is not where our most expansive thinking happens.
When leaders are constantly rushing, cognitively overloaded, and operating under pressure, their judgment narrows. They focus on getting through the problem directly in front of them. AI leadership requires us to be able to stay curious, consider multiple possibilities, challenge assumptions, and imagine what has not been tried yet.
This is why well-being belongs in the leadership conversation. I have said this before on the podcast and in my coaching work: leadership development and well-being cannot be separated if we want sustainable performance.
Sometimes the intervention is surprisingly small. One minute of breathing before a difficult conversation, a short step outside, ending a meeting early, or pausing long enough to ask a question before making another reactive decision can help us regain access to the thinking we need.
AI may move at machine speed, but human beings still have nervous systems. We have to lead accordingly.
Looking at AI Through the I|WE|US Lens
One of the frameworks Lisa uses at RLD Group is what she calls the I|WE|US lens. I find it especially useful because conversations about AI can quickly become so large that leaders do not know where to begin.
The I asks leaders to start with themselves. Who am I with AI? How am I using it? What assumptions do I have? What am I curious about? What makes me uncomfortable? How do I want to show up as a leader as AI becomes more integrated into our work?
The WE expands that examination to the team. How are we using AI together? What have we agreed on? What are we learning? Are people sharing successes and failures? Do we have enough clarity around how and when we use these tools? Is experimentation safe?
Then comes US, the broader system. How do our choices ripple into the larger organization? Where do other teams intersect with our work? Are we creating alignment across the system, or are we unintentionally adding fragmentation?
That progression brings a huge topic down to a manageable level. It also reminds us that organizational culture does not live somewhere outside of us. The way an individual leader behaves influences the team. The team influences the broader organization. And the broader system shapes what individuals believe is safe, valued, and possible.
Practical Ways to Strengthen AI Leadership Alignment
RLD Group’s applied research offers a helpful invitation to pause without getting stuck. Leaders do not need to solve everything at once. They can start by examining a few places where alignment may already be breaking down.
Look beyond your immediate team. Identify the functions, workflows, and leaders your AI decisions affect. Ask who should be part of the conversation before decisions are finalized.
Make exploration visible. Talk about what you are testing, including what has not worked. Create room for your team to experiment without expecting every attempt to produce an immediate win.
Design the conversation before booking the meeting. Be clear about what needs to be learned, decided, or shared. Then use only the amount of time the work actually requires.
Use generative questions to interrupt reactivity. Ask “What’s possible now?” “Who else needs to know this?” or “What are we missing?” Curiosity can reopen thinking that pressure has narrowed.
Check alignment through I|WE|US. Notice what is happening for you individually, inside your team, and across the broader system. A strength or blind spot at one level will affect the others.
Protect what is already working. Transformation does not mean changing everything. RLD Group’s applied research also highlighted the importance of identifying wins and carrying them forward rather than constantly chasing the next new thing.
These actions do not require a massive transformation initiative. They require leaders to pay attention to how work is actually happening and where a small shift could reduce friction.
What’s Possible Now?
Toward the end of the conversation, Lisa and I landed on a question I keep coming back to: What’s possible now?
I love the addition of now because it brings us into the present instead of asking leaders to solve the entire future of AI. We can look at the silos we know exist today, the lesson someone just learned, the perspective of another function we have not yet heard, or the decision directly in front of us and ask what becomes possible from here.
AI leadership alignment is not ultimately about having the perfect AI strategy. It is about creating leadership systems that allow people to learn, decide, collaborate, and adapt as the technology continues to evolve.
If AI amplifies what is already there, leaders have an opportunity to be intentional about what they give it to amplify. We can strengthen collaboration instead of silos, curiosity instead of fear, thoughtful conversations instead of rushed ones, and alignment instead of fragmentation.
RLD Group’s applied research gives us a practical place to begin: pause long enough to see what is happening, ask a better question, bring the right people into the conversation, and then move forward.
That may be how we find the speed this moment actually requires.
