Loom

Differences between organizations that are not known, understood, respected, and made workable create relationship friction. When that friction is repeated rather than recognized and resolved, something more damaging begins to occur: abrasion. Abrasion is rarely a single catastrophic event. It accumulates. For example, in communication, the first unanswered email sent to someone whose preferred method of communication is text or slack creates uncertainty. The second begins

A company does not enter a Strategic Relationship because it simply wants another partner or alliance or merger. It enters one because the two organizations believe they can accomplish something together that neither could accomplish as effectively on their own. They each bring unique value. The goal is to create, exchange, and sustain mutual value for the benefit of all involved. However, a Strategic Relationship can become strangely self-referential with Relationship Manage

Form follows function applies to the structure of the Strategic Relationship you choose to enter into, ranging from a Partnership or Alliance to a Merger, Acquisition, or Joint Venture. The same principle applies to the roles people fulfill in making the relationship work. Roles follow function. Consider two of the most important roles in a Strategic Relationship: the Executive Sponsor and the Strategic Relationship Manager. An Executive Sponsor is not defined by a job title.

So you have been using your AI of choice and are getting comfortable with either typing, talking, calling it by name and referring to ‘we’ in your interactions. You’ve begun to do more complex things like load a document, maybe correct a spreadsheet or ask it to generate a picture. Now you’re getting ads and reading articles telling you about the different “models” and the benefits for each of them, as well as the cost. What do you do? How do you choose? Are you going to hav

You said yes. Your company is now committed to a Strategic Relationship, and you are the Executive Sponsor. So what exactly are you supposed to do now? The first part of the Executive Sponsor role happened before the relationship began. You were the person with the authority to commit your organization to the relationship, to say “yes” to its existence. But once the Strategic Relationship exists, being the person who said yes is no longer enough. Once the relationship exists,

Executives love familiar labels. Partnership. Alliance. Joint Venture. Merger. Acquisition. Relying on that familiarity can be dangerous. Too often, organizations begin by deciding what they want to call a Strategic Relationship and then try to make the relationship fit the label. The better sequence is the reverse. First determine what the relationship must accomplish. Then determine what functions must exist for it to work. Only then should you decide what form the relation

A successful partnership can be one of the most dangerous mergers to pursue. That sounds counterintuitive. Two companies have worked together successfully for years. Their executives trust one another. Their products or services complement each other. Customers see value in the relationship. The financial case for combining the companies may look compelling. So why not merge? Because a partnership and a merger ask two organizations to do very different things. In a partnershi

Just as in poker, even AI has a tell, a visual cue that gives it away. When you read something written by AI, there is one punctuation mark that often gives it away.” What is it? The tell is—the Em Dash.” The whaaaat? The Dash? No, the Em Dash. You mean a Hyphen? Well, not exactly. It’s sort of a super-hyphen. Is that an En Dash or an Em dash? Ugh, actually there is an En Dash and it is sort of a medium-hyphen. It’s like small, medium, large for hyphens. Or may

I'm not much of a technology alarmist. Nuclear energy raised concerns about meltdowns. Genetic engineering sparked debates over cloning. Today, the only thing growing faster than AI itself are the fears of AI which range from Skynet going live (reference to the Terminator 2 movie) to AI replacing all jobs. Most headlines focus on extreme possibilities. Recent headlines were alarming. First, a little Boomersplaining: A “sandbox” is the equivalent of an Etch A Sketch. Engine

You may or may not be struggling as to whether your AI rises to the level of being addressed as a person. Regardless, you have to deal with its personality. Yes, if you haven’t done anything to set your AI’s parameters or to train your AI, you are probably dealing with an AI that is overly chipper, wants to explain things you didn’t ask, and generally offers TMI (too much information). When a human person is responding in this overly energetic way, you try to educate

Every executive knows that alliances, partnerships, joint ventures, mergers, and acquisitions are strategic relationships. Few, however, think of them as strategic infrastructure. Infrastructure, whether it's roads, bridges, airports, power grids, or data centers, exists to connect people, organizations, products, services, information, and energy so value can flow where it is needed. Without infrastructure, movement slows. Eventually, it stops. Most executives don't think ab

Feed Me! Feed Me! Your AI wants to be fed as much as you can give it. Unlike the most recent generations, most boomers (as in the full name, “baby boomers”), raised children to adulthood. It turns out this is great preparation for the new age of AI. You are used to hearing in one form or another “Feed Me!”. So, what’s the best diet for your favorite AI? In general, AI’s consume data. In every interaction you have with your AI it absorbs data about you in dimensions t

Why Most Strategic Relationships Don't Fail the Way You Think They Do When a strategic relationship fails, executives naturally look for the event that caused it. A missed product launch. A disagreement over finances. A customer complaint. A leadership change. A contract dispute. Those events certainly end relationships. But they are rarely the underlying cause of the relationship ending. After spending more than three decades helping organizations build strategic partnership

There is much ado about the use of pronouns in today’s society and business environments. Regardless of your preferences elsewhere the one you have to learn to embrace when venturing into the use of AI is the pronoun “We”. “WE” engenders many responses from boomers. Are you talking (or typing) to a person? The AI will make every attempt possible to convince you that you are. It will be chummy, funny, sensitive, reflective, thoughtful, and considerate with you in respon

Every quarter, executive teams gather to review the health of their business or organization. Revenue. Margins. Cash flow. Sales pipeline. Customer satisfaction. Operational performance. These dashboards are indispensable. They tell us whether we are winning. But they all have one thing in common. They tell us what has already happened. After spending more than three decades helping organizations build strategic partnerships, integrate acquisitions, and lead transformat

One of the first questions you have to resolve when engaging your AI is whether it is better to talk or to type. As Shakespeare penned, THAT is the question. I have some practical suggestions, but first I cannot resist a farce on Hamlet's famous soliloquy from Act III, Scene 1. To talk or type. That is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of slow hunt and peck, Or to take arms against a sea of autocorrect And by talking aloud e

Organizations enter partnerships, mergers and acquisitions with enthusiastic executive optimism. They fail with frustrated executive confusion. The business case was compelling. The market opportunity was significant. The strategic rationale appeared sound. Yet 18 months to 3 years later, the relationship has become more distraction than success. What happened? After participating in more than 140 strategic alliances and the integrating nearly 100 acquisitions across public

My name is James and I’m a boomer. Why should someone like me, who is an accomplished business executive, lifelong learner, and even has a computer science degree feel like he needs to open up his journey into AI as if I am introducing myself at an AA meeting? Part of me just doesn’t want to put in the effort to learn yet another technology just enough so that, technically speaking, I sound like a high schooler with one semester of Spanish visiting somewhere in Latin Ameri

OG Anunoby makes game winning shot following basics of going to the rim (Vincent Carchietta/Imagn/Reuiters) The shooting skill, size, height, and speed of today’s NBA players is unworldly. However, ultimately what won this game was doing the basics, while losing the game was due to ignoring them. The first 5 seconds of this video says it all. OG Anunoby inbounded the pass. Nobody guarded him. (Spurs fail in the basics) He went right to the rim! (basics done). Knicks

Knowing when to exit a relationship matters How long is enough before you press the button to exit on a failed strategic partnership, alliance, merger or acquisition? The best answer is “as soon as possible”. However, most executives wait until the pain of trying to make it work is just too much to bear. That is always too late and the results can be disastrous. Failed partnerships and alliances typically take 18 months to reach this point. Failed mergers and acquisitions,