#413 – September 15, 2025

Humans In the Loop

Hello, fellow strategists!  In this edition we focus on the oversized role certain individuals play in outcomes — whether that is bringing human originality to design when working with AI, managing crisis communications, streamlining the range of your products and services, or super-facilitating your team for remarkable success. Enjoy!

 

Quick Takes

Does Your Team Have a Super-Facilitator?

Teams are superorganisms. For your team, you may need a person like NBA star Chris Paul — a player who makes everyone around them better. They connect the team’s diverse expertise and skills, elicit contributions from all, and cultivate trust.

This is particularly relevant for the challenge of leading collaborations across organizational boundaries, where the team itself must be enabled to think and solve problems together.

Do you have someone who can architect your team’s collective intelligence to solve complex problems?

In a recent HBR article, Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki highlighted research showing that teams don’t succeed purely because of individual talent. Instead they function like superorganisms, harnessing collective intelligence to tackle challenges effectively.

Key Practices of Super-Facilitators:

• Attunement:  This is the ability to “read the court”, perceiving and understanding the strengths, perspectives and emotions of others to optimize team performance.
• Communication:  They express belief in colleagues’ potential, build trust and mentor others, especially when someone is struggling.
• Distribution:  They know when to “feed the hot hand” and play to strengths while ensuring everyone contributes. They also clarify roles based on individual strengths.

Zaki contrasts super-facilitators with “founder mode” leaders: the latter focus on realizing their personal vision, while super-facilitators empower the team to imagine and create a shared vision. Both approaches have their place.

 

Humans in the Loop: Creativity Beyond Algorithms

In a thoughtful piece in The New Yorker, AI is Coming for Culture, Joshua Rothman begins to tease out a meaningful role for human beings in a world of algorithms.

“AI has no individuality,” he says, “and, because its fundamental skill is the detection of patterns, its ‘collaborations’ tend to perpetuate the formulaic aspects of what’s combined. A further challenge is that AI lacks artistic agency; it must be told what’s interesting.”

Artificial intelligence can generate reams of poetry, for example, but humans decide what is meaningful and beautiful.

Rothman notes that algorithms can create boringly similar content: whole websites that seem to be written by AI using models that are repetitively beautiful. One study, he says, found that more than half the text on the web had been modified by AI, and an increasing number of “influencers” look to be entirely AI-generated.

“It’s against the backdrop of formula that originality emerges,” Rothman says. He tells of his young son’s response to a fill-in-the-blank colouring book: coming to a routine outline of a parrot, the boy creatively transformed it with a surprising burst of prismatic colour.

In strategy development, some of our most striking ideas develop when familiar patterns are disrupted. We may begin with familiar rules, only to break them. We add colour, outside the lines.

For strategists, the takeaway is simple: the most valuable ideas often emerge where typical expected patterns are challenged, not merely followed. When using AI, that means keeping the human in the loop.

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P.S. For Clarification:  In our previous issue, we highlighted an MIT study that found 95% of AI initiatives produced no real benefits. But some important context was omitted. The study’s methodology was sound, but its findings applied only to large organizations measuring results over a short six-month period. It also focused on generative AI (e.g. ChatGPT and similar tools), not the broader spectrum of AI technologies such as predictive analytics, machine learning or neural networks. This context is essential for accurately interpreting the report. We thank our readers for bringing this oversight to our attention.

 

How to Handle the Heat When Crisis Hits

In The 10Cs of Crisis Communication, consultant and media trainer Edward Segal shares several best practices for talking about a crisis. Here are five of our favourite tips from his framework:

• Control:  Manage the framing and narrative about the crisis. That means not waiting to tell your side of the story or allowing others to tell it for you.
• Concern: Express concern and empathy for those affected by the crisis, but avoid using trite phrases such as “our thoughts and prayers are with the victims.” It’s always a good idea to come across as a real, caring person who shares the concerns of people affected by a crisis.
• Clarity: Make it as easy as possible for everyone to understand what you are saying and avoid using jargon and buzzwords.
• Current: Ensure that all information you share about a crisis is as up to date as possible. Check on the latest before speaking publicly. Tell people how recent the information is and where it comes from.
• Consistency: Include the same key information in all your crisis communications to all audiences and stakeholders. This reinforces your message; saying different things to different audiences can raise questions about your motives and the accuracy of what you are saying.

For the full list, see The 10Cs of Crisis Communication: A Framework.

 

8020Info Drill-Down:

An Intentional Strategy for Simplification

Sol Price, the retail pioneer behind FedMart and a mentor to the founders of Costco, introduced a powerful strategic concept: the intelligent loss of sales.

This idea challenges the conventional business belief that a company must carry every possible product to capture every potential customer. (Or, for those in the public or non-profit sectors, every type of service for every potential client.)

Instead, Price argued that true efficiency comes from a deliberate choice to forego certain sales in favour of a streamlined operation. His core philosophy was that customer demand is most sensitive to price, not selection.

Key Principles of the Strategy:

• A Focus on Value:  Price’s approach was to stock only the most cost-effective size or version of a product, such as a large bottle of 3-in-1 oil. While this decision meant losing customers who wanted a smaller size, the trade-off was a significant gain in operational efficiency and value for his customers. (A similar type of assessment could apply to services.)
• A Link Between Selection and Resources:  Price recognized that approximately 80% of a retailer’s operating costs were tied to payroll and benefits. The same is true for most service organizations. By reducing the range or number of different products/services, organizations can drastically lower the hours of effort spent on back-office administration.
• Operational Efficiency: Fewer items mean less complexity. And a cashier can scan a 20-pound box of detergent just as quickly as a 5-pound box, but the large box moves four times the product, optimizing productivity. This focus on value and efficiency allows an organization to pass significant savings on to its clients or customers.

Price’s strategy was not about abandoning customers. It was about defining a target client who valued low prices and efficiency over a wide variety of choices. By deliberately accepting a small loss in sales, he created an efficient system that attracted and rewarded a loyal customer base with better prices and a clear, fiduciary relationship built on trust and value.

His approach redefined how to achieve success. Gains in efficiency are valuable not as a way to save money for its own sake, but as a way to free up valuable resources —staff time, budget, and expertise— to focus on core, high-impact activities.

(Thanks to Shane Parrish’s FS Blog, which flagged the concept for us.)

 

For Your Reading List:  No Script, No Problem

This title came to mind when a client asked for practical tips on responding effectively in the moment. In Think Faster, Talk Smarter, podcast host Matt Abrahams offers actionable strategies for managing anxiety and improving impromptu speaking. The book has been praised for its concrete, science-based methods that help you communicate clearly and compellingly in spontaneous situations. Abrahams also shares practical tools for a range of scenarios, from job interviews and Q&A sessions to small talk or even recovering from a conversational faux pas — all essential skills for those moments when you’re put on the spot.

 

Closing Thought:  A Finished Design

“When I make something, it’s only half finished. When people use it —for years and years— then it is finished.”   … Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake.