Nexus Notes

Leading with Intention The days after Thanksgiving have always felt like a pause between seasons. The urgency of the year slows for a moment, and reflection feels more natural than routine. For many, this is the one weekend where time stretches differently. Our inboxes are quieter. Deadlines soften. The world invites a reset. It is in that stillness that we can finally ask a question we often avoid during busy months: Are we moving with intention, or merely reacting to momentum? In business...

Human and Machine, Learning Each Other Over the past few years, artificial intelligence has shifted from a technical tool into something far more relational. We are no longer just asking AI to automate tasks. We are asking it to think with us, to help us reason, and to extend our capacity to understand complex problems. That shift is exciting, but it is also creating new questions that leadership cannot ignore. What does partnership with AI look like? Who is responsible when decisions are...

A New Beginning It has been a while since you’ve seen a new edition of Nexus Notes, and for good reason. The past four months have been intense, focused, and transformative. I stepped away from the weekly rhythm of writing to finish one of the most important chapters of my life: my doctoral dissertation. This week, after years of research, interviews, revisions, late nights, and more coffee than I will ever admit publicly, I successfully defended it. That moment changed something for me. That...

Let AI Handle the Routine. Let Humans Handle the Unexpected. As artificial intelligence becomes more deeply embedded in our organizations, it is tempting to overstate its purpose. The promise of faster decision-making, lower costs, and greater efficiency often becomes the headline. But in reality, AI is not here to replace us. It is here to reassign us. It is here to shift our attention from the mundane to the meaningful, from routine tasks to complex problems that still require human...

Why Businesses Should Drive AI Adoption When people talk about artificial intelligence in the workplace, the conversation often centers around how employees can use AI to boost productivity, reduce busywork, or improve creative output. However, this framing overlooks the more substantial driver of AI adoption: organizational interest in risk mitigation, consistency, and systems control. While individual users may be motivated by convenience or curiosity, businesses are motivated by the need...

Why Generative AI Feels Inevitable The rise of generative AI has captured the attention of industries across the globe. Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok are not just fads or productivity novelties; they reflect a more profound truth about the nature of modern work. For decades, organizations have quietly increased the mental load on professionals, asking individuals to manage increasingly complex roles, responsibilities, and technologies without a corresponding increase in cognitive...

Superspecialists in AI Artificial intelligence is not a single technology or tool. It is a dynamic ecosystem comprising models, methods, platforms, and people. As this ecosystem expands, we see an industry defined by deep specialization. AI is no longer one field. It has many different components, and each branch is growing rapidly in depth and complexity. The Emergence of Superspecialists This shift has given rise to what we might call AI superspecialists. These professionals and...

The Real Reason AI Is Failing In The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande writes that failure stems from one of two things. The first is ignorance: we don’t know what we need to know. The second is ineptitude: we know, but fail to apply it correctly. He argues that we need more of eptitude, a rarely used word that means the ability to apply knowledge consistently and effectively. This distinction struck me as I considered the state of artificial intelligence in business and society. AI is...

Reframing the Question: Rethinking Process in the Age of Generative AI For years, leadership, education, and business strategy have hinged on a familiar question: Do we follow the established steps or step outside the process to creatively solve the problem? It was a practical distinction. Some situations required disciplined adherence to a proven method. Others required innovation, ambiguity tolerance, and critical thinking. However, the emergence of generative AI, natural language...

If You Use AI at Work, Treat It Like Email The recent court ruling requiring OpenAI to preserve all user chat logs, even those users had previously deleted, should serve as a wake-up call for every professional using AI in the workplace. Whether individuals leverage tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude for writing, research, ideation, or strategic analysis, these interactions are increasingly treated as permanent digital records. While many still perceive AI prompts as fleeting and casual,...