Leading Through Disruption

We have lived in an information economy for a while. That world is familiar to us. We understand how it works and how to operate within it. However, things are dramatically changing. That soon-to-be-old era empowered the professional, those with specialized insight into niche areas of information. Professionals had access to and understanding of arcane fields of knowledge. For example, creating a website took knowledge of specific coding languages and experience gained over time. Professionals were valued because they could do something with data that others could not easily replicate.

Those days ended over a year ago (on November 30, 2022 to be exact) when OpenAI launched ChatGPT to a wide audience. Now anyone with access to AI can create a website, quickly gather and compare documents, make complicated mathematical calculations, or a thousand other things that once took highly skilled information workers to produce.

Information has been made a commodity.

How do you lead through this disruption?

1. Seize the Opportunity: You have new power: The change means that access to information is at your disposal. For example, you can ask AI to find funding sources for your organization that match your mission statement. Or you can quickly research any topic or donor with a quick search. Information being made into a commodity, means that the costs of it will radically diminish. An AI empowered search will give you high quality access to realms of data. You can be more prepared and equipped at a fraction of the time.
2. Capitalize on the Savings: You can cut costs: AI expands your ability to produce high quality work with less staff and resources. I know of solo nonprofit leaders who now are able to run organizations with high levels of confidence because of the reduced time it takes to produce results with AI empowered tools.
3. Don't Fear Replacement: Even a world where information has been commodified, wisdom will still reign.

Wisdom encompasses cognitive components, such as knowledge and experience, reflective components, or the ability to examine situations and oneself, and prosocial components, meaning benevolence and compassion. Wisdom is also connected to abilities such as perspective-taking, open-mindedness, and intellectual humility. (Psychology Today)

There may be AI (which is really rapid machine learning), but there is not artificial wisdom. Your role demands more than information to execute well. It calls for the very human components of described above.

Summary: AI is commodifying information. To lead through this disruption: seize the opportunity, capitalize on the savings, and don’t fear.

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