Change-making isn't an easy skill. And it's the one your AI strategy is missing.

When organisations talk about building an AI strategy, the conversation almost always turns to the same thing. Technology. Which technology should we deploy? Rarely does it turn to people. In my opinion, that's where most strategies fall apart.

Let me give you a real example and it has nothing to do with AI.

My colleague, Elly Lacey, is one of the most impactful people I've met in education. She isn't the loudest voice in the room. What she does is consistently keep the people around her at the cutting edge of pedagogical thinking, bringing fresh frameworks and better ways of understanding how people actually develop. She empowers, and I sort of weirdly feel that I have to bring something decent to the table when she’s around! 

That is a rare skill. And right now, it's the skill most organisations are failing to look for.

Here's the assumption I want to challenge. When leadership builds an AI strategy, they tend to prioritise the person who understands the technology, this is of course understandable... But, the technology is rarely the problem. The people are. Not because they're resistant or incapable, but because nobody has that impactful change-making nature leading the way. 

The WEF's Future of Jobs Report 2025 ranked leadership and social influence as a top priority skill for employers through 2030, sitting alongside analytical thinking. Elly is in poll position! 

AI initiatives fail most often at the human stage, not the technical one. Bringing it back to philosophy (again, sorry!)  Plato argued that the person best suited to lead wasn't the most powerful or the most knowledgeable (in a common way), but the one who understood most deeply and could communicate that understanding wisely. 

That person probably isn't your AI lead. They might be your best educator, the one everyone quietly relies on but nobody has thought to put in the room when strategy is being written.

The organisations getting AI right aren't just the ones with the best tools or the clearest policies. They're the ones with someone like Elly, someone whose job, formally or informally, is to make sure nobody gets left behind.

If your AI strategy is missing that person, it's missing its most important ingredient.

That's the conversation I help organisations have. Feel free to reach out.