For AI to work, you’re going to need a mature management culture. Part of that is defined capabilities.
Capabilities as I’m using it here are durable organizational assets that allow the organization to repeatedly produce some outcome. Note that this is an asset of the firm and not the individual. Most of the time capabilities are not atomistic so you can’t just buy them. You have to do the hard managerial work of building and integrating. It takes effort and it takes time.
Capabilities are a part of a mature management culture. You can’t have capabilities without maturing your management culture. And you can’t have a mature management culture without developing capabilities.
Most managers lack time horizons that go far enough into the future prioritize developing organizational capabilities. When they do, they often avoid the work because it doesn’t pay immediate benefits. In fact, building capabilities pulls energy and resources from making money today.
So, capabilities are often neglected. Meaning most firms never really develop them outside finance and sales.
Now AI is here and its transformative power depends on whether you have already done the hard work of maturing your management culture towards dynamism. It relies on built capabilities to really work.
If you don’t have them, you need to start developing them. It’s hard work. It will be even harder under the pressures that your more mature peers are putting on you. You can do it but it will take managerial acumen and a lot of hard decisions.