Many companies are getting AI wrong. They’re buying shiny new tools, plugging them into their existing operations, and expecting a revolution. Instead, they’re getting chaos. Why? Because they’re trying to bolt a jet engine onto a horse-drawn carriage.
Artificial Intelligence is the most powerful "energy multiplier" to hit the business world since the industrial revolution. It can dramatically accelerate growth, innovation, and efficiency. But it also multiplies entropy—the natural tendency toward disorder. When layered onto an organization designed for a pre-AI era, it amplifies friction, creates murky accountability, and overwhelms your people with new forms of complexity. The central challenge isn't if you should adopt AI, but how you must redesign your organization's fundamental structure to direct its immense energy.
A New Language for a New Reality: Meet the Algorithmic Force
To build for the AI era, we need a new vocabulary. Lex Sisney’s (Designed to Scale: How to Structure Your Business for Exponential Growth) groundbreaking PSIU framework gives us a language for the human forces in any organization: the Producers (P) who drive results, the Stabilizers (S) who create process and order, the Innovators (I) who envision the future, and the Unifiers (U) who build cohesion and culture. For decades, this has been a powerful way to understand how human energy flows through a company.
But AI isn't just a tool for these human forces. It is a new, non-human force in itself. We must now think in terms of PSIU(A), where the Algorithmic (A) force is an active participant in the system.
This isn't just theory; it’s a practical way to see how your business is being rewired:
Algorithmic Production (A -> P): AI supercharges your Producers by automating workflows and providing predictive insights, like scoring sales leads in real-time so your team can focus on closing the hottest deals.
Algorithmic Stabilization (A -> S): AI gives your Stabilizers superpowers, automating compliance checks, detecting fraud in millions of transactions, and performing quality control with superhuman accuracy.
Algorithmic Innovation (A -> I): AI becomes a partner to your Innovators, extracting knowledge from thousands of research papers in hours or generating thousands of optimized product designs that a human could never conceive.
Algorithmic Unification (A -> U): AI enhances your Unifiers' ability to build culture by analyzing employee sentiment to proactively address burnout or creating personalized development paths for every team member.
The 70% Problem: Why Your AI Strategy Is Failing
Recognizing the 'A' force is the first step. The next is accepting a hard truth. According to research from firms like Boston Consulting Group, the most successful AI transformations follow a 10-20-70 principle. They dedicate 10% of their effort to algorithms, 20% to technology and data, and a full 70% to people and process redesign.
Most leaders get this backward. They pour resources into the 10% and wonder why they see no real return. The value of AI is unlocked by rewiring how your company actually runs. This is the 70% of work that requires real leadership: redesigning workflows, upskilling talent, and driving cultural change.
The CEO's New Job: Chief Energy Architect
In the AI era, the CEO's most critical role is no longer just Chief Executive Officer, but Chief Energy Architect. Your job is to design the system that harmonizes human and algorithmic energy. This requires a new playbook:
Design for the Future, Not the Past: Start by mapping your core business processes (customer, product, employee) as they should exist in an AI-enhanced future. Don't just automate your current broken workflows. Design the ideal state, then build the structure to support it.
Structure for Human-AI Collaboration: Your org chart must evolve. Create adaptive structures, like cross-functional pods, that can manage dynamic human-AI partnerships. Define roles and accountabilities for AI agents just as you would for human employees.
Govern the New Energy: AI-induced entropy is real. You need two new governance structures. First, an empowered, cross-functional Strategic Execution Team (SET) to monitor and manage the flow of both human and algorithmic energy. Second, an AI Ethics & Governance Board to ensure responsible deployment, manage bias, and maintain trust.
The future won't belong to the companies with the most AI. It will belong to those with the most coherent, adaptive, and human-centric organizational design. The technology is here. The true test is one of leadership and the courage to build a company that is truly designed to scale.
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