I'm going to start this off with a little self-promotion. When I originally posted this to LinkedIn, I got two responses from men who really helped shape how I wanted to manage teams. We met in the shittiest of foxholes, in two very different wars. Both times, they were shining beacons of leadership, and I can't emphasize enough the impact they had on me.
Brilliant. I continue to have immense respect for you.
Well said Matt!
I am about the age my dad was when he sold his business and went back to school to study a subject he loves. He essentially retired around 50, after a long, hard, career as the local "heating and air man."
When he returned from Vietnam, he became a school teacher, took classes at a trade school, and moved us to a literal village in the rural Ozarks. He was fixing microwaves and toasters for the first few years, but eventually he focused his business on York and Lenox (if this were a car dealership think BMW and Mercedes). He brought my brother and I into the business. I was 9 years-old, fitting into crawl spaces, rewiring thermostats, making duct work, etc. My brother took these skills and made an incredible career for himself.
Every time I come to LinkedIn, it is to write a recommendation for another friend who has a green badge on their profile photo, while the stock price of the company they used to work for rises, so does the amount of labor expected for an increasingly smaller, underpaid workforce under them.
I love being a creative, and working with other creative, innovative, socially awkward, nerdy, lovely people. And I've been asked how to use AI to reduce the price of production. My answer is this: what AI can do now, for free, and most accurately is the work that your senior executive staff is doing. You hired your creatives because they were special: their techniques, the viewpoints, the years of craft. Your executive staff are not that unique or special. That's where the conversation usually ends.
What my dad did, was attempt to create a legacy. He taught 2 boys the meaning of hard work. I've been fortunate to work with a mighty few bosses who understood that the job of upper management is to safeguard those below them, nurture their skill set, and give them an environment to do better work. That's how I try to manage my teams, you might have a different style.
As I write recommendations, for the people who brought so much rich return for what was asked of them--My hope is that the next employer not try to find a mechanical way to rob them of the creativity they were hired for, but if you decide to use AI, let it be a tool that gets you out of their way. Let them be great.
