Leadership Archives

Building Block: Small Problems Don’t Stay Small

Most business problems don’t become serious overnight.

They start with something small.

A missed deadline. An unhappy customer. A team member struggling with an assignment. A project that’s running a little over budget.

We notice the warning signs but convince ourselves things will work out.

Sometimes they do.

Often, they don’t.

One lesson I’ve learned from running a business for more than three decades is that problems rarely improve simply because we ignore them.

In fact, waiting usually makes them more expensive and more difficult to resolve.

Today, AI gives us new ways to identify potential problems before they become serious.

It can analyze project data, flag unusual patterns, identify missed commitments, and help us anticipate risks.

That’s valuable.

But recognizing a problem and doing something about it are two very different things.

AI won’t make the uncomfortable phone call to a customer. It won’t have a difficult conversation with an employee. And it can’t take responsibility for a decision that didn’t work out.

Those responsibilities still belong to us.

When something goes wrong, I’ve found three practices especially useful:

Communicate early. Bad news rarely improves with age. Customers and employees appreciate knowing what’s happening before they’re surprised.
Bring solutions, not just problems. Identify a few options, recommend the best one, and explain your reasoning.
Treat problems as opportunities. Handling a difficult situation well can actually strengthen relationships and build trust.

None of this is complicated.

But it does require discipline, accountability, and occasionally an uncomfortable conversation.

The good news? Those conversations are usually much easier when the problem is still small.

From The 100: Slaying Monsters Early

In The 100: Building Blocks for Business Leadership, I wrote:

“Share problems early, which allows you to ‘slay monsters’ while they’re still small and relatively easy to overpower.”

The Building Block also emphasizes anticipating challenges and bringing well-considered solutions when raising an issue.

That advice remains just as relevant today.

AI may help us spot the monsters sooner.

It’s still our job to slay them.

Building Block: If Your Meetings Don’t Lead to Action, Why Have Them?

Most business leaders have attended meetings that could have been emails.

And probably a few emails that should never have been sent.

Meetings are expensive. When eight people spend an hour together, that’s eight hours of time the company will never get back.

So what did the company get in return?

Today, AI makes that question even more important.

AI can summarize project updates, generate reports, capture meeting notes, and identify action items. Information that once required a 60-minute meeting can often be shared in minutes.

That’s good news.

But it also means we need to rethink why we’re meeting in the first place.

In my experience, the most productive meetings accomplish three things:

Create alignment. Everyone understands the priorities and what success looks like.
Solve problems. Issues are raised, discussed, and resolved before they become bigger problems.
Establish accountability. People leave knowing what needs to happen, who’s responsible, and when it’s due.

At Intertech, we’ve long used daily huddles and other regularly scheduled meetings to keep people connected and focused. The structure matters because it creates a predictable opportunity to surface issues and maintain momentum.

But structure alone doesn’t make a meeting valuable.

A meeting without a purpose is just a calendar invitation.

AI gives us an opportunity to eliminate much of the administrative work surrounding meetings. Let’s use that time to have better conversations, make better decisions, and spend fewer hours sitting in meetings that accomplish little.

The goal isn’t more meetings.

It’s more progress.

From The 100: Making Meetings Matter

Building Block #86 emphasizes that meetings deserve the same intentional approach as any other investment of company resources.

The principle is especially relevant today. Technology can make meetings more efficient, but it cannot replace the leadership, judgment, and accountability that make them worthwhile.

Before scheduling your next meeting, ask one simple question:

What should be different when this meeting is over?

If you can’t answer that, perhaps you don’t need the meeting.

Building Block: Great Leaders Solve Problems Early

AI is incredibly good at solving problems.

Unfortunately…

It will happily solve the wrong one.

Businesses often jump straight into implementation before asking whether they’re addressing the real issue.

The result?

Elegant solutions.

Poor outcomes.

The best leaders spend more time defining the problem than discussing the solution.

Once everyone agrees on the problem, execution becomes dramatically easier.

Speed is valuable.

Direction is essential.

Building Block: Meetings Should Move the Business Forward

Every meeting should answer one question:

“What changed because we met?”

Too many meetings are simply status updates.

AI can generate those automatically.

Great meetings make decisions.

Remove obstacles.

Align priorities.

Clarify ownership.

The purpose of a meeting has never been communication.

It’s coordinated action.

As AI takes over information sharing, meetings become even more valuable—but only if they move the business forward.

Building Block: Trust Begins With Humility

One characteristic separates high-performing leadership teams from average ones.

Humility.

Leaders who admit mistakes create organizations where employees aren’t afraid to surface problems early.

Leaders who pretend to have all the answers create silence.

Ironically, AI makes humility even more valuable.

Sometimes AI will be right.

Sometimes it will be spectacularly wrong.

The best leaders won’t defend either position.

They’ll simply follow the evidence.

Being right matters far less than finding the right answer.