Greg Brisco 🙏🏾
CEO & Board Advisor | Engineering Leadership Models for the AI Era
April 15, 2025
Your top performer, (a high-potential leader with 12 years of institutional knowledge), just resigned.
Why?
Because your competitor was willing to invest in their growth and development and you did not. They were offered them an AI-powered career navigation platform that maps personalized growth paths in real-time, while your organization still relies on annual reviews and static development plans.
In other words, that employee didn't feel valued or see the path to the growth they desired, so they went where that need could be fulfilled. And you have no one to blame but yourself.
This isn’t hypothetical. It’s happening right now in Fortune-ranked companies every single day. The most forward-thinking CHROs shouldn't just be reacting to AI, they’re actively rewriting the rules of workforce strategy by putting people at the center of innovation.
And if you've been around for a while, you know that is a core tenant of Humanize Innovation!
Here’s the hard truth: If your AI strategy doesn’t include and excite your employees, it will fail (Insert dropped mic here 🫳🏾🎤)!!!
The Talent Crisis You’re Not Prepared For
It shouldn't be a surprise that traditional upskilling is already obsolete. McKinsey predicts that 87% of companies worldwide already have AI skill gaps, yet most are still using outdated, one-size-fits-all L&D programs.
The disconnect?
Employees don’t want generic training; they want:
Hyper-personalized learning: AI-curated micro-lessons delivered exactly when needed (e.g., Salesforce’s “Trailhead” platform reduced drastically reduced onboarding time by 40%).
Predictive career pathing: Tools like Gloat’s Talent Marketplace use AI to recommend internal roles employees didn’t even know matched their skills.
Real-time skill currency: Amazon’s “AI Ready” initiative promises free AI training to 2 million workers by 2025, because they know today’s skills expire in 18 months.
Actionable Insight: Audit your L&D spend. If >30% is going to vendor-led workshops (not embedded, AI-driven tools), you’re bleeding ROI.
A Case Study in Workforce Transformation
Donna (name changed), CHRO of a Fortune 1000 tech giant, faced a crisis: 48% of her workforce lacked AI fluency, and attrition was spiking.
Her solution?
A radical “AI Humanization Framework”
The “AI Ambassador” Program
✅ Trained 5% of employees (across all levels/functions) as AI power users.
✅ Result: Peer-led adoption was 6x faster than top-down mandates.
The “Skills Hedge” Strategy
✅ Used generative AI to simulate future role requirements (e.g., “What will a supply chain manager need in 2026?”).
✅ Preemptively reskilled 15,000 employees, avoiding $270M in hiring costs.
The “Return on Humanity” Metric
✅ Tracked how AI tools freed up time for creative/strategic work (e.g., Unilever found AI reduced meeting prep time by 70%, boosting innovation output).
Lesson: AI succeeds when it "augments" human potential, not replaces it.
The ISPI™ Breakthrough: Cracking the Innovation Code
Why 85% of AI Initiatives Fail (And How to Fix It)
Most companies treat AI adoption as a technical challenge.
The real bottleneck?
Innovation mismatches in teams.
The world’s only assessment tool that can help shed light on your organization's unique strengths and potential areas for growth, the Innovation Strengths Preference Indicator® (ISPI™ U.S. Patent No. D885,418) used by the world's most innovative companies such as ExxonMobil, Microsoft, NASA, Coca Cola, Raytheon, Harvard, and MIT’s Sloan School reveals:
Only 11% of employees are natural “Experimenters” (critical for AI pilot testing).
42% are “Connectors” (ideal for change management but often excluded from tech rollouts).
Proven Application: A financial services firm used the ISPI™ to restructure their AI task force:
Assigned “Visionaries” to ideate use cases.
Paired them with “Executors” for rapid prototyping.
Result: AI adoption accelerated by 9 months, with 89% employee buy-in.
Data Point: Teams aligned to ISPI™ profiles deliver 3.2x more innovation per dollar spent.
The CHRO Playbook: 3 Non-Negotiables
1️⃣ Kill the “AI Training” Binary
Replace “AI literacy” programs with role-specific AI co-pilots (e.g., HRBP AI assistants that prep diversity analytics before meetings).
2️⃣ Launch a “Shadow AI” Audit
64% of employees already use unauthorized AI tools (Gartner).
Instead of banning them, identify and scale the best (e.g., a pharma company discovered its scientists were using ChatGPT for research, now it’s a sanctioned tool).
3️⃣ Tie AI Metrics to Human Outcomes
AI-to-Human Handoff Rate (how often AI escalates to people).
Employee AI Innovation Quotient (ideas submitted via AI platforms).
The Final Question: Are You a Custodian or a Catalyst?
The difference between companies that survive AI and those that thrive comes down to one choice: Will you let AI happen to your people, or will you empower them to shape it?
Your Move:
Benchmark your AI maturity against the “Humanize AI Index” (DM me for the framework).
Run an ISPI™ discovery with your leadership team (free assessment for the first 10 readers who reply).
Share your biggest AI leadership challenge in the comments, let’s crowdsource solutions.
👉🏾 Comment “DISCOVERY” below, and I’ll send you Our Innovation Readiness Assessment.
Together, let’s build teams that don’t just survive the AI era, they dominate it.
With passion & purpose,
Building futures where people lead, and AI follows.
P.S. The most successful CHROs I work with have one trait in common: They spend 30+ minutes daily using AI tools themselves. Start today try Claude or ChatGPT in your next brainstorming strategy, then share what you learn.
Greg Brisco is a leading voice in human-centric AI implementation and organizational innovation. He helps organizations bridge the gap between technological capability and human potential.
#HumanizeGenerativeAI #ISPI #HeartMindedLeadership #LeadWithHumanity #IntelligentTransformation #InnovationReadiness
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