Change Management

𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺’𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝘆 𝗯𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺. One pattern I keep seeing in transformation work is that organizations often confuse endurance with health. A team finds a workaround, performance recovers, and leaders conclude that the system is functioning. But the workaround gradually becomes part of the operating model, which means the organization starts depending on people absorbing problems that should have been removed. That is how dysfunction becomes invisible. Strong employees compensate for weak processes, loyal managers protect outdated structures, and good results make intervention feel unnecessary. 𝗦𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀. 𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝘁. This is why leaders should look beyond outcomes and ask where people are quietly compensating for structural failure. The places requiring the most resilience are often the places requiring redesign. What problem has your team become too good at working around? #AIReadiness #FutureOfManagement #OrganizationalDesign #TransformationLeadership

The first large retirement communities in America were built in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when developers like Del Webb introduced places such as Sun City, Arizona. The idea was revolutionary: create neighborhoods where older adults could enjoy an active, low-maintenance lifestyle surrounded by peers. And it made perfect sense...because sixty years ago, the average person moved into what was called a 55+ retirement community in their mid-60s (they were called 55+ communities because 1995 legislation gave favorable status to residential communities serving those 55 and older). Today? The average age of someone moving into senior living is roughly 83 to 85 years old—often after a health event, the loss of a spouse, or when independent living has become difficult. Retirement communities have increasingly become places people move to because they need support, rather than places they move into to build the next chapter of life. That leaves a rather large gap. If you're 58, 67, or 74, healthy, curious, and craving community, where exactly are you supposed to live? Not everyone wants a golf cart. Not everyone needs assisted living. What many people want is something surprisingly simple: Belonging. A recent New York Times article profiled older adults who are choosing to share homes with one another—not because they can't afford to live alone, but because they no longer want to. They describe lower costs, yes, but also something harder to measure: companionship, laughter, shared meals, mutual support, and the comforting knowledge that someone else is home. Then I watched a delightful video of U.K. women joyfully living together, and I had the same thought I've had for years: Why is this still considered unconventional? We've normalized living alone. We've normalized loneliness. Maybe it's time to normalize intentional community. I've often joked that America doesn't just have a housing shortage—it has a belonging shortage. We have millions of empty bedrooms. We have millions of people eating dinner alone. Those aren't two separate problems. They're one opportunity. Imagine neighborhoods designed not around age restrictions but around shared purpose. Imagine homes where people have private bedrooms and even separate suites but shared kitchens, gardens, libraries, workshops, and dinner tables. Imagine a "Golden Girls" model—not as a sitcom, but as a serious housing category. The biggest housing innovation of the next twenty years may not be building more houses. It may be helping more people share the ones we already have. After all, the second half of life shouldn't begin with isolation. It should begin with community. P.S. This Thursday from 1:30-2:30 pm PT, we’ll be creating an online video conversation about the variety of ways that we can live together after I make a presentation about the variety of MEA Homes initiatives. Join the conversation: https://lnkd.in/gTJV32bp

I've been working and building in the CRM industry for 30+ years (so have far exceeded the needed 10,000 hours). The last big transformation we saw in CRM was over 25 years ago with Salesforce's launch of what became the Cloud CRM. Eventually, every (successful) CRM was a cloud CRM. The next big transformation is happening now with the advent of AI and agents. But it's not about being "AI first", it's about being CONTEXT FIRST. Context isn't a feature. It's the whole game. Modern AI models are sensationally smart. But success is not just about high IQ, it's also about having high CQ (Context Quotient). The smartest person in the room is useless if they just walked in. An AI that knows your Q2 pipeline is full, your best rep is on parental leave, and your biggest account just hired a new decision-maker responds very differently than one that doesn't. In most companies, context lives in databases, docs, message threads… and people's heads. It's scattered and fragmented. That's a problem because without shared context, AI is just a very smart intern on their first day at work. AI agents are awesome – but only if they're context aware. So, I'm thrilled to finally share what HubSpot has been working towards. It's been 20 years in the making: The Agentic Customer Platform A customer platform built for both humans *and* AI agents. One that is context-first. A platform that combines the world's smartest AI models with the deepest context to deliver the most effective agents to drive your growth. Agents are the future of software and agentic is the future of customer platforms. Eventually, every (successful) customer platform will be an agentic customer platform -- and every successful GTM agent will need to integrate with an agentic customer platform. Yes, I know I'm biased, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong. :) You can read more details about our vision in a post today by Yamini Rangan (HubSpot's CEO). You can get to it by visiting: acp .net (yes, I like short links…and I don't know why). I'll be digging into the details of what this means from a product/technology perspective and how it actually works over the coming weeks and months. I love it when the dots start to connect. If you have any questions, comments or feedback, would love to hear them.

A new model in Payments is emerging: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐰𝐢𝐜𝐡 Here's how it works: For decades, international payments have moved through a network of correspondent banks. Each transaction passed through multiple intermediaries, from local to international correspondents and back again, taking days and incurring fees at every step. This system worked, but it was slow, expensive, and opaque. A new model is emerging — The Stablecoin Sandwich — where blockchain replaces those intermediary layers to enable direct, near-instant settlement. Here’s how it works: → The sender initiates a transfer in fiat (for example, euros). → An on-ramp partner converts those euros into a stablecoin such as USDC. → The stablecoin moves across the blockchain, serving as the settlement medium. → An off-ramp partner converts the stablecoin into local currency (such as pesos or reais). → The recipient receives funds in their local account, often in under 30 minutes. → This hybrid flow combines the compliance and familiarity of traditional finance with the efficiency, transparency, and programmability of blockchain technology. The scale of this transformation is already visible. Stablecoin transactions now exceed $7 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 annually, surpassing 50% of Visa’s global network volume: https://bit.ly/49aC07G Stablecoins are becoming a fundamental layer for liquidity management, B2B settlement, and cross-border treasury flows. An entire ecosystem is forming around this shift: → 𝐄𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞 & 𝐁2𝐁: BVNK, Bitwave, and Contact are helping global merchants manage stablecoin liquidity, compliance, and treasury operations. → 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞: Polygon Labs, Aptos Labs, and Chainlink Labs are building the rails that connect traditional payment networks with blockchain-based settlement. → 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐬 & 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬: Dfns and BitGo offer programmable, secure wallet solutions designed for enterprises managing large digital asset volumes. → 𝐏𝐚𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐬: Mural Pay, Fipto and Noah are integrating stablecoin rails into existing payment stacks, bridging traditional and digital commerce. → An exciting one, Breeze is reimagining the 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝 (MoR) model with programmable, blockchain-enabled settlements that occur instantly. What's happening is not a replacement of the financial system, but an upgrade. Traditional bank accounts are evolving into wallets. Money movement is becoming programmable. Settlement is shifting from days to seconds. The Stablecoin Sandwich represents a new layer of global financial infrastructure, one that merges the reliability of banks with the speed and transparency of blockchain. Source: Fipto, CB Insights, Dawn Capital, and kudos to Arthur Bedel for this great update! 👌 Find this helpful? [𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁] Anything to add about this subject? [𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁] Nice story, Marcel. Next! [𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲]

How can businesses go beyond using AI for incremental efficiency gains to create transformative impact? I write from the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, where I’ve been speaking with many CEOs about how to use AI for growth. A recurring theme is that running many experimental, bottom-up AI projects — letting a thousand flowers bloom — has failed to lead to significant payoffs. Instead, bigger gains require workflow redesign: taking a broader, perhaps top-down view of the multiple steps in a process and changing how they work together from end to end. Consider a bank issuing loans. The workflow consists of several discrete stages: Marketing -> Application -> Preliminary Approval -> Final Review -> Execution Suppose each step used to be manual. Preliminary Approval used to require an hour-long human review, but a new agentic system can do this automatically in 10 minutes. Swapping human review for AI review — but keeping everything else the same — gives a minor efficiency gain but isn’t transformative. Here’s what would be transformative: Instead of applicants waiting a week for a human to review their application, they can get a decision in 10 minutes. When that happens, the loan becomes a more compelling product, and that better customer experience allows lenders to attract more applications and ultimately issue more loans. However, making this change requires taking a broader business or product perspective, not just a technology perspective. Further, it changes the workflow of loan processing. Switching to offering a “10-minute loan” product would require changing how it is marketed. Applications would need to be digitized and routed more efficiently, and final review and execution would need to be redesigned to handle a larger volume. Even though AI is applied only to one step, Preliminary Approval, we end up implementing not just a point solution but a broader workflow redesign that transforms the product offering. At AI Aspire (an advisory firm I co-lead), here’s what we see: Bottom-up innovation matters because the people closest to problems often see solutions first. But scaling such ideas to create transformative impact often requires seeing how AI can transform entire workflows end to end, not just individual steps, and this is where top-down strategic direction and innovation can help. This year's WEF meeting, as in previous years, has been an energizing event. Among technologists, frequent topics of discussion include Agentic AI (when I coined this term, I was not expecting to see it plastered on billboards and buildings!), Sovereign AI (how nations can control their own access to AI), Talent (the challenging job market for recent graduates, and how to upskill nations), and data-center infrastructure (how to address bottlenecks in energy, talent, GPU chips, and memory). I will address some of these topics in future posts. [Original text: https://lnkd.in/gbiRs2mi ]