The Competitive Edge That AI Can't Give You
- melissapritchard26
- Aug 12
- 3 min read
AI is changing how we do business, and will continue to do so in ways that we can’t imagine.
One thing is still consistent though, behind the advice on how to use AI properly:
Your organisation’s culture will be the real competitive advantage in the long run.
David Schonthal’s recent article in the MIT Sloan Management Review is an excellent illustration of the power of reframing the question that your business is trying to solve, to drive competitive advantage.
It demonstrates how reframing the question leads to real differentiation, real competitive advantage.
All of that is valuable.
The article would be enhanced by recognising that inclusive leadership behaviour is what makes those recommendations actually work.
The comfort to challenge, and the security to speak up and be heard.
Reframing requires more than smart thinking.
Being smart about how you frame and challenge the question you are solving makes sense.
The example of asking, “How do we make a better baby lotion?”
Versus “Why have parents stopped believing us?” is compelling.
However, this type of challenge is only possible in an organisation where colleagues are consistently empowered to challenge, and where the expectation of challenge is embedded in the organisational culture.
Think about how the problem you are solving for becomes embedded in the organisation.
It drives the allocation of resources, and it is embedded across teams from marketing, to product development, to customer service.
The more embedded a question becomes as the driver of business development, the harder it becomes to challenge.
This is not an AI problem. It is a culture problem. And it is one that no AI tool can solve on your behalf.
Culture is the competitive advantage AI cannot replicate.
There are many ways in which organisations will work to leverage AI, to provide customer and product insight.
A consistent theme is emerging: the power of human thinking will be the differentiator.
If you have built an organisation where people cannot challenge the status quo, you may survive but will you lead?
Four ways to build the culture that makes this possible.
How might you create the type of environment where colleagues are willing to challenge that status quo?
These are my top recommendations for building an inclusive culture, that enables the kind of thinking Schonthal is calling for:
Build Inclusive Leaders - Embed inclusive behaviours into your competency model, and Leadership assessment and development. You don’t need to build lots of new interventions, just interrogate your existing processes to make sure they include inclusive behaviour.
Drive Experiential Learning - Build an expectation of talking about what didn’t work, and what was learned as a result. Amy Edmondson talks about how psychologically safe teams report more problems, not fewer, because they are open to learning from what went wrong. Kolb’s learning cycle reinforces this by emphasising the importance of reflection, and thinking to learn from an experience.
Expect challenge - Promote diversity of options, early in the process, of challenging ideas. Margaret Heffernan suggests 5 Rules for productive conflict including appointing a devil’s advocate, and asking “Imagine you cannot do what you want to do.”
Generate options before discussion - Add a step in your process that includes time for personal reflection, and writing before group discussion. Adam Grant explains how brainwriting can fix the challenges with brainstorming in his article How to make your team smarter
The question worth sitting with:
There are many ways in which organisations will be working to leverage AI, to provide customer and product insight.
However, the organisations that will use it to genuinely differentiate are those that have already done the harder work.
Building cultures where people are free to question, to challenge, to think differently and to challenge the status quo.
Organisations that build the muscle of inclusive behaviour create teams that question assumptions early, rethink problems faster and adapt before competitors do.
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