What happens when AI shows up in your organization with no plan behind it? In this episode of The Fault Line, Gary Lancina and Kim Scribner dig into what goes wrong when leaders hand their teams AI tools and say “good luck,” and what the better path looks like.

They start with how AI usually arrives: quietly, through individual experimentation, long before anyone writes a formal strategy. From there, they cover why you need to know what you’re trying to achieve before you pick up the tool, the difference between efficiency and effectiveness, and the risk of building on AI shortcuts when you don’t understand the work underneath. Along the way, they share stories from their own careers, including a system launch that took down every customer service screen, a chat experiment that outperformed the automation, and how Kim built her own AI inbox assistant.

In this episode:

• Why AI adoption is about changing how people think about work, not just implementing a tool
• The “addiction to the solution” and why teams need to keep the knowledge to work without the tool
• Why AI tools need a product owner to maintain them as things change
• How leaders can find the sweet spot between over-controlling AI use and “all AI all the time”
• Why framing and prompting are new skills, and why AI’s tendency to flatter you is a problem
• How AI-generated content is creating more noise, and why authenticity and human connection may become a competitive edge
• Where humans still matter most: emotional connection, customer experience, and knowing when to hand off from the bot
• Practical guidelines for leaders, plus a reminder to expect the tools to keep shifting

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Sometimes the change lands on your desk, and you didn’t ask for it. A new strategy from above. A layoff decision. A shift in hours. A competitor’s surprise move. You’re still expected to lead your team through it.

In this episode of The Fault Line, hosts Gary Lancina and Kim Scribner dig into what it takes to lead through change you didn’t choose, especially when you’re not sure it’s the right call. They cover the different flavors of imposed change, from the ones you’re excited about to the ones you don’t believe in. They share stories from their own careers, including pushing back on an initiative, delivering hard news, and pivoting when events outside anyone’s control change the plan.

In this episode:

• Why limited visibility, like seeing the world through a knothole, can lead to the wrong conclusions about a change
• How to lead with curiosity and ask “why” even when you’re several levels down
• Why you need to deal with your own emotions before you communicate a change to your team
• How being transparent about what you know and don’t know builds trust
• Why the way your culture handles the question “why” says a lot about it
• Why change is a skill you can build, and how to practice it
• How to understand your own agency: pick your battles, advocate for what you believe, and make your choice

Collaboration doesn’t mean consensus, but you always have a choice in how you respond.

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It’s easy to decide what to do next. It’s much harder to decide what to stop. In this episode of The Fault Line, Kim Scribner and Gary Lancina dig into why we pile more onto our plates, and why “busy” has become a badge of honor.

They cover the habits and false urgency that keep us doing work that no longer matters, the burnout risk for high performers who keep getting handed more, and the emotional pull of staying “fully loaded.” Along the way, they share stories of the weekly report nobody read, the zombie project that kept coming back, and the moment a product’s returns start to flatten. They also talk about practical ways to create space: pausing instead of quitting, reducing frequency, separating glass balls from rubber balls, and asking “what’s changed since we last said yes?”

Whether you’re leading a team or trying to protect your own focus, this conversation will make you rethink what’s worth your time.