Coffee is still warm. Your dashboard is already done.

Overnight, AI handled the backlog. Reports, summaries, prioritised tickets.

Clean. Precise. Waiting for you.

Feels like magic. It isn’t. It’s a time dividend.

McKinsey estimates that generative AI has lifted the share of activities that could be automated to 60–70 percent.

That’s not whole jobs.

It’s the busywork that clogs your day. The margin-killers. The spirit-sappers. (McKinsey, 2023).

Here’s the leadership test. What will you do with that time?

Are you following?

Micro-story

A regional manager used AI to clear weekly reporting, forecast variance notes, and first-pass customer sentiment scans.

She freed eight hours a week.

At first, she filled the gap with more dashboards. Classic trap. Busy again. No lift.

So we flipped it. She reinvested the hours in people.

• Three 1:1s moved from status to strengths.
• She shadowed two customer calls.
• She hosted a 20-minute learning huddle where the team shared one AI shortcut each.

Within eight weeks, ramp time dropped. Customer escalations fell. Voluntary turnover paused.

Exactly. The dividend only matters when you choose where it compounds.

The leadership principle

John Maxwell’s reminder still bites:

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Caring is not a poster. It’s presence, clarity, and follow-through, especially when work changes fast.

And work is changing fast!

Only 1 percent of companies say their AI efforts are truly mature. The biggest blocker isn’t employees. It’s leadership readiness.

Leaders hesitate, mis-sequence, or under-communicate. Employees are more ready than we think. (McKinsey, 2025).

Does this make sense?

Why the dividend must flow to people

Organizations capture value from AI when individuals see value first.

MIT Sloan and BCG found a strong link:

When people feel AI makes them more competent, autonomous, and connected, the organization is far more likely to realize ROI.

Personal wins precede enterprise wins.

Translation:

if your team can’t feel the benefit, your P&L won’t either.

And what should we measure?

Deloitte argues the conversation must shift from narrow productivity snapshots to human performance.

Use new data and AI to observe learning velocity, collaboration quality, and customer outcomes, not just output per hour. (Deloitte Italia, 2024).

So yes, automate. Then lead.

The REINVEST Playbook

Here’s the five-move sequence I coach. It’s simple. It’s daily. It compounds.

1. Clarify the line

List what stays human. List what shifts to AI.

Explain why.

Repeat it until your team can explain it back.

Ambiguity kills morale faster than workload ever did.

Use “human for judgment, empathy, edge cases” versus “AI for pattern, speed, scale.” (Mortensen & Edmondson, 2023).

2. Coach for strengths

Convert one weekly status update into a strengths session.

Ask:

• Where did you create value this week?
• What felt easy for you that’s hard for others?

Tie strengths to the new workflow. If AI removes the slog, where does each person now fly?

3. Fix customer friction

Walk the journey.

Where are handoffs slow, double-typed, or invisible?

Your newly freed hours go here. CX is your competitive advantage.

Leaders who sit on three real calls beat leaders who read thirty synthetic summaries. Every time.

4. Make AI a co-pilot, not a critic

Give people control over when and how to use tools.

Autonomy matters – especially in the Nordics.

Adoption spikes when individuals feel more capable, not more policed. (MIT SMR/BCG, 2022).

5. Reward learning publicly

Spotlight micro-wins.

• A great prompt someone developed.
• A saved hour here.
• A cleaner handoff.

Recognition is one of the biggest EX levers, and it costs you minutes. (Tiffani Bova, 2022).

Are you following?

What if AI makes us dispensable?

Some leaders worry that AI will deskill teams. Wrong target.

It will deskill cultures that stop investing in people.

The antidote is deliberate development.

Design roles so humans do more of what only humans can do: negotiation, meaning-making, creative leaps, customer empathy. Then train for it.

Tiffani Bova calls it The Experience Mindset: balance employee experience and customer experience with equal obsession. Ignore one, and the other drops.

In the AI era, the drop is faster.

Put it into your calendar, literally.

Block two hours weekly named “Dividend.”

Fill it with one coaching session, one customer moment, and one system fix.

Protect it like a board meeting. In a quarter, tell me you don’t feel the cultural lift.

That’s the work. Automate the noise. Upgrade the human signal.

Make it a fantastic day,

Florin

P.S. Save the date.

On October 23 at Live2Lead Gothenburg, (Uni3 by Geely) we go deep on making AI your people advantage. With voices like Tiffani Bova, we will show how to turn time into trust, trust into performance, and performance into growth.

Last year sold out: 124 leaders from Geely, Aurobay, Volvo, Zeekr, SiNIX, PostNord, AstraZeneca. Here is what some said about their experience: https://lnkd.in/dzapdQ_Q

Registration isn’t open yet. This year, we’re setting up an early-access list waitlist for my connections & subscribers, so if you’d like to get on that list, comment “Live2Lead” below and we’ll DM you the details. 😉