The right side of this diagram is why your team feels exhausted right now

Even before AI sent the corporate world a little loopy, leadership teams had a clarity problem. Rarely short of ideas or strategy, but almost always short of COHERENCE.

Coherence isn't a 200-page deck or a slogan. It’s that clear, shared understanding of what we’re really here to do. Something leaders know by heart and teams can explain without checking slides.

It sounds simple, but it’s not. Organisations naturally fragment. Priorities multiply, noise creeps in, and activity expands faster than alignment.

When coherence disappears, companies don’t slow down, they just accelerate in different directions.

The result ….?

• Duplicated work
• Wasted capital
• Employee apathy
• Customer confusion

Coherence trumps busyness.

In my work across Design, CX, and growth strategy, I’ve realised coherence is the only thread that makes any of it work. And now, AI has arrived as a "noise multiplier" creating an explosion of urgency and even more initiatives to manage.

Recently, my conversations about AI almost always turn into conversations about coherence instead.

I’m spending more and more of my time helping leadership teams navigate this. Turning that AI-induced complexity into aligned commitment. Because when effort moves in one direction, it actually starts to compound.

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Credit: Image is a remix of Tim Urban's Life Path's visualisation at waitbutwhy.com... Check it out, it's awesome.