Last month, we brought together CTOs and CHROs for a candid conversation about what's really constraining AI's impact today. Not compute. Not tools. But the human and cultural systems that determine whether AI delivers everyday value—or stays stuck in pilot mode.

Ahead of a conversation with two seasoned HR and technology leaders—Matt Breitfelder (Apollo Group) and George Forbes (U.S. Armed Forces)—we ran a short diagnostic (see chart above) to surface what's keeping leaders up at night. The diagnostic revealed something striking: leaders' biggest concern about AI is helping people navigate what it means for their work, their identity, and their future. You can see the video of the whole event here.

The hardest work isn't technical; it's human. In our first dispatches of the year, we share what emerged in the conversation with our guests and the participants—and pose the questions that now feel impossible to ignore.

—The SYPartners team

#8

Still loading: Humans at work
in the AI age

THE PROBABILISTIC MINDSET

"We're using a deterministic mindset to solve a probabilistic problem. None of us know which scenarios will happen or how they will unfold, but we know they could be transformational."

—Matthew Breitfelder, Partner and Global Head of Human Capital, Apollo

Most organizations approach AI transformation like a traditional change initiative: define the outcome, build the plan, and execute the steps. But AI doesn't work that way. Capabilities evolve weekly, and use cases emerge through experimentation. The winning approach is less about prediction and more about adaptive learning.

How do you lead when the path keeps shifting?

"Leaders keep asking for the playbook," says one CHRO. "But the playbook is being written in real time. The question isn't 'What's the plan?' It's 'How fast can we learn?'"

REVERSE MENTORSHIP ISN'T OPTIONAL ANYMORE

"My most junior people are figuring out how to do their job faster and easier. We're having every senior leader in our company be reverse-mentored by AI digital natives."

—George Forbes, Director of Digital Operations Directorate, U.S. Armed Forces

The military—hardly known for inverting hierarchies—is putting junior soldiers in charge of teaching generals. Why? Because the people closest to the tools understand the possibilities better than those managing the big picture.

What happens when expertise flows upward?

Traditional authority assumed knowledge increased with seniority. AI has inverted that. The question isn't whether to embrace reverse mentorship—it's whether your culture can handle junior employees teaching senior leaders without anyone's ego getting bruised.

DURABLE SKILLS IN A WORLD OF PERISHABLE TOOLS

"[In the military] many technical skills perish and get replaced; durable skills remain."

 —George Forbes

The military has seen this cycle before: new weapons systems, new communication technologies, and new operational paradigms. "What endures throughout cycles is judgment, adaptability, and the ability to lead humans through uncertainty."

What are the durable skills for the AI era?

It's not about prompt engineering or knowing which AI tool does what—those will be obsolete in 18 months. The durable skills are the ones that have always mattered: asking better questions, making judgment calls with incomplete information, building trust amid constant changing, and helping people see possibilities as clearly as they see threats.

THE IDENTITY CRISIS

"It's very difficult to separate one's identity from the thing that they have been doing. So what we try to do is make them understand that technology is fleeting. Your job and your skill and your cognitive ability are more valuable to us than any technology."

 —George Forbes

When AI can do your job faster, what's left of your professional identity? This question captures the core anxiety behind resistance to AI adoption.

How do you help people redefine themselves?

"You can't tell someone, 'Your job is being automated, but you're still valuable,'" says SYP's Marc Winter. "You have to show them what becomes possible once they're freed from the routine work. But that means actually creating new, meaningful work—not just promising it."

THE CORE REFRAME

"The AI revolution is only a little bit about technology. Technology is the catalyst. But this is about how humans work and unleashing our full potential as humans."

—Matthew Breitfelder

Most discussions about AI focus on what the technology can do. The deeper conversation is about what humans can become once machines take on routine cognitive work. That shift, however, forces us to confront harder questions about purpose, meaning, and what we're truly optimizing for.

What does "unleashing human potential" actually mean?

Speed and productivity can be achieved by both humans and machines. Untapping human potential lies in freeing people to do the work that's uniquely human—the judgment calls, the creative leaps, the relationship building, and the meaning-making that no algorithm can replicate. Yet most organizations haven't figured out how to create space for that work, let alone how to value it properly.

A peek into SYP

➕ Jason Baer, new president of SYPartners. As we enter 2026, Jason Baer has been appointed president of the firm. Jason joined SYPartners in 2013 and has served as Partner, Managing Partner, and Chief Client Officer, advising senior leaders at organizations including PayPal, UnitedHealthcare, NBCUniversal, Alphabet, and NASA. Announcing the appointment, CEO Jessica Orkin noted in an official communication to clients that Jason "pairs deep consulting craft with a gift for expanding possibility," qualities she highlighted as essential as SYPartners helps organizations reinvent themselves in the age of AI.

2️⃣ Two perspectives on how culture really works. In two recent articles, our partner Carina Cortese explores where culture actually takes shape inside organizations—particularly in what leaders allow, interrupt, and reinforce. In The Negative Space of Culture, she examines how culture is defined at its edges and why what leaders tolerate and protect matters more than stated aspiration. In From Values to Ways of Working, she argues that in post-acquisition integration, friction rarely comes from misaligned values and far more often from mismatched ways of working and decision-making.

🏚️ A new digital home for SYPartners. In the next few days, we'll be launching a redesigned sypartners.com—our main website—alongside an evolved brand expression. The site introduces Momentum, an editorial platform featuring a curated collection of voices from SYPartners and beyond, exploring the relationship between humanity and performance, and the possibilities unlocked when human potential is fully unleashed. We'd love to hear what you think once it's live.

About us

Dispatches from the Collective delivers insights from SYPartner's work through human anecdotes, practical tips, and beautiful questions designed to help C-suite leaders navigate the unknown and act with purpose—shared in the spirit of helping all of us lead in a better way. Click here to sign up and see all previous issues.

SYPartners is a consultancy that partners with clients at their critical turning points to design new possibilities for impact, create paths for long-term value, and build cultures of competitive advantage. Since 1994, we've helped some of the world's most iconic organizations lead into the unknown.