Richard Russell ⤴'s Linkedin Analytics

If you want a long lasting career in an AI world — especially if you’re in a leadership position — make sure you have product management skills. This is the skillset that creates value at scale. You don’t have to be a “Product Manager”. You might be a marketer, a designer, an engineer, a founder, or a manager at some level in an organisation. Start creating products that are valuable and viable — products your customers love (will pay for) and which work for your business (are profitable).

Here’s why AI cannot replace humans: We are more than our intelligence. Our bodies are not just a transportation and I/O device for our brains. Our emotions are not barriers to be overcome as we achieve things. Our Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not an overhead cost to be minimised so we can maximise the ROI of our brainpower. These are what make us human, what give us value to other humans, and what enables us to value other humans. AI can never replace this, even if it matches or beats our brainpower, physical dexterity, and even artistic expression. AI, no matter how capable can never relate to a human the way we can. It can never connect like we do. It can not love. We can.

Is fast waterfall supported by AI going to beat human speed agile?

Do you create an ideal role then find the best person to fill that role, or hire a great person and create an ideal role for that person? Rory Sutherland thinks it's best to hire people and then define the best role for them (see this great interview: https://lnkd.in/dFe3rt_H). My rational mind wants to define the role then find the right person, but in practice, I think the other way around works better. What do you do? If a combination or "other", please comment!

Has AI reached a plateau? When ChatGPT 3.5 launched, it was amazing but flawed. 4 and 4o followed and removed many of the flaws. Since then the improvements seem incremental as least as a chat based UX. Multi-modal input and output is catching up, and I assume the models are getting more efficient. There’s not a lot of data that hasn’t already been ingested and used for training. Yes, tuning will help, and more data is being generated, especially through usage… But is this really the way to AGI and the singularity, or are we approaching the limits of this technology? What’s your take? Am I missing something?

I sometime use AI to improve my writing and—perhaps ironically—make it look less like AI generated content. My natural writing style is verbose, with lots of long sentences, comma-separated clauses, and needlessly complex sounding words—especially adjectives and adverbs. And I love emdashes (and other punctuation, like parentheses and semicolons; even if I don’t always use them well!) I often end up with a wall of impenetrable text, lots of repetition, and whole sentences or even paragraphs that are probably redundant. I need an editor. AI does this for me, and—apart from using emdashes even more than I do unless I explicitly tell it not to—the writing I end up with reads more “human” than my first draft. This post was written entirely by me, with no AI, yet it triggers half of the “AI signals” people talk about. If I used AI to edit it, it wouldn’t. Moral of the story: use AI as an brainstormer, a copywriter, and an editor—but feed it your own ideas and co-write rather than depending on it to generate content on your behalf. Make sure it’s *your* content, and AI helped you express it, rather than the LLM’s content that you’re posting. Used well, AI is Jobs’s “bicycle for the mind”. Used badly, it’s a dross-generating engine.

I said it first, but Alex M H Smith said it better! Dolly Parton is my strategy hero too :-)

“I don’t produce anything anymore. No roadmaps. No wireframes. No Jira tickets. What am I even doing?” Ever felt that? This week’s guest on the podcast, Lidia Oshlyansky 🇺🇦, has led teams of 100+ at Google, Spotify, and startups. But her path wasn’t typical—and neither are her insights. From social worker to backend engineer to Chief Product Officer, she shares the honest emotional challenges of leadership: Doubting your value when you’re managing managers of managers Breaking down walls between product, design, and engineering Leading transformation without becoming that arrogant change agent Navigating burnout, tricky relationships—and knowing when to walk away It’s wise, raw, and often very funny. 🎧 Listen in on your favourite app: https://lnkd.in/dtMRAeRD 📺 Watch on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dTwB3xfS 📬 Subscribe for more like this: https://lnkd.in/djhz3snf

Something I learnt about myself while reflecting on my experience learning Coaching at Henley Business School this week: I have two different “modes” - other person centred, and self-centred. When I’m self-centred, I can be insensitive or inattentive, and don’t listen that well, preferring the sound of my own voice. I have noticed this in the past and felt like this is a character flaw of mine. But when I am other person centred, I’m very sensitive, perceptive, and I listen well. Whoever I am with feels cared for deeply - because I do care for them deeply. What I noticed is that when I’m self-centred, focused on my own agenda, I have a neutral to negative effect on people around me. When I’m other person centred, I have strong positive effects, even if it’s not my own agenda. What’s really interesting is that this is far more fulfilling than being self-centred, and in fact I think it’s more likely to lead to success in whatever I do, even if I’m less in control of the agenda. Have you noticed similar patterns in your relationships, whether professional or personal?