Michael Bungay Stanier: Your business advice isn't as good as you think. AI just proved it.
The Rare MindShow Notes
Every leader thinks their advice is more useful than it is. Michael Bungay Stanier has sold nearly two million books arguing exactly that, and he reckons AI has just proved his point.
If you want the full thinking blueprint behind this podcast, grab my book, No Bullshit Strategy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Bullsh-Strategy-Founders-Actually/dp/1803136510
Michael wrote the best-selling coaching book of the last twenty years, and he's not actually a coach. His argument is simple. The instinct to jump in with the answer, what he calls the advice monster, is the thing quietly holding your team back. Your job isn't to have the answers. It's to set the frame and let the people closest to the work find them.
Then AI arrived and sharpened the whole thing. If a machine can hand anyone a competent answer in seconds, what's a leader actually for? Michael's answer is the part that stuck with me: the things a machine can't give you. Connection, context, and the courage to make a call and stand behind it.
If you've ever confused being certain with being clear, this one's for you.
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The Rare Mind is a new podcast from strategist and No Bullsh*t Strategy author Alex M H Smith. In an era when any old idiot can access best practice tactics from AI, it's going to be the ways you think unpredictably that actually count. Each episode, Alex sits down with the business leaders who've been there and done it - to unpack their unique strategic lessons in a way that makes them relevant and applicable for everyone. If you're a business leader who wants to turn the way you think into your ultimate weapon, subscribe now. First episode coming soon. For more from Alex, subscribe to The Rare Mind newsletter: https://alexmhsmith.substack.com/