Hi Reader,

I recently accomplished a career bucket list item when I achieved official Vistage Speaker status. The corresponding digital badge is underwhelming, but that's okay.

Vistage is a 65+ year-old company with a global footprint, providing CEOs with a structured setting to meet with their peers for professional and personal development. Vistage member companies grow 2.2x faster than non-members among small and medium-sized businesses according to Dun & Bradstreet.

To achieve my Vistage speaker designation, I had to satisfactorily complete three presentations to three distinct Vistage groups.

This week's episode 305 is a summary of what I experienced in these three sessions delivered over Zoom for Vistage groups in California.

Presenting remotely meant that I lost the visual feedback I normally rely on when I present in person. So I leaned on a round robin at the end of each session led by Vistage Chair Danielle Baldwin (featured on episode 254).

Danielle did a phenomenal job of engaging the audience in each session, diving deeper into points that resonated with them.

The fulfillment connection for me was across two dimensions. As I mentioned, being a Vistage Speaker is a career bucket list item for me. That's surely a career fulfilling experience for me.

Additionally, the interaction with these three groups validates what my research findings show.

In fact, I observed it in all three sessions. Without hearing what the other groups said, at least one leader in each session arrived at the same conclusion: AI transformation is a business strategy, not an AI strategy.

For a deeper dive into the Human Dividend method I presented at these three Vistage group meetings, watch this twelve-minute video overview. 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

When these Vistage members were asked if their employees believe that AI is being introduced to help them, not replace them, the numbers told an even sharper version of the same story. The identical material produced 85%, 50%, and 100% trust scores in three different rooms, proof that the technology isn’t the variable. The leader’s ability to build trust is.

On episode 305, I summarize this experience across three rooms and what it could mean for you and your team.

In this week's episode 305 the main point is this.

"Bernie recently wrapped his first three presentations to qualify as a certified Vistage speaker, all in California and delivered remotely via Zoom. Without his usual ability to read the room, he leaned on a round robin and what came back was the same insight in every room, and very different trust scores from identical material. This week's episode is about what that gap reveals about leading through AI adoption, and why the fix starts with the leader, not the technology."

Did you know that you can watch each week's episode on my YouTube channel? 👇🏼

Each video is produced with visual elements to help bring the story alive beyond the audio. If podcast consumption on YouTube is new to you, give it a try! 😎

The Coach's Corner

Weekly insights and actionable tips from my lens as an executive coach—helping you lead, grow, and thrive.

The Trust Audit Your AI Rollout Is Missing

When I delivered the same presentation to three Vistage CEO groups, I ran the same anonymous poll at the end of each session: “Do your employees believe AI is being introduced to help them, or to replace them?”

Group one came in at 85% yes. Group two landed at 50% yes, with 43% unsure (and unsure, when the alternative is trust, is really just a soft no). Group three hit 100% yes.

Same material. Same framework. Same person saying the same words. Three completely different trust baselines.

That gap makes the case for a trust audit better than any slide could. You can't lead a team through a technology transformation if you don't know which of those three rooms you're actually standing in. Most leaders are guessing.

What the AI Trust Audit™ Is

The AI Trust Audit is a short framework inside my Human Dividend™ Method, built around a simple move: instead of assuming what your team fears about AI, you ask them. It's five direct questions a leader can bring to their team to surface what people are actually worried about, not what a leader assumes they're worried about.

It isn't a survey a company runs once and files away. It's meant to be used in one-on-one conversations, in team meetings, and (this part matters most) on the leader first. One leader in the room said exactly that. He wanted to run the questions on himself before he ever brought them to his team. That's not a small distinction. If a leader expects honesty about fear from their people, the leader has to model it, including being honest about their own relationship with the technology. Trust doesn't flow in one direction. It has to start somewhere, and it might as well start at the top.

Where It Goes Beyond AI

Here's the part that surprised me the most. In one of the three Vistage rooms, a leader said the conversation had changed how he was about to handle an employee situation that had nothing to do with AI at all. He took the idea of discernment, of adding your own judgment instead of passing something along unexamined, and applied it to a completely different habit he needed to correct in how he led people.

That's the tell that a framework is actually working. Not when someone says “great talk.” It's when someone takes an idea built for one problem and applies it somewhere it was never meant to go.

Strip the “AI” out of the AI Trust Audit and you're left with three behaviors any leader can use in any change effort: a reorg, a merger, a new performance system, a leadership transition.

Acknowledge fear directly instead of hoping it fades on its own.
Be transparent when you don't have all the answers yet. People trust honesty more than polish.
Recognize the work happening at every level, not just the work that closes the big deal. Leaders are quick to notice high complexity wins and slow to notice the low complexity work, the coordination, the logistics, the follow-through, that quietly holds everything together.

None of that requires an AI rollout to be relevant. AI just happens to be the thing making this particular leadership test visible right now. Next year, it might be something else. The leaders who did well across those three Vistage rooms weren't the ones with the most sophisticated AI rollout. They were the ones willing to be honest in front of their peers about where they actually stood.

Shoutout to Vistage Chair, Danielle Baldwin, for hosting me to present to these three groups and for facilitating engaging conversation with the attendees.

Where to Go From Here

If you want the full Human Dividend framework the Trust Audit is built on, including the reasoning behind each question and how to bring the results back to your team, the white paper walks through it from end to end.

Download The Human Dividend White Paper: A Leader's Guide to Human-Led AI Transformation

https://fulfilledatworkacademy.com/services/human-led-ai-transformation/

Read the full article here.

You Can Catch This Week's Episode:

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It’s Not an AI Strategy. It’s a Business Strategy.

In episode 305, I share what happened when three rooms of Vistage member CEO and executives reacted honestly, including the pushback I received, the leaders who admitted their own fear out loud, and the quiet realization that most leaders reward the wrong kind of work.

Three Vistage CEO groups. Three cities in California. One Zoom camera standing between me and every face in the room. When I presented The Human Dividend™ framework without my usual ability to read the room, I expected the material to land three different ways. Instead, something unexpected happened: leaders in each session reached the same conclusion, without hearing what the other rooms said. This episode is about what a round robin led by Vistage Chair, Danielle Baldwin, an anonymous poll, and a room full of honest CEOs revealed about why AI adoption succeeds or fails.

Who This Is For

Leaders rolling out AI on their teams who suspect the real resistance isn’t about the tools.
Vistage members and CEO peer group participants interested in how AI adoption gets tested in real leadership conversations.
HR and people leaders trying to gauge whether their employees see AI as help or as a threat.
Anyone building an AI communication plan who wants a simple, repeatable way to surface team fears before they become resistance.
Leaders who haven’t yet said out loud that they’re a little afraid of this transition too.

Five Key Takeaways

Across three separate Vistage rooms, leaders landed on the same conclusion: “This isn’t an AI strategy, it’s a business strategy.” AI adoption struggles are trust and leadership problems, not technology problems.
The same presentation produced very different trust results. An anonymous poll asking whether employees believe AI is meant to help or replace them came back at 85% yes in one room, 50% (with 43% unsure) in another, and 100% in the third. Identical material, three different poll results.
The AI Trust Audit, five questions from the Human Dividend™ Method, gives leaders a way to find out which of those rooms they’re actually standing in, instead of guessing.
Leaders consistently notice and reward high-complexity work, like closing deals or resolving escalations, while overlooking low-complexity work, like meeting logistics and day-to-day coordination, that actually holds a team together. More than one leader called this out as a blind spot they hadn’t considered before.
Trust in AI adoption starts with the leader, not the front line. Leaders admitted their own fear in front of peers: one wanted to run the trust audit on himself before ever using it with his team, and another acknowledged his own team may not know how much he personally relies on AI day to day.