Seth Kahan on Big Change

Just wrapped up an energizing 1-day Innovation Summit with the team at the College of American Pathologists (CAP) in Chicago. You could literally feel the organization leaning into something bigger. The Innovation Team did the heavy lifting. They designed and delivered a thoughtful, well-run experience that brought together leaders from across the organization to engage the whole […]

I’ll be in Paris May 14–22, and I’m opening up a small number of informal conversations while I’m there. Over the past two decades, I’ve had the privilege of working with leaders tackling large-scale, system-level challenges across sectors. What continues to interest me most is this: how do we mobilize meaningful change across an ecosystem,

Where are you on the AI curve right now?  Most organizations today are experimenting with AI. They are testing tools, automating tasks, and looking for ways to improve efficiency. That is where the conversation usually starts. It is not where the real opportunity lies.   In my recent conversation with AI expert Neil Sahota, he described AI as

Recently read Reshuffle, by Sangeet Paul Choudary.  Thx to CEO, Dale Cyr, who introduced me to it and worked together with me to apply it to his organization’s evolution.  I highly recommend it to anyone thinking seriously about the future of work, leadership, and value creation in an AI-enabled world.    What makes this book

AI is rapidly moving from curiosity to capability. I’m seeing more CEOs and boards realize that the real issue is not the technology. It’s their own clarity, understanding, and leadership. In my work with senior leaders across global organizations and professional societies, five capabilities separate those who use AI strategically from those who are simply

We often look for leaders who prioritize output, speed, and pressure. However, in more than 30 years of working alongside senior leaders at the World Bank, Royal Dutch Shell, and over 100 associations, I have observed that those who generate the most lasting change are not the loudest or most forceful. Instead, they are the

This week, I am facilitating the American Association of Physicists in Medicine’s summit, Empowering Medicine through Physics. It is more than a convening. It is a signal. Medicine is at an inflection point. Artificial intelligence is accelerating discovery. Workforce strain is real. Regulatory pressures are mounting. Data is exploding. And yet the promise of precision,

Pictured: me at the World Bank, where I lived through two change initiatives in the mid-1990s, both called Knowledge Management. Same organization. Same label. Completely different outcomes. The first effort looked unstoppable. A small group of world-class thinkers. A dedicated budget. Closed meetings. Impressive technology demos. After a year, almost nothing had reached the organization.

When a challenge depends on actors you do not control, incentives you cannot align internally, and commitments that must be made across institutional boundaries, treating it as organizational work becomes counterproductive. An iceberg is a useful metaphor here. From the surface, an iceberg looks manageable. Its visible mass suggests scale, effort, and risk. But what