Leading Your Business Through the AI Shift

Curiosity is the First Step to Capability.

Last night, I hosted a Grow with Google AI training in partnership with the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. While we often talk about AI as if everyone is already an expert, the reality is that for many leaders, this is still uncharted territory. In the room last night, we had people at every proficiency level, some were just learning to write their first prompts.

The most important takeaway was this: it doesn’t matter where you are starting, as long as you start. In leadership, we can’t let what we don’t know become a stop gap to our progress. Embracing a proactive mindset with AI isn’t just about the technology; it’s a leadership practice that carries over into every other part of how we run our businesses.

Once you move past the basics and get comfortable with the tools, you can start integrating AI into your strategy in much more advanced ways. At C-Suite Coach, we’ve use AI for deep internal audits:

• Objective Leadership Feedback: I use transcripts from my own team meetings to track how I am progressing toward specific leadership goals. It removes the bias of my own perception and shows me exactly where I can improve as a manager.

• The Sales Mirror: By reviewing transcripts of sales calls (with permission), I use AI to identify blind spots in my approach and find better ways to demystify our work for potential partners.

• Strategy Personas: We’ve built custom "Gems" that act as specialist advisors, allowing me to pressure-test a new strategy against the perspective of a Chief People Officer or a consultant before I ever present it.

  
  

A huge thank you to the leaders who joined me and spoke so powerfully about the importance of this shift. Harry Chen (Manhattan Chamber of Commerce) and Reggie Thomas (Google) both shared incredible insights on how critical these skills are for our city’s economic resilience. Dynishal  Gross (Commissioner of the NYC Department of Small Business Services) reminded us all that this technology is for every entrepreneur, regardless of their sector.

And, of course, a special thank you to Lucy Pinto for her continued championship of the Grow with Google Coaches and our mission to bridge the digital divide.

The future belongs to the proactive. Whether you are writing your first prompt or building your tenth custom model, the goal is to keep moving forward.

For Enterprise Advisory inquiries on architecting your team's AI-readiness roadmap, please contact C-Suite Coach!