Raise the ceiling, not the floor

Natalia Quintero and Mike Taylor’s 33 Questions Executives Ask About AI (opens in a new tab) has a line I keep repeating: it’s easier to raise the ceiling than the floor.

One AI-fluent person building ten good skills and doing ten times the work is more achievable than getting ten people to each build one skill. Then you highlight the champions, and skeptics follow their peers out of practicality rather than persuasion.

That’s invitational excellence. Don’t drag the floor up. Show what the ceiling looks like and make it easy to climb.