Innovation Self-Awareness
A few months ago, I sat in a meeting where a team proudly shared they had been "experimenting with AI." When I asked what that looked like, they described using a chatbot to summarize documents. Helpful? Yes. Transformative? Not really.
I couldn't help but wonder: What happens when leaders think they've successfully mastered AI just because they've used a chat interface? This isn't mastery; it's elementary school... And given the current innovation curve pace, first grade might be the most dangerous place to be.
Most leaders today have heard of ChatGPT or used tools like Microsoft Copilot or Google Gemini. These applications make AI feel friendly, even manageable. Beneath that calm surface, something far more powerful is brewing: agentic AI.
Agentic AI goes beyond answering prompts. These systems operate autonomously, take initiative, reason through multi-step problems, and adapt to new goals without being micromanaged. They're less like calculators and more like collaborators; not just tools, but teammates.
This leap from reactive assistants to proactive agents marks the next phase of AI's evolution, and it's arriving faster than many leaders and professionals are prepared for.
Where Are You on the Innovation Curve?
Have you ever heard of the "curve of innovation"? It categorizes us into five groups:
This curve has explained everything from electricity to the iPhone, and the theory continues to be valid now with agentic AI.
So… where are you? And most importantly, where would you like to be?
If you're still at "write me a summary," you're not alone, and you're also not leading. The difference between staying relevant and being disrupted will lie in how quickly you move up the curve.
How to Shift from Observer to Innovator
Not all of us are naturally drawn to being first. Lucky for us, innovation isn't a personality type; it's a mindset, and like any mindset, it can be trained.
If you're ready to shift, here are some ideas on where to start:
Reframe Your Relationship with AI
Stop thinking of AI as a tool and start seeing it as a teammate. Most of us still treat AI like a clever assistant, someone we give orders to, who does exactly what we say and then silently waits for the next command. That mindset is limiting. Agentic AI isn't waiting for us to write perfect prompts. It can reason, suggest, and adapt, but only if we give it permission.
We need to stop assigning AI tasks we already know how to do and start asking it to help us tackle what we can't. Ask it to surface trends we've missed, challenge our assumptions, and connect the dots across systems, documents, and meetings we haven't yet had time to think about.
Ask yourself: What parts of my work could benefit from proactive problem-solving? What if I had a second brain, trained on my context, to do that thinking for me? Where could I start treating AI as a strategic collaborator instead of just a shortcut?
Explore Use Cases That Scare You
The greatest signal you're on the verge of innovation is discomfort. That slight anxiety when trying something new? That's growth knocking. Innovators don't start with confidence; they start with curiosity and stay curious longer than most are comfortable with.
If you're only using AI for tasks you already fully understand, you're not innovating; you're just automating. The magic lies in those use cases that feel too complex, ambiguous, or risky. Start there. Experiment where the outcome is unclear. Learn in public. Fail forward.
Ask yourself: What AI capabilities am I quietly avoiding because I don't fully understand them yet? What's the smallest version of a scary experiment I could run this week, just to see what happens?
Find Your Doc
If you were Marty McFly, who in your network would be your Doc Brown? (Click here if you don't know what I'm talking about.)
Every innovation journey benefits from a time-traveling mad scientist. A trusted peer who's just a few steps ahead, making sense of the future faster than the rest of us. Find that person. Learn from them. Co-create. Let their experimentation accelerate your confidence.
Sometimes it's not about technical mastery. It's about mindset osmosis. Being around someone who treats new tech as a playground, not a puzzle, will help you unlearn your fear and build fluency.
Ask yourself: Who do I know that's already playing with agentic AI? Could I sit on one of their projects, co-pilot (no pun intended) a use case, or just ask them to show me what excites them? What would change if I turned one of my meetings into an AI lab?
Measure Learning, Not Just Results
The pressure to "get it right" is the fastest way to get stuck. In the early phases of agentic AI, perfection is not the point. The right question isn't "Did it work?" It's "What did we learn?" Every experiment gives you data. Every misfire builds understanding.
Shift your scorecard. Count experiments, not only outputs. Reward initiative over precision. Measure the volume and velocity of learning to build compound advantage.
Ask yourself: What do I now understand about AI that I didn't 30 days ago? What are three experiments I could share with my team to normalize iteration? What's something that didn't go to plan but left me smarter for the next time?
The Cost of Waiting Is Rising
The move from chat-based AI to agentic AI isn't a niche leap; it's the defining shift of this decade. While the technology is accelerating, the real variable is us.
Leaders who wait for "proven results" risk falling behind; those who learn in public will help define the next era. As we've said before in The Weekly Leader, fighting uncertainty with adaptation will guarantee we increase our value to stakeholders in this ever more complex and volatile world.
Agentic AI isn't just another tool to adopt; it's a new way of thinking. So ask yourself: Where am I truly on the curve today? And what's one uncomfortable step I'm willing to take this week to move forward?
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