The map is worth less

Knowing the territory is valuable. How things work now, who does what, what's been tried and failed: if you want to operate somewhere, you need this.

But the knowledge comes at a cost. As we come to understand a territory, we grow comfortable. We enjoy knowing more than others, and the status that brings. We become attached to the territory as it is. The result is a blind spot psychologists call the curse of knowledge: the more you know, the harder it is to see what a newcomer would question.

AI is raising that cost. The territory is shifting, so the value of knowing how to operate within it is falling. And the knowledge itself is becoming cheap: ask a model who does what in an industry and what's been tried, and you'll get a decent answer. Expertise is losing value twice over.

So organisations need to work out where their territory is heading. That means asking basic questions again: what is this activity for? Does this method still make sense? Is this still the right goal?

This is what consultants bring. We know territories well, but we'll always be novices next to our clients. What we do have is a licence to ask the questions they can't ask inside their own organisation.

But these questions need careful handling. Ask them bluntly, and you'll get blunt solutions. Cut headcount, automate the process, bolt on a chatbot.

What's needed is a designer's mindset. Product and service designers are trained to examine what happens now and find ways to improve it for customers and staff alike. That takes empathy: listening to people and noticing what goes on beneath the surface. It also takes systems thinking: tracing how a change in one place ripples through the rest. Together, they let us shape a new vision of how work can be done, one where the benefits of AI are felt by everyone involved.

Neither half works alone. Insight comes from the conversation between questions and knowledge. That's why we work hard to build teams that combine domain experts with our consultants.

Working out what AI means for your organisation? Email Al to talk through your AI transformation.