As I travel around the world for board meetings and presentations, one of the activities I always enjoy is spending time with Kellogg alums. Whenever I travel to a certain city, I try to connect with the Kellogg alums in that vicinity. 

 

I had a board meeting in Washington, D.C. last week, and Ajay Chawan and the Kellogg Alumni Club of DC set up a wonderful evening in Reston, Va., to discuss “Values-Based Leadership During Turbulent Times: Geopolitical, Policy Unpredictability and AI Adoption.” The two-hour discussion could’ve gone on all night if I didn’t need to fly back to Chicago in time to celebrate Halloween with my grandchildren. 

On another topic, Rob Mitchum and the Kellogg Insight group do an excellent job of developing wonderful articles each week on a wide variety of relevant management and leadership topics. A recent article, “AI Agents Are Here. Are Leaders Ready?” summarized some of the work I have had the opportunity to participate in with several of my colleagues. Here is a summary of the article and a link:

 

AI agents that can perform complex tasks have the potential to dramatically transform fields such as medicine and law that were previously resistant to automation. Kellogg’s Harry Kraemer and his collaborators argue that leaders must educate themselves now about this technology and the questions it raises. Leaders should look beyond using AI agents for merely cutting costs and consider new opportunities, question whether today’s agents are reliable enough for sensitive tasks, concentrate even harder on training future leaders and retaining employees, and assess what their human values still bring to increasingly automated organizations. https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/ai-agents-are-here-are-leaders-ready

 

Finally, as I mentioned last week, we have been blessed as Americans with the right to vote. This election is clearly a critical one given the significant geopolitical and economic issues facing the US and the entire world.  Vote for whomever you believe are the best candidates… but please vote!