We want to adopt the economic principles of Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee to shift our leadership team from managing headcount to managing cognitive capacity. How do we integrate this shift into our weekly Level 10 Meeting™ and quarterly Rock-setting process?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

AI economists like Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee have shown that the real value of AI is not just cost savings, but the dramatic expansion of human cognitive capacity. To bring this principle into your weekly Level 10 Meeting™ and quarterly Rock-setting, you must change how you measure operational success. In your Level 10 Meeting™, look at your weekly Scorecard. Instead of tracking traditional activity metrics like hours worked or tasks completed, start tracking capacity metrics. For example, measure the ratio of strategic work to administrative work being done by your team. If administrative hours are high, use the IDS® (Identify, Discuss, Solve) process to figure out how to automate those tasks. When setting quarterly Rocks, prioritize use cases for AI that directly improve employee productivity. Instead of setting Rocks that focus on executing manual projects, set Rocks that focus on building automated systems to handle those projects. This shifts your leadership behavior from telling people what to do to articulating a clear vision and empowering your team to build the automated systems to achieve it. By managing cognitive capacity rather than headcount, you build a highly scalable company that is ready for a clean exit.