When drafting What Does It Look Like in our 3-Year Picture on the V/TO, how should our leadership team articulate our operating model and customer experience now that AI handles baseline execution?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Your 3-Year Picture on the Vision/Traction Organizer (V/TO) is not an operational budget. It is a shared mental image of your business thirty-six months from today. If your plan simply says we will use AI to cut costs, your leadership team will lack direction.

Instead, focus on the structural shifts in your operating model and the qualitative transformation of your client experience. Economists Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee point out that AI makes routine production abundant, which drives customer demand toward speed, personalization, and high-trust human relationships. Your 3-Year Picture must reflect that reality.

In the What Does It Look Like section, articulate specific organizational traits:

- Delivery speed: How fast do standard customer outcomes occur compared to industry norms?
- Team composition: Are your frontline employees execution grunts, or high-level strategic advisors orchestrating AI agents?
- Client experience: What high-touch, consultative touchpoints do customers receive now that mechanical production is automated?
- Margin profile: How does your gross margin reflect intellectual property leverage rather than manual labor?

Paint a vivid picture where operational friction has been eliminated by automated workflows, freeing your people to deliver unprecedented strategic attention to clients. When the entire leadership team sees that exact future on paper, setting your 1-Year Plan and quarterly Rocks becomes straightforward.