Our leadership team is arguing over the 3-Year Picture on our V/TO®. Some think our industry will be completely automated by AI in three years, while others think the core service will remain human-driven. How do we establish a concrete, unifying strategic target when we have such fundamentally different views on how AI will rewrite our market?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When a leadership team is split on the future of their industry, trying to predict the exact state of technology in three years will paralyze your strategic planning. The V/TO® (Vision/Traction Organizer) is designed to align your team on a shared vision, not to make perfect technological predictions. You must shift the focus from the technology itself to the client experience.

Refocusing the 3-Year Picture

To resolve disagreement about the impact of AI, schedule a session to focus solely on your 3-Year Picture.

1. Define Market Demands: Start by defining what your target market will demand in three years, regardless of how that demand is produced.
• Clients will likely want faster turnaround times.
• They will expect higher accuracy.
• They will seek deeper insights.
2. Agree on Outcomes: Once you agree on these fundamental market demands, you can then define your future state using measurable metrics rather than debating specific technical execution methods. This approach can also help clarify discussions around [customer expectations shifting with AI](/qa/customer-expectations-shifting-ai-vto).

Measuring Success, Not Methods

Focus your 3-Year Picture on concrete, measurable outcomes for your business.

• Revenue: What is your target revenue?
• Profit Margin: What profit margin do you aim for?
• Geographic Reach: How widely will your services extend?
• Structural Complexity: What level of organizational complexity is desired?

Instead of debating whether AI or humans perform the work, define the desired outcome. For example, aim for reducing service delivery time from five days to five minutes. This shifts the debate from an ideological argument about automation to a practical, operational goal.

Implementing with Flexibility

Once these outcomes are locked in on your V/TO®, you can delegate the technical roadmap to your quarterly Rocks. This allows your team to:

• Test: Experiment with different AI tools and approaches.
• Adapt: Adjust strategies based on results and market changes.
• Implement Incrementally: Roll out AI tools in phases without needing a complete philosophical agreement on the future.

This flexible approach helps build a unified team focused on meeting client demands, regardless of which tools ultimately win the market. It also helps prevent a common pitfall where a leadership team gets caught up in [distinguishing a temporary predicament from a strategic problem](/qa/competitor-ai-threats-thinking-time) when faced with new AI threats.

Related questions

• [How do we rewrite our 3-Year Picture and core processes to survive this shift without burning out our people?](/qa/customer-expectations-shifting-ai-vto)
• [If every competitor in our niche starts using the exact same commercial AI tools, how do we maintain our unique differentiators on the V/TO® and prevent our services from becoming commoditized?](/qa/ai-commoditization-3-uniques-vto)
• [A competitor just launched an AI-powered portal that makes them look much faster than us, and my leadership team is panicking and wanting to rewrite our entire 1-Year Plan. How do we distinguish a temporary predicament from a strategic problem we actually need to solve?](/qa/competitor-ai-threats-thinking-time)
• [My leadership team is constantly chasing the latest AI tools but we have nothing to show for it except high subscription bills. How can we use disciplined Thinking Time to make smarter technology bets?](/qa/thinking-time-ai-software-fatigue)
• [Is it safer to wait for AI technology to mature before we invest, or are we paying an invisible flow cost by delaying our transition?](/qa/real-options-flow-cost-ai-delay)