---
title: View the replay! A candid conversation on AI, transformation, and what’s next
description: Advantage and BTS execs get candid about their own AI journeys, those of our clients, and where breakthroughs are happening
image: https://info.advantageperformance.com/hubfs/oct-15-event-BTS-APG-1200px-v2.jpg
---
[](http://www.advantageperformance.com)
*We help organizations develop great people*
[](https://advantageperformance.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_K4WRL7FuScmMSXqRa4Soow#/registration)
# Leading Through What's Next
Advantage and BTS execs get candid about their own AI journeys, those of our clients, and where breakthroughs are happening
### The messy truth about leading AI transformation
*Our live webinar from October 15, 2026, has concluded. Watch it on demand below:*
## View the replay:
### Summary & highlights:
AI transformation isn’t digital transformation. That was the hour’s central insight. Traditional digital projects follow a set path: plan with small teams, upskill people, manage change. AI transformation starts with culture and climate, and the people doing the work lead it.
Jessica shared BTS’s own story. In 2025, three internal AI breakthroughs, which BTS now calls “diamonds,” reshaped roles, removed handoffs and changed the firm’s economics. Employees built them, not outside consultants. Those teams came out as the most engaged in the company.
The panel spent real time on what they’re still figuring out: trusting teams, avoiding the “AI yes bubble,” measuring return on effort, and supporting slower-moving leaders whose sense of identity is shifting.
---
### Poll: What registrants are facing
Attendees chose all themes that applied. The themes came from their registration responses.
| Theme | % |
| --- | --- |
| Building a people-first culture and curious mindset | 50% |
| Moving from one-off use to everyday workflows | 50% |
| Guardrails, governance and a human touch | 50% |
| Keeping pace with constant change | 43% |
| Leadership vision and going first | 23% |
Rick noted that the top two themes depend on each other. Workflow change doesn’t happen without a people-first culture.
---
### Key highlights
**1. This isn’t digital transformation.**
BTS ran ERP and CRM projects in 2025 that “feel like a root canal” and are still going. The AI breakthroughs came faster, came from employees, and left teams proud instead of drained. Jonathan: “It’s not about change, it’s about culture and organizational climate from the very beginning.”
**2. AI is a team sport.**
Breakthroughs come from people close to the work. Jessica named three profiles that drive workflow innovation: someone who knows the purpose of the function, an early-career free thinker, and volunteers who tinker on their own time.
**3. Flywheels and diamonds.**
- **First turns:** individual tinkerers, often using “shadow AI”
- **Flywheels:** teams build on each other’s tools. Rick’s revenue intelligence team in Claude picked up an industry overlay, then quarterly updates, as peers added to it.
- **Diamonds:** change so significant that going back feels “all but offensive.” Example: BTS’s CTO went “from a function to a team to units of one.”
Each stage needs a different leader. Leaders move from innovation leader to transformation leader to manager of people who manage agents.
**4. The CEO owns AI now, not the CIO.**
From Jessica’s executive roundtables: The fastest-moving companies require business unit and functional leaders to show ongoing AI experimentation. IT shifts to a support role, and some firms are standing up a separate “AI IT” team.
**5. Curiosity, courage, compassion.**
These are the individual attributes Jessica sees in people who move fastest.
**6. AI can drive growth, not just efficiency.**
One CEO equipped customer success staff with AI insights, then tripled that team because customers valued them so much. Her business expects to double next quarter.
**7. Judgment is the uniquely human skill.**
Using AI as a thinking partner sharpens judgment. Handing off work to it doesn’t. Rick: “The uniquely human thing is our taste and our judgment.” Sending a polished 30-page AI draft where a half-page email used to do isn’t progress.
**8. Simplicity is the goal.**
Most workflow work is about simplifying: fewer handoffs, shorter waits, “collapse steps 17 to 32 into one step.”
---
### What we’re still figuring out
- **Trusting teams.** Security and regulatory concerns push companies to outsource agent building. Jessica argued that’s the wrong move: “Every single person in every company just became a software developer.”
- **The value equation.** Agent costs must stay below the value they create, or “we’re going to have an AI winter.” BTS expects some “agent retirement parties.”
- **The AI yes bubble.** Rick: AI can make you “internally focused as an individual.”
- **Return on effort.** Rick spent the equivalent of two and a half weeks automating expense reports that take him about 30 minutes at a time.
- **Discernment.** Jonathan: knowing when to stop is “easy to talk about” but “hard to develop.”
- **Slower movers.** About 80% of BTS functions, teams and countries are still early. The barrier is often the leader’s sense of identity, not ability.
---
### Audience Q&A
**How do you help leaders who are slower to adopt?**
- Jessica: Use it on every problem and keep pushing it. One client division blocks a mandatory four hours every Friday for AI exploration.
- Rick: Set clear expectations from the top, support early adopters “like crazy,” and focus on moving the middle of the bell curve.
- Rick: Core leadership skills still apply to humans and agents alike: expectations, feedback, resources.
- Jonathan: “The shift is probably more about identity than capability.”
**How do you avoid echo chambers with AI?**
- Jonathan: Ask AI to debate you, act as an opposing force, or question you like an analyst.
- Rick: “The elephant and the goldfish.” Do deep work with an AI that knows you, then run a “cold test” in a fresh session with no memory or context.
## Panelists
Jonathan HodgeClick to reveal bio
With over 22 years in leadership—including 11 as a CEO—Jon has helped organizations navigate transformation, complexity, and high-stakes decision-making. His work spans industries, equipping leaders to accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and align leadership strategies with business goals.
As a consultant, coach, and advisor, Jon has partnered with leaders in high-tech, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, FMCG, and non-profits, helping them strengthen executive presence, lead change, and drive organizational growth. His coaching approach combines business expertise with self-awareness, leadership authenticity, and actionable strategies. Jon holds an ICF certification through Georgetown University's Institute of Transformational Leadership and serves as an executive board member for several non-profits in the Western U.S. He has also been a strategic advisor to firms in the talent development space.
Outside of work, Jon can be found on a river casting his next line, exploring a museum or beach with his wife and two children, sharing a joyful moment with a friend, or—most likely—in the kitchen, making dinner.
Jessica SkonClick to reveal bio
Throughout her more than 20-year career at BTS, Jessica has pioneered the application of enterprise simulations for strategy execution, built the BTS leadership practice and delivered CEO and C-Suite advisory in service of transformations.
Her client experience is primarily software and tech, where she has helped clients lead and execute through growth pivots, strengthened their leadership culture, shifted from waterfall to agile, and from software to SaaS, including clients such as Microsoft, Salesforce.com, SAP, VMWare, New Relic, Uber, Atlassian, Twitter and others. She has also worked with fortune 50 healthcare, oil and gas, and financial services organizations (e.g. McKesson, Fidelity PI, Chevron) to support their transformations, working with the C-Suite and driving leader readiness throughout the organization over multi-year engagements to drive change.
Jessica joined BTS in 1999 as a Business Analyst and has since grown with their teams across six continents to over 1,100 professionals in 38 offices. Her focus has always been creating a simulation-driven learning culture that inspires leaders and organizations to transform at scale.
Today, they're applying that same simulation and experiential rigor to help clients adapt to and embrace advances in artificial intelligence. At BTS, she has led the integration of AI-powered coaching, agentic simulations, and enterprise adoption programs designed to enhance human capability. Their goal is simple: to move organizations from experimentation to scaled, trusted AI adoption—where AI becomes a natural part of decision-making, learning, and leadership.
Rick CheathamClick to reveal bio
Rick helps leading companies redesign how their go-to-market systems work in an era where AI has made "more" meaningless. More leads. More content. More dashboards. All easy. What's hard, and what moves the numbers, is building better systems: sharper focus, faster execution, and deeper human connection.
His work sits at the intersection of big-picture strategy and everyday execution. He pushes teams to drop outdated playbooks, turn strategy into clear choices, and practice until new habits stick. The result: revenue growth, stronger customer relationships, and leaders who know how to embrace change instead of resisting it.
Rick has partnered with executives at Google, J.P. Morgan, Nike, and others to diagnose what's holding them back, scale real practice with simulations and bots, and align culture with strategy so teams adapt as circumstances change. He knows clients don't need someone to tell them about their markets. They need fresh perspective, the courage to challenge old habits, and systems that work under pressure.
As a former sales leader and CMO, Rick takes every project personally and thrives on shaking up how people think, decide, and win.
#### What participants found most valuable:
- *“The kindest thing you can do is to reduce complexity”*
- *“All leaders should be leaders of innovation”*
- *Treating agents like consultants and team members.*
- *The entire discussion was valuable. However, what really stood out was the skills we are going to need in the future, as well as understanding when and why to use agents. This will completely transform how our company moves forward in the future.*
#### Soundbytes
[Advantage Performance Group](https://soundcloud.com/advantage-performance) · [Leading Through What's Next - webinar highlights](https://soundcloud.com/advantage-performance/sets/leading-through-whats-next)
[Advantage Performance Group](https://soundcloud.com/advantage-performance) · [Leading Through What's Next - webinar highlights](https://soundcloud.com/advantage-performance/sets/leading-through-whats-next)
- *“We might have some answers, but we don’t have **the** answer.”* — **Jonathan Hodge**
- *“This is the ultimate reskilling, retooling time to trust your people.”* — **Jessica Skon**
- *“The uniquely human thing is our taste and our judgment.”* — **Rick Cheatham**
#### Free resource:
[→ Applied AI field guides ←](https://info.advantageperformance.com/get-the-applied-ai-field-guides)
Get all 4 interactive field guides at once in a convenient zip file you can download directly:
1. **How to Work with Your AI Consultant** — and when to save your money
2. **The Gameplan — AI Innovation** (aka — flywheels & diamonds)
3. **Ten Leadership Sparks to Accelerate AI Innovation**— and how to create conditions for success
4. **Toughest Leadership Moments — AI Innovation** (aka — mandatory crises)
[](http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Finfo.advantageperformance.com%2Fleading-through-whats-next%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Dlinkedin) [](mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20https%3A%2F%2Finfo.advantageperformance.com%2Fleading-through-whats-next%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Demail%20&body=Check%20out%20https%3A%2F%2Finfo.advantageperformance.com%2Fleading-through-whats-next%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Demail)
© 2026 Advantage Performance Group