An In Good Company podcast with Bobby Barry, Founder at Condor Consulting
A senior leader at Linkedin turned founder at Condor Consulting, Bobby Barry helps organisations turn investments in people and technology into measurable business results. In this episode of In Good Company, he shares his perspective on how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping workplace performance, leadership development, employee learning and team effectiveness, and why team development may be the key to unlocking measurable business value from AI.
Five years ago they were top performers. Tomorrow they might not be.
The AI conversation often centres on tools, automation and efficiency. But Bobby Barry argues that mindset, leadership and development will ultimately determine who wields AI tools effectively. In this conversation, he lays out how high performers are adapting, why leaders must start to see AI as a development challenge and the opportunities AI creates when used intentionally.
Topics covered include:
- How AI is changing what high performance looks like
- Using AI for coaching, learning and professional development
- The risk of failing to see AI as a human skill
- Rethinking the Eisenhower Matrix for the AI era
- Why great leadership matters more during periods of change
Watch the full episode here:
How is AI changing high performance at work?
I don't know that AI has changed the true definition of high performance. High performers still create exceptional results relative to the environment around them, relative to their peers, relative to the expectations set for them. What AI changed, in my opinion, is how those results are produced and what is now possible for one person to accomplish in an hour, in a day, in a week, in a year and a quarter. Every major technology shift creates leverage. AI is that most recent shift. What high performers tend to recognise is that shift earlier than other people. They tend to leverage and incorporate that into how they work before other people and, in doing so, they're the trendsetters that raise the standards for everybody else around them. So I don't think the definition of high performers changed, but the bar is moving very quickly in what it looks like as an end result, in terms of outputs.
What is the relationship between AI, leadership development and performance?
Performance, that's your outcome. That's the result that already happened. Development is how people build the capability to produce that outcome. Leadership creates those conditions and direction for the development to happen. If somebody needs to perform at a higher level, something has to change. That might be increased knowledge. They need to have better judgement. They need to have different behaviours. They need to add something to a process. Maybe they need to remove something from the process. Good leadership helps identify what that change is, and good development helps make the change repeatable. Where AI sits in that is it's an accelerator. It can broaden perspective. It can challenge assumptions. It can help you create opportunities to practise. It can deliver feedback in real time. It can act as a pressure tester. When leadership and AI work together, people don't just learn faster. They can actually turn learning into performance at a much faster level.
How are high-performing employees using AI differently?
Five years ago, high performers could really differentiate themselves by working harder, preparing better, mastering the systems around them and leaning into the uncomfortable work. Those qualities still matter today, but I think today's high performers are redesigning their systems and their workflow around AI. They're not just using it to write an email or summarise a meeting. They're rebuilding how they research, how they prepare, how they make decisions. They're rebuilding how they serve their customers and lead their people. If you build your system around AI, rather than inserting AI into an existing system, that's going to give you an efficiency edge like no other. It's going to improve your quality of thinking and create more room for better judgement. The fear of it replacing how I'm thinking isn’t true because it's creating a more diverse thought process if you want it to. I don't think the divide is people versus AI. I think it's becoming people who have redesigned that workflow versus the people who haven't.
Bonus insight: What's one change leaders should tackle first?
That’s a tough question. I would start by examining the quality of the leaders in the room. Specifically, are these leaders the ones that inspire action? Whether we like it or not, the world is changing rapidly. Your competitive landscape is changing rapidly. What success looks like is changing rapidly. I need to know I have leaders in the room that can inspire action, that people are raising their hands, signing up and saying, "I'm here." They are here to work for this individual. Will their team want to learn this change? Will they want to lean into the thing that they're still unsure of because their leader is saying, we have to do this? I’ve experienced first-hand how dramatically my performance changed when I had a great leader. I also remember what it feels like when I didn't. If I know our company is going to go through something generational, I need to know that I have the right leaders in place to execute that. Otherwise, I have two things to solve for: we have to go through the change, and we're going to have to overcome poor leadership in order to go through the change effectively.
Listen to the episode on Spotify
Head to Impact's YouTube / Spotify channels to catch up on previous episodes, including…
Does belonging suffer in AI-focused work spaces? with Emily Barry, Global HR Partner at Allianz