Who will win the AI wars?
(Hint: The AI wars won’t be won by geniuses: they’ll be won by followership.)
Companies are gearing up to spend record-breaking billions on AI in the coming years. Salaries for top AI talent are now rivaling the best NBA contracts. Everyone wants to know the same thing: Which companies will triumph, and which ones will flame out?
The answer is not what you think.
The trillion-dollar question is this: Is AI more like baseball… or football?
Baseball and football look like similar team sports… but underneath, they operate on two completely different logics of performance.
If AI is like baseball…
You win by hiring all-stars because baseball relies on something called sequential interdependence - essentially the output of one team member becomes the input of another. Individual brilliance rules. You can tolerate lousy culture as long as you have elite talent. (Many companies are betting on this.)
Winning formula: Hire the best person for every position.
But if AI is like football…
You win through reciprocal interdependence – team members influence each other to produce the best results. People make each other better. A great QB elevates an average receiver. A great receiver elevates a good QB. The history of the NFL has shown that teams can win the Super Bowl without a great quarterback. Coaching, culture, cohesion, chemistry and communication matter a lot.
Winning formula: You don’t need the best player at every position: you need the best team.
And we know from research that the best teams – the ones with the highest collective intelligence – aren’t necessarily those with the highest IQs. Woolley and colleagues* have shown that the most creative, intelligent teams are those with the highest level of social intelligence, essentially the ability to collaborate, read and support each other, and coordinate effectively.
So what about AI? Is building world-class AI more like baseball or football?
AI isn’t baseball. It’s not about stacking a team with all-stars and hoping they don’t fight with each other. AI is not a lone-genius sport.
AI is football. It’s collaborative, iterative, cross-disciplinary, ethically complex, and full of pivots.
Companies that will win the AI wars are the ones where:
· Strong followership allows people to challenge without blowback.
· Leadership is fluid, enabling teams to innovate faster and experts in different disciplines to lead when it is their turn.
· Psychological safety allows errors to surface earlier.
· Low ego enables collaboration without turf wars.
Most firms don’t have an AI talent problem. They have a followership problem: high IQ, low “us”. A weak followership culture can neutralize the smartest hires faster than any competitor can.
On the other hand, a partner-centric culture will generate higher collective intelligence - where followership is strong, empowered, full of initiative and people elevate each other’s work instead of competing to look the smartest.
That’s where I’ll be putting my money… what about you?
*Woolley, A. W., Chabris, C. F., Pentland, A., Hashmi, N., & Malone, T. W. (2010). Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups. Science, 330, 686. DOI: 10.1126/science.1193147.
If followership intrigues you, we invite you to read:
Hurwitz, M., & Hurwitz, S. (2015). Leadership is half the story: A fresh look at followership, leadership, & collaboration. University of Toronto Press, Rotman Imprint. Toronto: Canada.