At the Intersection: Insights for Thriving at the Crossroads of Change

The Fastest Way to Win with AI is Slower: Fix Culture First

• Craig Francisco • Season 1 • Episode 2

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The race to adopt AI is on—but the real advantage isn’t in the tools, it’s in the trust. In this solo episode, Craig Francisco, host of At the Intersection, shares insights from a recent conversation with the leadership team of a Fortune 500 client—where the takeaway was clear: culture decides who wins with AI.

When people can challenge ideas without ego, when curiosity beats fear, and when cross-functional partners collaborate by default, new technology plugs into a living system that’s ready to learn fast.

Craig breaks down what readiness looks like in practice: clear communication, psychological safety, and teams that show up hungry to improve and help one another. You’ll hear why low-trust environments turn AI initiatives into complexity and confusion, and how a strong foundation flips that script—accelerating pilots, aligning stakeholders, and turning experiments into results.

He also shares a practical 30/60/90-day approach to culture change: run a focused survey, listen deeply to the work as it happens, redesign a few high-leverage rituals, and model the behaviors you want from the top. With those moves, you can build the operating system that allows AI to create durable value.

If you’re a leader weighing pilots or a team owner navigating change, this episode offers a simple filter: people first, then platforms. Treat AI as a human-technology partnership and you open space for faster learning, safer governance, and better outcomes.

Subscribe for more candid, field-tested insights from Craig Francisco, and share this with a colleague who’s planning an AI rollout. Leave a review to tell us where your culture is strong—and where you’re building next.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hey everybody, this is Craig. I wanted to take a few minutes and have an episode here. Just me and you talking. I'm sharing some information that I've been sitting on now for a little bit over a week, truly fascinated with what I witnessed. I was at a meeting with a Fortune 500 client of ours, leadership team, 20, 25 people. Most of them were present physically, the rest were virtually on a call. And I've been just, you know, really focused on how AI is affecting organizations and who's going to be able to leverage this technology in a way that propels their business forward. And as I watch this company, remember, this is these are tens of thousands of employees. It's a monster company. The culture that I saw in place, and so this is when I'm talking culture, we all use the buzzwords, right? We have our mission, our vision, our values online. We all want to say we've got a great culture. Unfortunately, that is not the case. I think if you really look in, there's a lot that goes on within companies that can be approved on. This company had deep trust, incredible collaboration, curiosity, the ability to challenge one another, to speak up. Like I was watching this take place and it really blew my mind. I was like, man, this is what you want. Like if you're you know you're running an organization, this is exactly the type of team environment and culture that you want. Now, I'm sure this has been in place for many years, right? Leadership at some point in time focused on the people and really started driving this down and cascading it through that entire organization. But what I saw to me was a company that is ready, that is ready for AI, that is ready for the adoption of AI and be in being able to bring it in-house and be curious and to test it and to work together and find what works for them. They are so far ahead of their competition, would be my guess, because their culture was there first. It was in place. The foundation is super solid. So the message I really want to get through to everybody in this short episode, you have to reflect, you have to look at your culture. How do are your people showing up? How are they being treated? What does it look like? How are the teams interacting? Are people in silos? You know, cross-functional collaboration, is it in place? If it's not, by you going out and buying products, AI products, and trying to implement things within your business, you are gonna have a major problem because if that trust level is low, it's just not gonna work. I'm just telling you, it is gonna be a real challenge. And I believe you're gonna add even more complexity to your business because of this. So take a step back, focus on your culture, really take it, get a survey, figure out what's going on, and take action. Bring in a specialist, somebody that understands how to create, you know, culture shifts quickly, because it can be done 30, 60, 90 days with the right focus and the right investment. But it starts at the top. I mean, as leaders, you have to understand where you are today, be honest with yourself, and then make those changes and show your teams that you do care and that you're ready. And then as you bring AI in and you bring it in as a partnership, it's a human technology partnership play that will help you honestly propel your business forward and be successful. If you try to do this and your culture is broken, it's to me, it's not gonna work. I'm just telling you, it's not gonna work. So reflecting back at this, you know, Fortune 500 company, just you know, congratulations, man, to everybody there because it takes an entire team, it takes everybody to have that type of an environment in a place where people show up hungry to be better, hungry to be better, hungry to help one another, hungry to learn. It just was so awesome for me to see. And I just know that the businesses that are that are there, that have that foundation are the ones that are really ready for what AI is about to bring to their business. So please take that message. Uh do what you want with it. But I'm I'm telling you, I just believe it's it's so critical for all of us to focus on our people first and then bring the technology in and work together. Have a great day.