Do Companies Need a Chief Future Thinking Officer?
A recent New York Times opinion article explored whether AI is really replacing workers, or whether companies are using AI to justify broader restructuring and cost-cutting. It made me think about a different question entirely.
Do organisations need someone whose job is to improve how the organisation thinks about the future?
My answer is…
Probably not.
At least, not with that title.
But I do think they need someone accountable for something that hardly any organisation measures today:
The quality of organisational thinking.
For decades we have invested billions in improving how organisations work.
We have appointed Chief Financial Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Information Officers, Chief Data Officers and now Chief AI Officers.
We have optimised processes.
Automated workflows.
Measured productivity.
Reduced costs.
But AI changes the game.
When knowledge is increasingly available to everyone at the click of a button, the competitive advantage shifts.
It is no longer just what your people know.
It is how well they think.
Not thinking in the abstract.
Thinking that leads to:
- Better questions
- Better judgement
- Better decisions
- Better connections between ideas
- Better anticipation of what comes next
That is becoming a strategic capability.
The organisations that thrive will not necessarily have the best AI.
They will have people who consistently think better alongside AI.
People who can:
- Challenge assumptions
- Spot patterns others miss
- Connect ideas from different disciplines
- Exercise sound judgement when there is not a right answer
- Imagine possibilities AI has not yet considered
- Decide what matters most
Those capabilities do not appear on a balance sheet.
Yet they may become some of the most valuable assets an organisation owns.
So perhaps the question is not whether we need a Chief Future Thinking Officer.
Perhaps it is this:
Who in your organisation is responsible for developing your collective ability to think?
Because someone already owns finance.
Someone owns technology.
Someone owns AI.
But who owns the capability that determines whether any of those investments create real value?
As AI becomes more capable, I believe organisations need to spend at least as much time developing human thinking as they do deploying artificial intelligence.
Not because AI is the problem.
Because human thinking is increasingly becoming the differentiator.
For me, that is what Human Frontier Thinking™ is about.
Not competing with AI.
Not resisting AI.
But continually expanding our uniquely human ability to think, learn, adapt, create and exercise judgement in a world where intelligence is becoming abundant.
The future may not belong to organisations with the most AI.
It may belong to those with the strongest culture of thinking.
What do you think?
If you were redesigning your executive team for the AI era, who would be responsible for developing your organisation’s thinking capability?
Inspired by a recent New York Times opinion article discussing AI, organisational change and the future of work.