Informed i’s Weekly Business Insights

As the United States moves past its 250th anniversary, artificial intelligence has emerged as one of the defining technologies of the next era of economic growth. Throughout American history, sustained economic growth has depended on broad skill shifts. The industrial era required workers who could operate increasingly sophisticated machinery. The information age demanded digital literacy across nearly every occupation. At every transition, the US economy successfully adapted and built a new economic edge.

Today, AI fluency is rapidly becoming the common language of work and a prerequisite for the next chapter of competitiveness. Workers’ practical ability to use and manage AI in their day-to-day, integrate it into workflows, evaluate its outputs critically, and, increasingly, create with it is transforming how work gets done. Unlike many earlier technological capabilities (such as cloud computing) that were relevant mainly to specialists, the demand for AI fluency is spreading across all types of workers, industries, and wage groups. What began as a technical skill is becoming a must-have capability for knowledge workers, blue-collar workers, managers, students, and everyday citizens.

This shift matters because AI’s economic potential will not be realized through technology alone. The largest gains will come when organizations redesign how work gets done—creating new forms of collaboration among people, intelligent agents, and physical automation. AI fluency is the lingua franca of that transition. As more companies and organizations successfully build fluency, the broader US economy will also gain—indeed almost every national economy could benefit from developing this skill in its people.

Some skills are acquired in an afternoon. AI fluency is not one of them. Instead, fluency gets built through continuous development. In that way, it’s similar to the professional knowledge that practitioners in many fields—such as medicine, law, education, engineering, and science—regularly update as regulations, technologies, and best practices evolve. What’s different is that AI fluency is new, developing at an even faster pace, and required by a much broader share of the workforce. The models keep improving, the interfaces keep changing, and new use cases emerge almost weekly. The challenge is not, or not only, achieving mastery in the traditional sense, but building the habit of continually adapting as the technology evolves. The goal is to coach the habit, not teach the tool.

Building an AI-fluent workforce will not happen overnight, nor will it be the responsibility of any single institution. But the organizations and economies that succeed in making AI fluency universal may ultimately be the ones that capture the greatest value from the technologies.

Entrepreneurs need many skills to start a successful company: financial, managerial, emotional. But perhaps the most important of all is creativity. After all, there’s no playbook for building a business, and building one to scale is always a journey into uncharted territory.

So when Inc magazine reached out to the chief executives of this year’s Inc. 5000 companies as part of our annual CEO Survey, it asked them about the craziest tactics they’ve used to grow their companies, win customers, or defend against competitors.  Here are 10 of favorites.

Re-packing heat.  Juan Corzo Jr., CEO of South Florida Tissue Paper Co. (No. 4273 on the new Inc. 5000 list) says that after the COVID-19 pandemic, his paper manufacturing interest was struggling to procure the raw materials it needed to make its products.  So, Corzo took a page out of the Odysseus playbook and pulled a bit of a Trojan Horse.  “The only way to survive at the time was to purchase someone [else’s] product and repack into mine,” he explains. “This saved us from complete bankruptcy.”

Knocking himself off.  Like many entrepreneurs, Bryan Pate—who sells gear for elliptical cycling and slack-lining through his consumer products brand PT Motion Works—has struggled with knockoff brands ripping off his products. To beat copycats at their own game, Pate launched a knockoff brand himself.

The t-shirt army.  While building his company, NurseHub, CEO Alex Hollis had a crisis: the business, which offers educational tools for aspiring nursing students, was about to exhibit at its first big conference, but most of its booth materials had wound up lost during shipping.  “All we had were t-shirts,” the chief executive recalls. So he made do: “We told conference attendees who stopped by our booth that if they wore the shirt back the next day, we’d hand them $100 cash on the spot. By day two, the whole conference was full of people wearing our shirts.”  Hollis pegs the final cost of the gambit at around $10,000, but figures it was an efficient use of capital given how expensive exhibiting at a conference can be to begin with.

Roughing it.  Launching a startup often means being scrappy and spendthrift. But Joseph Morin, CEO of the small business-focused financial services company Pacific Resources Group (No. 1,780), went above and beyond to get his business off the ground: early on in launching PRG, he lived mostly out of his car.  “I worked leads from Whole Foods tables, park benches, malls, and parking lots, then drove anywhere if a business owner agreed to meet with me,” he explains, adding that he’d occasionally stay in hotels when money allowed. “I would change into business clothes before appointments, clean up in grocery store and gas station bathrooms if I had to, meet with the client, then spend the evenings doing the back-office work and preparing for the next day.”Eventually, the finances worked out.

Building backwards.  Before Pavan Bapu’s dog food dispenser company Houndsy had an ad budget to speak of—or even a real product to sell—it got creative about building a grassroots brand.  “We built the audience first and sold to it backwards,” the CEO recalls. An early, homemade version of Houndsy’s dog feeder hit 15 million views on TikTok, “so instead of rushing to manufacture, we threw up a landing page with a codeless builder and just kept posting organic videos to capture emails. We collected around 70,000 addresses from people who wanted a feeder that didn’t exist yet.”  Then came step two: emailing the contact list they’d been compiling with a Kickstarter campaign. They ultimately crowd-funded $160,000.

And five other favorites.  Not everyone who participated in our CEO Survey wanted their name shared publicly, but some of their “craziest tactics” still impressed us. Here are a few more of the top highlights:

Registering internet domains for misspelled versions of their competitors’ names that then redirect errant customers back to their own website.

Wearing an orange suit around a work conference to get attention and start conversations.

Showing up unannounced in another city and telling a potential buyer they were “in town” and would love to meet. The relationship ended up yielding a nationwide deal.

Marketing in Arabic because it’s “competition proof.”

Recording their best sales rep’s calls and then using AI to create “a full playbook and AI-drafted outreach in his voice” that new hires could lean on.

Most leadership advice is written for beginnings — how to launch initiatives, build momentum, scale ideas, and manage new projects. Far less attention is given to the work of ending something well.  Yet endings are everywhere in organizational life. A team is disbanded. A project is closed. A product is retired. A partnership concludes. A strategy is abandoned. A publication, department, or institution reaches its final chapter.

These moments are often treated as administrative events: Announce the decision, set the dates, manage the handover, move on. But endings are cultural tests as well as operational transitions. People remember how something ended because endings reveal what leaders truly value. Did they tell the truth? Did they honor the work? Did they protect people’s dignity? Did they preserve what mattered? Or did they rush to the next chapter so quickly that the previous one felt erased?

Ending well does not mean making everyone feel good about the decision. Some endings are painful or contested. But leaders can still shape how people experience them. The following practices can help.

1. Say Clearly What Is Ending.  First, use truthful language. In difficult moments, leaders typically soften changes with words and phrases like “transition,” “realignment,” “sunsetting,” or “moving in a new direction.” Sometimes these words are accurate, but more often they are ways to avoid saying the harder sentence: “This is ending.”  People cannot process an ending if leaders refuse to name it. Say plainly what will stop, when it will stop, and what will change as a result.
2. Explain Without Overexplaining.  People need to understand why an ending is happening, but they do not need a defensive essay. Overexplaining can make leaders sound as if they are trying to win an argument that has already been decided.  A better structure: Lay out the decision, reason, constraint, and consequence.
3. Honor What Was, Before Discussing What’s Next.  Leaders often move too quickly from closure to future plans. They want to reassure people that there is a path forward — an understandable instinct. But premature future-talk can feel like erasure.  Before asking people to move on, name what the work made possible. What did the team build? Who benefited? What standards did it set? What relationships did it create? What should people be proud of?  The answers do not have to be sentimental, but they should be specific.
4. Explain What Is and Isn’t Known.  During an ending, ambiguity becomes emotional labor. People fill gaps with speculation: What happens to my role? Who owns the remaining work? What should I tell clients? What happens to the archive? Who makes final decisions?  Leaders should answer practical questions as early as possible, even if some answers are incomplete. A useful checklist includes: timeline, responsibilities, decision rights, stakeholder communication, support available, work to be paused, work to be completed, and what will happen after closure.  Where certainty is not yet possible, say so clearly.
5. Let People Have Mixed Feelings.  Endings rarely produce one emotion, even within one individual. People may feel proud, angry, relieved, disappointed, loyal, anxious, and exhausted all at the same time. Leaders should resist the urge to impose a single emotional narrative.
6. Preserve What Should Last.  When something ends, its impact can vanish quickly. Files are archived, routines stop, institutional memory fades as people leave. Leaders should decide deliberately what needs to be preserved. This might include a final report, a lessons-learned document, a customer handover, a public archive, a closing note, a celebration of contributors, or a record of practices that should continue elsewhere.  The point is not to preserve everything. It is to protect what has lasting value. Ask three questions: What did we learn? What should others inherit? What should not have to be rediscovered later? These questions transform closure into stewardship.
7. End With Dignity, Not Just Efficiency.  A dignified ending gives people enough truth to understand, enough structure to act, and enough recognition to feel that their work counted for something. An efficient ending is not necessarily dignified.  The final meeting, message, or milestone matters. It should not be treated as a formality. Leaders should use the opportunity to specifically thank people, to mark the transition clearly, and to communicate what will be carried forward. People do not need a grand ritual, but they do need a meaningful one. The goal is not to make the ending painless — which would be impossible — but to make it conclusive.

Every strategy, innovation, decision, and relationship begins as a conversation. Meetings are simply the place where many of an organization’s most consequential conversations happen. When those conversations are productive, teams align more quickly, solve problems more creatively, strengthen relationships, and make better decisions. When they aren’t, organizations pay the price—in wasted time, poor execution, and missed opportunities.

How can leaders transform team conversations from sources of frustration into engines of collaboration?  An analysis based on asking more than 1,000 meeting participants across more than 100 teams in nearly 70 organizations to evaluate their teams’ effectiveness, meeting productivity, and conversational practices. One finding stood out: It’s not how often teams meet that predicts effectiveness—it’s how they use the time they have together. Teams that consistently left conversations with clear accountabilities and next steps were roughly four times more likely to be rated as effective than those who didn’t.

That finding points to a broader truth. Whether a team leaves a discussion with clearer decisions, stronger relationships, better ideas, or shared commitment depends on the quality of the dialogue itself. And the quality of dialogue depends on leadership. 

Leaders spend enormous energy optimizing workflows, dashboards, project plans, and increasingly, AI tools. Yet collaboration ultimately runs on something much older and more profound. Conversation—not technology—is the operating system of collaboration.  Fortunately, the ability to intentionally shape group conversation is readily learnable. The autors refer to this skill as conversational stewardship.

Conversational stewardship means intentionally caring for the quality of the group’s dialogue. It involves creating clarity about why the group is meeting, who is responsible for what during the discussion, and how to foster an environment where people feel comfortable contributing honestly—even when things get difficult.

One-on-one conversations require skills such as managing topics, asking thoughtful questions, celebrating moments of levity, responding constructively to disagreement, and striking a balance between self-disclosure and supportive listening. Team conversations require those same skills, but they also demand something more: stewardship.

Most leadership advice focuses on what leaders should say.  The authors think an equally important question is how leaders shape the conversation itself.

In their work, the authors have found that the most effective leaders consistently steward team conversations by paying attention to three elements: goals, roles, and soul.

Goals: What Are We Trying to Accomplish Together?  Great conversations begin before anyone speaks. They begin when everyone understands why the group has gathered and what success will look like.  Conversational stewards create clarity in three ways: Purpose.  Every meeting should start with the answer to a simple question: Why are we here?  Products.  Before the conversation begins, ask: What should we walk away with? Answers may include a decision, concrete plan, prioritized list of options, shared understanding, or simply learning more about each other.  Process.  Finally, decide: How will we have this conversation? How will ideas be generated? How will disagreement be surfaced? Who makes the decision? How much time belongs on each topic? A clear process plan keeps the discussion structured and fair.

Roles: Who Is Responsible For What?  Even when teams share a common purpose, group conversations can still falter when responsibility is unclear. Who is keeping the discussion focused? Who decides when it’s time to move on? Who has the authority to make the final call? Who is expected to contribute—and in what way?

Soul: Do People Feel Safe Enough To Say What Needs To Be Said?  Even when teams share a clear purpose and understand their roles, conversations can still fall short if people don’t feel comfortable speaking candidly. The most consequential leadership failures are often not caused by bad ideas—they’re caused by important truths that never get voiced.

The highest-performing teams don’t leave the quality of their conversations to chance. They steward them intentionally. That doesn’t require elaborate facilitation techniques or hours of preparation. It begins with a few small habits that compound over time.  The next time you lead a team conversation, try three simple practices: State the goals.  Clarify the roles.  And protect the soul (create moments that make honest conversation possible).

Executive presence is often associated with a senior role, a polished image and natural charisma. Yet many of the qualities that influence how leaders are perceived have little to do with their title or outward appearance. How leaders listen, exercise judgment, respond under pressure and build trust all impact their credibility and effectiveness.

Members of the Forbes Coaches Council share often-overlooked elements of executive presence that smart leaders take the time to cultivate.

1. Read The Room With Intention.  The secret ingredient of executive presence is situational awareness. Knowing how to read the room—the people in it and the way they need to receive the messages you want to convey—ensures that your expertise is conveyed and your story lands. Instead of preparing by focusing exclusively on what you want to say, think about how you want people to feel when they leave: about you, about themselves, about your vision and their alignment with it.
2. Set The Emotional Tone.  Executive presence is not about being the most important person in the room. It is about being the one who sets the tone for how people feel. If you’re reactive, others react. If you’re calm and clear, others think more clearly. The leaders that people trust the most are not the ones who demand attention all the time. Instead, they are emotional pacemakers who create the conditions for others to do their best work and thrive.
3. Lead With A Smile.  Smile. Nothing does more to convey approachability and self-confidence than smiling. It doesn’t sound difficult, but a forced smile tells a story. The lack of a smile tells a story. A natural smile always tells a good story. Sometimes the simplest things are the most powerful. A genuine smile is exceptionally engaging. A kind smile is powerfully disarming. An enthusiastic smile is energetic and contagious. Just smile, and feel the positivity return back to you. Smile more.
4. Demonstrate Emotional Intelligence.  Emotional intelligence is a pillar of executive presence. It has nothing to do with title or rank and everything to do with your ability to cognitively and emotionally empathize and show that empathy. While gravitas and expertise in a leader are important, without emotional intelligence you come across as insensitive and egotistical. Consider what drives your stakeholders. Then, demonstrate it. Quell their fears, align with their motivators and speak to their hopes.
5. Shift To Courage Over Confidence.  It always comes down to one shift: courage over confidence. Executive presence is not performing certainty you do not feel; it is saying the hard thing in the room. Practice small acts of courage daily, voicing one honest opinion they would normally swallow. Presence gets built one uncomfortable moment at a time, not in one polished performance.
6. Regulate Your Response Under Pressure.  Executive presence starts with nervous system regulation. The best leaders aren’t those who never get activated—instead, they’re aware of their nervous system’s state, regulate it as needed and respond intentionally versus riding the emotional trigger of the moment. You can build these skills through greater self-awareness, noticing stress patterns and practicing ways to return to a grounded, present state.

The other elements are:

Build Self-Awareness Through A Growth Mindset

Speak Up And Share Views Openly

Leverage The Power Of The Pause

Lead With Curious Listening

Be Fully Present In Every Moment

Listen Before Trying To Persuade

Develop Self-Assured Gravitas

Choose Stillness Over Speed

Align Character, Competence And Conduct

And Be Consistent

Success in business is often associated with confidence. Founders are expected to make decisions quickly, project certainty and inspire others to follow their vision. Yet the longer the author has spent around entrepreneurs, the more he has come to believe that their greatest competitive advantage has little to do with certainty. The business leaders who continue thriving over decades are rarely those who believe they have all the answers. They are the ones who never stop learning.

Learning looks very different once formal education ends. No curriculum tells entrepreneurs what comes next, no examination confirms they are ready, and no graduation marks the moment they know enough. Markets evolve, industries are reshaped, and new technologies continually rewrite the rules. Those changes reward people who treat learning as a lifelong discipline rather than a stage of life.  Here are five lessons that have shaped the authror’s thinking.

1. Learn beyond your industry.  Many entrepreneurs spend years becoming experts in a single field. Expertise is valuable, but breakthroughs often arrive from somewhere else.  Some of the most innovative ideas in business have emerged when leaders borrowed concepts from psychology, architecture, healthcare, behavioral economics or the arts rather than simply studying their competitors. Reading widely is not a distraction from business. It is often where the next opportunity begins.
2. Use AI to gather information, not replace judgment.  Artificial intelligence has transformed the speed at which entrepreneurs can learn. Market reports can be summarized in minutes, unfamiliar concepts explained instantly and emerging trends identified long before they become mainstream.  Those capabilities should be embraced. Judgment, however, remains a human responsibility. AI can tell you what happened. Deciding why it matters, what to ignore and which risks are worth taking still depends upon experience, curiosity and values. The most effective entrepreneurs use technology to improve their thinking, not to outsource it.
3. Success can become your greatest blind spot.  Early-stage founders ask questions because they have no alternative. Established entrepreneurs sometimes stop asking because previous success appears to validate existing assumptions. Markets rarely reward that mindset for long. That is precisely why leaders need to seek out disagreement deliberately.  The willingness to invite criticism, question familiar assumptions and remain intellectually uncomfortable often becomes the difference between businesses that endure for generations and those that gradually become victims of their own success.
4. Your smartest teacher may not be your mentor.  Mentors remain invaluable, but entrepreneurs who learn consistently draw lessons from unexpected places.  A dissatisfied customer may reveal more about your business than a consultant. A graduate joining the company may understand changing consumer behavior better than senior management. Competitors, suppliers and businesses operating in completely different sectors can all become teachers if approached with genuine curiosity.  Even failures deserve closer attention.  Learning depends less on where knowledge comes from than on whether we remain willing to recognize it. The entrepreneurs who continue growing are rarely the loudest people in the room. More often, they are the ones who continue listening long after everyone else believes the lesson has ended.
5. Never confuse knowledge with education.  Entrepreneurship has never been a destination reached through expertise alone. Every stage of building a business demands new perspectives, unfamiliar skills and the humility to admit that yesterday’s answers may no longer fit tomorrow’s challenges. The entrepreneurs who endure are rarely the ones who know the most. More often, they are the ones who have never lost the curiosity that first inspired them to begin.