CEO Leadership Insights - May 2026

“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.

I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.

When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town.

I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.

“Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself,

and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself,

I could have made an impact on my family. 

My family and I could have made an impact on our town.

Their impact could have changed the nation,

and I could indeed have changed the world."

 Attributed to Aldous Huxley

1894-1963

Author of “Brave New World”

Automating Our Decline?

Many fear AI will create mass unemployment faster than past innovations and are apprehensive whether new growth will provide employment relief in time.

Our former Rhode Island Governor and US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in a recent TED Talk warns that we can either ride the rapids of AI or paddle faster than the current. To that end she outlines steps that management, workers and government can take to avoid an employment fiasco last seen with the offshoring of manufacturing jobs that have devastated many communities…..and which AI might repeat with far faster and far more profound consequences.

Check out Ms. Raimondo’s outline of  “A plan to stop AI from automating our decline.”

The 50,000-foot view

So much is happening in the AI field that C-Level Executives can not only easily get “lost in the weeds” of understanding how to use AI, but lose side of the unprecedented, technical progress of the various AI tools, but also the economic and society impact.  

Stanford University Human Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) has begun publishing an AI Index Report that will help executives have a “50,000-foot level” view of what’s happening in the AI realm.   

Click here for the 2026 AI Index Report which may help you paddle faster than the white-water currents of Artificial Intelligence (Watch the intro video first).  

Jim Collins’ Top Ten Rules for Success

It’s commencement time and whether your child is in high school, off to college, headed to a summer internship, or off to conquer the world, 

it may be helpful to share some advice about the road ahead from Dr. Jim Collins.

Collins’ ability to ask the right questions and search for the answers with rigorous research has made him perhaps the most important student of management in the past 30 years.

One podcaster has done a public service by identifying what he thinks are Jim Collins’ “Top 10 Rules for Success”

If you don't want to watch the entire video, here's a summary a listener has put together:

1. Be curious, it all begins with questions.

2. Get the right people, then start the bus.

3. The thrivers are built on core values that are not open for negotiations.

4. Suffer for a big thing longer than anyone else.

5. Gravity is unforgiving, it never takes a day off, be disciplined

6. Take time to think, read daily.

7. Deliver no matter what.

8. Good to great is self-motivation, they need no motivation.

9. Place big bets, but only after taking the most of the risk out.

10. Three circles: Engage your energies to passions, what you're genetically encoded for and what is useful.

Pass them on!

Econ Recon:

Coming In Hot: Economist Lauren Saidel-Baker looks at the recent inflation data, both the Consumer Price Index and the Producer Price Index which both came in hot. The PPI came in at 6 %.and appears to be broad based and according to Ms. Saidel-Baker “is giving policy makers reason for pause… and the next rate change will more like be a rate hike rather than a rate cut.” Learn more on her recent FedWatch

An Unemployment Tutorial:   The Federal Reserve struggles with a dual mandate: price stability and full employment. Achieving both is not easy.  We’ve heard a lot about inflation recently, but as the job market has been relatively stable, there’s not been much focus on the unemployment rate.

In his latest “Three on Thursday”  economist Brian Wesbury offers an excellent one page tutorial “A Closer Look at the Unemployment Rate.”