Diagnosing Surprises, Awareness in an AI World, Sustained Crises & More
Profiles in Preparedness #34
Historically, execution—completing a project, executing a plan, or solving a problem—was a prized differentiator because the cost and friction of getting things done were significant.
Today, as you will see in some of the articles we've selected to share, AI has dramatically lowered the friction of execution, and as a result, competitive advantages for many fields are shifting upstream.
In a world where anyone can instantly produce content, the most valuable skill is knowing exactly what question to ask or which problem to solve.
With the exception of people working in the trades or on tasks that require hands-on work, AI shifts the point of leverage from execution (doing) to discernment (knowing exactly what to do, and why).
This shift has a direct impact on leadership, operations, and organizational strategy.
Why Awareness Becomes Your Competitive Edge
Effective leaders and problem solvers are people who can spot emerging issues before others even notice them. They are people who can recognize faint signals, identify unmet needs, and anticipate future risks. They are people who can use that recognition to position their organizations to respond proactively and intentionally.
AI doesn't (yet) know what your organization truly cares about. It doesn't grasp:
The subtle internal politics quietly draining productivity
Stakeholder anxieties that can derail crucial projects
Cascading impacts of delayed decisions across departments
Nuances of your unique team culture, legacy systems, or regulatory environment
Only an aware and perceptive leader can navigate these hidden dynamics effectively. In an AI-driven environment, tactical advantage goes to those who have a deep understanding of their organizational landscape. Strategic advantage belongs to leaders who can clearly frame problems in a way that unlocks meaningful leverage.
This is why perception (knowing what's really happening or what critical signals might be missing) and framing (knowing what question to ask and what scenario matters most) are becoming strategic advantages.
In this week's newsletter, you'll find a number of articles that can help to sharpen your perspective and enhance your ability to frame challenges effectively. With recognition, problem-solving becomes possible.
Inside The CP Journal
Here is some of what we added to the site this week.
🔒 For Academy and Watch Office Subscribers
We added two new video-based exercises to our Tactical Analysis Course (huge thanks to Shaun K. for sharing the videos!). We break down anomalies approaching in “the approach” (using a scene from A Bronx Tale) and practice recognizing shifts in the baseline (when you can't observe the crowd).
We have added New York City to our weekly Watch Office Reports. New or existing subscribers can receive that report in their inbox each week with just a few clicks.
New Feature Article
Getting blindsided by events—whether it’s a missed opportunity or a costly surprise—frustrates even the most patient executives. This article introduces the “Rumsfeld Matrix” framework, which can help CEOs and senior executives identify why surprises occur and provide clear, tactical steps to position their organization “left of bang” and operate with strategic foresight.
This Week‘s Reads
Here are a few standout reads from this week with insights, ideas, and perspectives that caught my attention.
Report | Into the Crowd: The Evolution of Vehicular Attacks and Prevention Efforts. From the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, this report looks at 18 terrorist vehicle ramming attacks between 2014 and March 2025. While US-based attacks, like the recent New Year’s Eve attack in New Orleans, attract the most attention here at home, Europe and Israel have experienced a number in 2025 as well, and together they offer lessons. If your job involves understanding the history of the threat, its evolution, and the pros/cons of different preventive measures, give the report a read.
Article | Content and Community. This Stratechery article was probably the most thought-provoking thing I read this week. In it, Ben Thompson concisely breaks down the history of communications, examining the creation, duplication, distribution, and consumption of content, and how innovations along the way shifted the bottleneck further left in the cycle. As I mentioned in the introduction to this week’s newsletter, this shifts the focus from execution to awareness in everything we create.
Article | Productivity, AI and pushback. If you read the Stratechery article above or aren’t yet sure if you need to care about how AI is changing the way we work, let me offer one more (short) article about the natural pursuit of productivity. As Seth Godin says, “As AI expands, the real opportunity is to find a way to use human effort to create more value.”
Article | Leading Through a Sustained Crisis Requires a Different Approach. There’s a difference between how we respond to sudden crises and how we lead organizations through sustained/long-term crises. COVID might be in the rearview mirror, but the distinction between sudden/sustained crises that we learned from the pandemic isn't something that should be filed away. In a crisis, bold and decisive decisions are often what are needed to keep an organization moving forward and focused on the most pressing problems. But when this form of decision-making carries on indefinitely, you see organizations slowly shift away from the important work the organization exists to do, as urgent decision-making becomes an ingrained organizational habit.
When You’re Ready
If you want more in-depth insights, you can become a paying subscriber to access exclusive content like our weekly Watch Office situation reports, our Tactical Analysis Course & behavioral analysis practice exercises, and the “Project Management in Emergency Management” Playbook.
And if you’re thinking about how to strengthen your organization's preparedness, that’s what we do. Whether it’s assessments, planning, speaking events, or exercises, we help teams build the skills and strategies to stay ahead of the next challenge.
There is a difference between knowing something and understanding it. AI can know things, but it doesn't understand why they are important. That's why I feared math tests where the teacher let us use a calculator--I knew it would be that much harder, because it was testing not the knowledge I had, but my understanding of when and how to use the tools at my disposal.