Executive perspective pieces-bylined articles written by senior leaders about their own company's AI journey-are a common and useful format, but the vast majority of them follow a predictable shape: a challenge is introduced, the company's approach is described favorably, and the piece concludes with measured optimism about results. That shape is comfortable to write and comfortable to approve through a corporate communications process, but it rarely tells readers something they can't already guess.
Why the safe version is so common
An executive putting their name on a public piece is, reasonably, thinking about how it reflects on their company, their team, and their own judgment. Describing a specific initiative that failed, or a decision that turned out to be wrong, carries real risk in a way that describing a polished success story doesn't. The safe version isn't dishonest, usually-it's just incomplete in a way that limits how useful it is to another leader facing a similar decision.
What makes a perspective piece genuinely valuable
The executive perspective pieces that stick with readers tend to be the ones willing to describe something specific that didn't go as planned-a deployment that had to be walked back, an assumption about return on investment that turned out to be wrong, a change management effort that took much longer than expected-and what the executive actually did in response. This is a fundamentally more useful contribution to a reader facing a similar decision than a polished account of what went right.
How we edit these pieces
When working with executive contributors, we push, respectfully, for specificity over polish-asking what surprised them, what they'd do differently, and what evidence changed their thinking along the way, rather than accepting a first draft built entirely around a comfortable success narrative. Not every contributor is willing to go there, and that's a reasonable choice given the real risks involved, but the pieces that do tend to be the ones readers cite back to us months later.
An invitation to executives considering a contribution
If you've led an AI initiative and have a specific, honest account of what surprised you along the way-including what didn't work-we're a more interested audience for that account than for another polished success story.