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Sam was barely a month into his CIO role when he saw the writing on the wall. The companys much-touted AI transformation was already unraveling. AI had been declared the centerpiece of the companys enterprise strategy months earlier and placed under the chief innovation officers remit. But after his predecessor left, ownership splintered. Sales launched their own pilots. Marketing spun up a tiger team. The CTO declared AI strategy now belonged to his team. By the time Sam arrived, priorities overlapped, resources were being drained by pet projects, and internal turf wars threatened the companys ability to competenot just externally, but against itself. Sams experience isnt unique. Were living through a new era of hyper-competitionwhere the gap between AI and digital leaders, and those struggling to keep up, is widening fast. McKinsey reports the performance divide has surged over 60%, with AI leaders delivering two to six times more shareholder value than laggards. To compete, organizations must transformnot just technologically, but operationally. That means aligning hundreds or even thousands of people across business, tech, and operations to move in sync. But too often, transformation efforts break down from within, leaving teams on the ground with whiplash. Weve seen it firsthand. Kathryn, as an executive coach and keynote speaker, and Jenny, as an executive adviser and learning & development expert, bring frontline insights from coaching senior leaders and building systems that scale. The five strategies that follow are designed to help leaders align on what matters mostso the organization moves together, stays focused, and competes at the pace of change. 1. Reset the Executive Team Around a Shared Mission As a new CIO, Sam didnt yet have the authority to realign the enterprise, but he had something just as powerful: insight. In his first 90 days, he listened. He tracked how AI efforts had fractured across functions and documented where resources were duplicative or misaligned. When the CEO asked him to share his observations with the executive committee, Sam presented a simple, yet revealing map of overlapping initiatives. Crucially, he didnt catch his peers off-guard. He previewed his findings with each executive beforehand, inviting input and building trust. That transparency prompted the CEO to bring in outside support. Together, we helped the executive team articulate a shared purpose: what only they, as the senior leadership team, could uniquely deliver for the company. They identified five enterprise-wide priorities, each with a clearly defined owner, desired outcome, and expected impact on employees, customers, and performance. Heres how Sam approached his first 90 days combining insight, relationship-building, and clear communication to set the foundation for enterprise alignment. Days 1-30Days 31-60Days 61-90Key ObjectivesListen and Map LandscapeSocialize and InfluenceAlign and Set the FoundationActivities Conduct 1:1s with all executive peers and direct reports to understand priorities and concerns Review previous AI initiatives to understand points of duplication or tension Use a stakeholder mapping framework to identify key influencers and relationship gaps Document where AI workstreams and ownership had fragmented Create a high-level map of overlapping initiatives Preview findings 1:1 with each peer to build trust and reduce surprises Tailor insights to reflect what matters to each stakeholder (e.g., link to their KPIs) Begin to draft what a unified path forward could look like Present synthesized observations to the CEO and executive team Recommend a reset: frame what the executive team can uniquely deliver Help the executive team align on 35 shared priorities and clarify cross-functional ownership Propose monthly progress reviews to protect alignment after the meeting ends This first act wasnt about fixing everything. It was about creating enough clarity to stop the internal land grab, and lay the groundwork for collective leadership. 2. Make the Workand the RulesVisible The next step: operationalize the strategy. The team mapped each enterprise priority, identified the key workstreams underneath, and assigned shared ownership. For each priority, they named what would need to changestructures, resources, meeting rhythmsto deliver on the commitment. Boundaries were clarified. Duplication was reduced. Expectations were reset. Just as important, they agreed on how decisions would be made going forward. New governance forums were established to drive consistency across business, technology, and operations. Shared metrics were also introduced to track progress and flag misalignment early. Sam helped reframe AI, not as a stand-alone initiative, but as the enabler of every enterprise goal. When your executive team agrees on what matters most, the next challenge is making it operational. These six questions can help you turn strategy into execution: Ownership: Who owns each workstream, and where is accountability shared? Decision rights: Who decides, who advises, and when? Governance: What forums and cadences keep teams aligned? Resourcing: Are people, budgets, and tools sufficient? Metrics: Are KPIs aligned and visible across teams? AI enablement: How will AI enhance, not hinder, core priorities? A strategy that isnt operationalized is just a slide deck. Turn priorities into ownership, decisions, and habits. 3. Sequence the Work So Teams Dont Collide Even the best strategy sessions wont fix a broken operating model. The real test of alignment is what happens after the meeting ends. This team didnt leave follow-through to chance. They created a monthly executive rhythmnot just for updates, but to review priorities, flag bottlenecks, and refine how they worked together. The meeting became a forcing mechanism to stay focused and accountable. But alignment isnt just about sticking to the planits also about pacing. With every departmnt eager to lead, the team had to get intentional about sequencing. Instead of launching everything at once, they assigned each enterprise priority to a lead function and a specific quarter. Each team had clarity on when to step upand just as importantly, when to support others. For Sam, this meant aligning with his peers on milestones, outcomes, and KPIs upfront. Rather than letting Sales, Marketing, and the CTOs team charge ahead in parallel, the CIO worked with the CEO and fellow executives to establish a clear sequence: Q1: The CTOs team built the core AI infrastructure and governance standards. Q2: Sales piloted AI-driven prospecting tools based on that foundation. Q3: Marketing launched AI-powered customer insights and personalization campaigns. This staggered approach gave each function space to lead, and ensured that each phase built upon the last. Teams had space to lead, room to learn, and clarity on when to pivot. Thats what sequencing unlocks. 4. Cascade Relentlesslyand Build a Feedback Loop Even the strongest executive alignment fails if it stops at the top. Sams team knew that priorities dont become real until theyre understoodand acted onat every level. To make it stick, they rolled out a deliberate cascade plan. Enterprise priorities were translated into department-specific objectives, with clear owners and timelines. Managers were equipped with simple, consistent talking points. Leaders reinforced the why, not just the what, connecting daily work to the bigger picture. Just as important, they established a real-time feedback loop. One early win came from a frontline support team using an AI-enabled tool to streamline customer inquiries. The impact was quickly elevated and scaled across other units. If your priorities havent reached the teams doing the work, you dont have alignmentyou have a memo. 5. Build the Skills Your Transformation Demands Sustained transformation doesnt just require execution: it demands growth. Even senior leaders need support as they shift roles, evolve mindsets, and lead through uncertainty. Thats especially true with AI, where capabilities change faster than most organizations can hire or retain. Thats why Sams company paired their reset with skill-building. With the CEOs backing, they invested in leadership development, executive coaching, and experiential learning focused on cross-functional collaboration, strategic influence, and change management. Sam also upskilled his own team. Once a centralized AI strategy group, they became enablershelping business units adopt AI tools effectively. That required new set skills: AI literacy, and consultative problem-solving. Lead the Way, Then Lead Together Transformation isnt a one-off project. Its an ongoing investment in how people think, work, and lead. In high-stakes environments, even the strongest strategies can fracture without focus, discipline, and shared purpose at the top. Sams story is a reminder: success doesnt start with a new initiative. It begins with how senior leaders show upso that transformation becomes more than a mandate. You dont have to do everything at once. Just make sure the most important work gets donetogether.
Category:
E-Commerce
Bernadette Berger is the director of innovation at Alaska Airlines, where she leads transformative initiatives that reimagine the travel experience for guests and employees. With a background in industrial design and a career path that spans dance instruction, stage performance, UX, and more than a decade spent designing aircraft interiors at Teague, Berger brings a unique blend of creativity, human-centered thinking, and technical insight to the aviation industry. Berger is on a mission to humanize travel. In my conversation with her, we discuss how design can foster dignity and independence in travel, and she shares how her team is using emerging technologieslike AI and automationto solve aviations hardest problems, not just for today but for years ahead. Have you always been a creative person? Yes! This is actually my fourth careerIve had a jungle gym of a career instead of a ladder. My first career was as a dance teacher. I taught kids and adults how to dance, choreographed recitals, and did competitions. I learned a lot about teaching creative skills and mastery to people of all ages. Then I thought, maybe Id be a performer. So I was an actress for many yearsmusicals, eight shows a week, the whole thing. I learned to sing, act, and develop a very specific creative skill. But I remember one lighting tech rehearsalI was standing there, waiting, and thought: Im spending all this time fulfilling someone elses creative vision. I think I could do this better. I want to be the one coming up with the creative ideas. So I went back to school and fell into industrial design and spent many years designing airplanes. Now, working at an airline, Im in a different rolebut Ive carried all those lessons with me. [Photo: courtesy Alaska Airlines] How did you find your way into the airline industry? I studied industrial design at the University of Washington. At the time, industrial design was just starting to sneak into digital interfaces. It was the early days of what later became the entire UX design practice. I found myself leaning toward projects that had both physical and digital componentsor some sort of spatial element with a digital layer. That interest led to me connecting with the design consultancy Teague. For over a decade at Teague, I got to design aircraft interior architecture, which involves anything you touch, see, or interact with inside the airplane. I also got a chance to learn many other design skills: lighting design, audio design, haptics, materialityall the ways Id classify as experience design. Thats what got me into travel. But the thing thats kept me in travel is this: I think travel can be the best tool for fighting hate. It can be amazing for fighting discrimination, racism, xenophobia. Its really hard to hate another group of people when youve experienced their culturewhat they eat, how they move through their city, their town, their villagehow they relate to one another. I love working in the travel space because its about connecting people.Does that perspective influence your design? 100%. One of the jobs of a designer is to make sure you’re not designing for yourselfthat you’re really walking a mile in the shoes of the end users you’re designing for. There’s no better way to learn how to design a travel experience for someone who doesn’t speak English than to go to a country where you don’t speak the primary language. There’s no better way to learn how to design a better way to move bags around an airport than to go load bags for a full shift in the rain. You learn really fast when you experience those challenges yourself versus hearing about it secondhand or observing someone doing it. It changes the conversations you have, the ideas you think of, and the way you launch solutions. [Photo: courtesy Alaska Airlines] How has the airline industry adapted to experiential design and service design? The ones that are adopting a user-centric approach wholeheartedly are the ones that are winning. It’s easy to see when decisions are made purely on what’s best for business without considering what’s best for humans. At Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines, care and customer care are central tenets of our business. Great customer care comes from our frontline employees. If we’re not creating great tools and experiences for our flight attendants, pilots, and customer service agents, they won’t be able to be their best for our guests. There’s as much focus on creating a well-designed employee experience as there is on the guest experience because they’re so related to each other. [Photo: courtesy Alaska Airlines] What about designing for better interactions between airline staff and airport staff? Absolutely. Guests are constantly handed off from airline staff to TSA and back. If youre on an international flight, you may show your passport three times. We’re working closely with TSA to allow identity verification using your face or phone. Imagine not needing to dig out your wallet at bag drop, TSA, or the gate. This year, there will be 13 moments in the travel journey where you can use your face or phone instead. Wht role does your team play in shaping travel experiences at Alaska Airlines? As an airline, we look at how people are boarding in Asia, how guests take short flights in Europe, or how travel is booked in South America. We often examine our own industry, but as the innovation group, we also get to look outside of aviation. We’re trying to make the flight booking path as easy as buying something on Amazon. We want the day-of-travel experience to be as seamless and interactive as planning your day at Legoland or Disneyland. We study personalization from places like Sephoratheir app, stores, and online experience. We look both inside and outside our industry because the same traveler buying sunscreen on Amazon is coming to our airport with high expectations for personalization, seamlessness, real-time information, and self-service. Even though other companies dont have the same constraints we do in flying people across the world, our bar still has to be just as high. It sounds like senior executives are really invested in this. Did you have a lot of work to do to prove that this innovation group works? Yes. Working on moonshot ideas is not for the faint of heart. Its for people who get excited about what might be, and who arent held back by fear of what might go wrong. Our job is to prioritize the really gnarly challenges that we face as an airline and then ask over and over: What would need to be true for this challenge to go away? What tasks can we do that are fast and inexpensive so we can learn more, whether it’s that a technology isnt ready yet or that a process could be automated, or that we should communicate differently with guests? We constantly ask ourselves: Are there different ways to tackle this problem? What are the hard-and-fast rules, and where can we think differently to get different results? [Photo: courtesy Alaska Airlines] What are some of the challenges that design has helped the airline industry overcome? Design has helped more people travel. Historically, aviation was expensive and not accessible to everyone. But design has changed that. Now, more people can travel safely, independently, and with dignity. Think about booking a tripan airline, a hotel, a car, fun activities. Design helps deliver not just information, but the right, relevant information for each person. It helps guests who are blind, deaf, traveling with a service animalit helps them enjoy travel with the same independence and dignity as anyone else. Theres still more work to do, but one of the major successes of design in this industry is making travel more accessible to more people. How are you using AI in your work? Do you think AI can improve designs contribution to the travel industry? AI is a big part of our innovation strategy and really, almost every departments strategy. Its well integrated across the airline to elevate how we work. Right now, were using AI where it excels: looking at lots of data sources and synthesizing them for humans. AI is great at pattern recognition, prediction, detecting things, and using rules to make quick decisions. We use AI for complex scheduling, improving safety, rerouting aircraft around storms, and in computer vision. Its already being applied in machine learning and automation. But the next level Im excited about is AI as your best team member where it helps humans make nuanced decisions, use intuition, and observe when automated processes are going wrong. Thats where well start to see jobs improve in quality. Were currently using automation on the ramp to help move bags from plane to plane more effectivelyespecially with tight connections. AI can track bags, planes, and people, and find the best routes for bag transfers. That frees up human ramp agents to focus on the complex problem-solving theyre experts in. You work with both creative and noncreative people. How do you motivate themespecially people who dont consider themselves creative? I have a spicy take. I believe, deep in my soul, we are all creative. Creativity is a form of problem-solvinga trial-and-error process. My heart breaks when people say, Im not creative. I want to say, Who told you that? Because almost everyone I work with is a great problem solver. They may use analytical tools, but theyre still making creative choices. How do I motivate people? A lot of it is looking at problems from a different perspective. Asking, What if? What would need to be true for this to work? When you invite people into that way of thinking, they can contribute using their own methodssketches, words, process flows, or whatever it may be. The killer of creativity is fearfear of embarrassment, fear of failure. Most of what we try doesnt work out, but we learn so much from the process. Thats the point. To me, thats creativity. What advice do you have for aspiring designersespecially students? I used to teach at the University of Washington, my alma mater. I loved seeing lightbulbs go off when students finally got something. Id assign them to go somewhere and experience a challenge firsthand. Want to design for a user group? Be that user for a day. Dont just observe them. If youre ambitious and want to be a senior designer or creative director, spend time around those people. Watch how they carry themselves. Learn from their presence. One of my mentors walked into a room with confidenceheels clicking, bag down, commanding attention. You cant learn that on Teams. So my advice is to get in front of people in real life. Experience what they experience. Sit with coworkers. Build bonds. Learn from mentorshow to be and how not to be. That all requires showing up in person. Working from home is efficientand I love the flexibility with my kids. But creative teams need bonds. You need trust to have honest conversations about work without it feeling personal. You have to apologize when you mess upbe transparent. When I show vulnerability, my team can too. Vulnerability is a requirement for trust.
Category:
E-Commerce
The first space race was about flags and footprints. Now, decades later, landing on the moon is old news. The new race is to build there, and doing so hinges on power. In April 2025, China reportedly unveiled plans to build a nuclear power plant on the moon by 2035. This plant would support its planned international lunar research station. The United States countered in August, when acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy reportedly suggested a U.S. reactor would be operational on the moon by 2030. While it might feel like a sudden sprint, this isnt exactly breaking news. NASA and the Department of Energy have spent years quietly developing small nuclear power systems to power lunar bases, mining operations, and long-term habitats. As a space lawyer focused on long-term human advancement into space, I see this not as an arms race but as a strategic infrastructure race. And in this case, infrastructure is influence. A lunar nuclear reactor may sound dramatic, but it’s neither illegal nor unprecedented. If deployed responsibly, it could allow countries to peacefully explore the moon, fuel their economic growth, and test out technologies for deeper space missions. But building a reactor also raises critical questions about access and power. The legal framework already exists Nuclear power in space isnt a new idea. Since the 1960s, the U.S. and the Soviet Union have relied on radioisotope generators that use small amounts of radioactive elementsa type of nuclear fuelto power satellites, Mars rovers, and the Voyager probes. Nuclear energy in space isnt newsome spacecraft are nuclear-powered. This photo shows the nuclear heat source for the Mars Curiosity rover encased in a graphite shell. The fuel glows red-hot because of the radioactive decay of plutonium-238. [Photo: Idaho National Laboratory, CC BY] The United Nations 1992 Principles Relevant to the Use of Nuclear Power Sources in Outer Space, a nonbinding resolution, recognizes that nuclear energy may be essential for missions where solar power is insufficient. This resolution sets guidelines for safety, transparency, and international consultation. Nothing in international law prohibits the peaceful use of nuclear power on the moon. But what matters is how countries deploy it. And the first country to succeed could shape the norms for expectations, behaviors, and legal interpretations related to lunar presence and influence. Why being first matters The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, ratified by all major spacefaring nations including the U.S., China, and Russia, governs space activity. Its Article IX requires that states act with due regard to the corresponding interests of all other States Parties. That statement means if one country places a nuclear reactor on the moon, others must navigate around it, legally and physically. In effect, it draws a line on the lunar map. If the reactor anchors a larger, long-term facility, it could quietly shape what countries do and how their moves are interpreted legally, on the moon and beyond. Other articles in the Outer Space Treaty set similar boundaries on behavior, even as they encourage cooperation. They affirm that all countries have the right to freely explore and access the moon and other celestial bodies, but they explicitly prohibit territorial claims or assertions of sovereignty. At the same time, the treaty acknowledges that countries may establish installations such as basesand with that, gain the power to limit access. While visits by other countries are encouraged as a transparency measure, they must be preceded by prior consultations. Effectively, this grants operators a degree of control over who can enter and when. Building infrastructure is not staking a territorial claim. No one can own the moon, but one country setting up a reactor could shape where and how others operatefunctionally, if not legally. Infrastructure is influence Building a nuclear reactor establishes a countrys presence in a given area. This idea is especially important for resource-rich areas such as the lunar south pole, where ice found in perpetually shadowed craters could fuel rockets and sustain lunar bases. These sought-after regions are scientifically vital and geopolitically sensitive, as multiple countries want to build bases or conduct research there. Building infrastructure in these areas would cement a countrys ability o access the resources there and potentially exclude others from doing the same. Dark craters on the moon, parts of which are indicated here in blue, never get sunlight. Scientists think some of these permanently shadowed regions could contain water ice. [Image: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center] Critics may worry about radiation risks. Even if designed for peaceful use and contained properly, reactors introduce new environmental and operational hazards, particularly in a dangerous setting such as space. But the U.N. guidelines do outline rigorous safety protocols, and following them could potentially mitigate these concerns. Why nuclear? Because solar has limits The moon has little atmosphere and experiences 14-day stretches of darkness. In some shadowed craters, where ice is likely to be found, sunlight never reaches the surface at all. These issues make solar energy unreliable, if not impossible, in some of the most critical regions. A small lunar reactor could operate continuously for a decade or more, powering habitats, rovers, 3D printers, and life-support systems. Nuclear power could be the linchpin for long-term human activity. And its not just about the Moondeveloping this capability is essential for missions to Mars, where solar power is even more constrained. The U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space sets guidelines to govern how countries act in outer space. [Photo: United States Mission to International Organizations in Vienna, CC BY-NC-ND] A call for governance, not alarm The United States has an opportunity to lead not just in technology but in governance. If it commits to sharing its plans publicly, following Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty and reaffirming a commitment to peaceful use and international participation, it will encourage other countries to do the same. The future of the moon wont be determined by who plants the most flags. It will be determined by who builds what, and how. Nuclear power may be essential for that future. Building transparently and in line with international guidelines would allow countries to more safely realize that future. A reactor on the moon isnt a territorial claim or a declaration of war. But it is infrastructure. And infrastructure will be how countries display powerof all kindsin the next era of space exploration. Michelle L.D. Hanlon is a professor of air and space law at the University of Mississippi. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
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