Thoughts & News
Thinking, Out Loud
Essays from the ThinkRoom. Johan Grönstedt on leadership, strategy, and the human side of AI: what changes at the core of a business, and of a person, when intelligence becomes abundant.
Your Best Quarter Is the Warning
Why your AI dashboard looking healthy might be the most dangerous moment your company faces.
I Run a Strategy Firm. I Don't Have a Strategy.
A strategy-firm founder on why he no longer has a strategy, what died when AI made analysis free and identical for everyone, and the one bet that is left.
You Are Reading the Wrong Room
The data senior leaders use to make their biggest decisions is structurally biased. And the silent majority isn't where you think it is.
The Skills That Survived
In which researchers pit AI against senior leaders and the wrong side wins
The Only Asset AI Can't Build
Your AI strategy is sending your employees a message about what you believe humans are for. Most companies have no idea what it says.
Engineers Went First. You're Not Far Behind.
What software teams learned about AI that every profession will learn the hard way.
The "Human-Centric AI" Lie, and the End of Homo Sapiens
Let me actually define what "human" means in the context of ‘Human Centric AI’
There Is No Arrival
My wife looked at me one evening and said, "I want to live life NOW."
A Jobs-Survival Guide for the Already Doomed
In which AI comes for your job and finds it defended by confusion, inertia, and a mortgage.
The Dumbest Strategy in the Room
When I asked about his strategy, he said three words. "Beat last year." I waited for the rest. There was no rest.
Know What You'd Kill
The AI decision nobody's making, and why it determines everything else
The Margin That Blinds You
The Real Reason Your AI Transformation Is Stalling
The Capability Paradox
Would I be as effective in my role today if AI disappeared tomorrow?
Good Is Where Great Goes to Die
The hardest prison to escape is not a bad life. It's a good one.
Why Your Best People Are About to Leave
The harder you grip, the more you lose.
The Nerd Principle
There’s a difference between eliminating waste and destroying the conditions for mastery
Tantric Lessons for CEOs in the Age of AI
What ancient wisdom about polarity work reveals about why your organization feels dead
Build Builders, Not Users
"The biggest bottleneck in business is shifting. From 'Who can build it?' to 'Who knows what to build?'"
The Delegation Problem
Why C-suite hands-off approaches will fail this time
The Rooms We've Closed
What leaders hide doesn't disappear. It compounds.
Your Consulting Firm Just Hired a Country of Geniuses
My bet on what consulting becomes when analysis stops being scarce.
When Bubbles Build Civilization
Is AI a bubble? Every civilization-grade technology shift in the past 500 years has been both a speculative bubble and a genuine transformation. At the same time. The bubble doesn't cancel out the revolution. The bubble FUNDS the revolution.
Your Org Chart Is From 1855. Your AI Is From 2025
When your AI-augmented employees become too fast for the company they work in
Your Bookstore Doesn't Need a Website
"You cannot have a strategic discussion about how AI impacts your business unless you have a fundamental understanding of AI." Not expert-level knowledge. Not a PhD. Just enough literacy to see what's actually possible.
You're Reading the Wrong Curve
Why your AI investments look disappointing when you're doing everything right
The Secret Every CEO Should Steal from Homer
How a 3,000-year-old poem explains why your PowerPoint isn't working
The ROI Paradox: How Chasing Returns Destroys Returns
When everyone optimizes for the same metric simultaneously, the optimization itself becomes the constraint.
The Curiosity Advantage: Why Not Knowing Is Your Superpower
I used to think calling someone "curious" was the ultimate compliment. Turns out I was onto something. Just not in the way I thought.
Your Leadership Team Is Embarrassingly Behind on AI (And It's About to Cost You Everything)
If you're in a leadership position and you're not personally using AI for your actual work, you're not just behind, you're actively sabotaging your organization's future.
You Don't Rise to Your Strategy
Everyone's doing their job well. No one's doing the company's job.
The Slow Death of Strategy
“You simply cannot have intelligent strategic discussions about AI if you haven't personally experienced its capabilities.”
The Stone Age Brain Meets AI
"People intellectually understand AI can make them at least 30% more productive - but emotionally, their Stone Age brain tells them to wait until someone else has done it first."
The AI Leadership Gap Is Already Ridiculous
"Those who've had their AI awakening and jumped on the train will be in a completely different place by the end of the year than those who haven't. It will be noticeable. It will be felt. For some, it will feel unfair."
The Dangerous Obsession with Measurement
What if, in our rush to measure everything, we're actually understanding less?
THIS IS KILLING YOUR COMPANY
"Can I tell you something I've never admitted to anyone? I have no idea what innovation actually means anymore."
Why AI might force you to become more human
What if our relentless drive to break everything into processes – the very foundation of modern professional life – is about to hit its limit? And what if the path forward isn't more process, but a return to something much older?
Why Every Business Is Now a Tech Business
"We need to go in this direction. I don't know how long it will take or how much it will cost."
The Middle Manager's Impossible Job
What a heart attack taught a CEO about the real source of stress
Why We Suck at Prevention (And Why It's Killing Us)
The hidden formula destroying civilization, one deferred crisis at a time
The Authentic Leadership Paradox
Why being fully human may be your greatest competitive advantage
Why Civilizations Thrive or Die
Lessons from History's Golden Ages
The Talent Liberation Manifesto
Why most companies are destroying their most valuable resource
The Birth of ThinkRoom
Finding Our Voice in a Crowded Room
You’re too nice to have a strategy (so you don’t!)
"Strategy is a dictatorial game," he said. "It's for an autocratic, frankly kind of assholish leader." I nearly choked on my coffee.