Time to read: 7 minutes
In this newsletter, you will find two topics:
- What AI Cannot Do for Your Promotion
- What AI Can Take Off Your Plate incl. free webinar link
Hi {{first_name | default: 'there'}},
I finished something this week that I had been carrying in my head for years. A 16-page roadmap for senior managers and directors preparing for director or partner promotion at Big 4 and tier-1 consulting firms.
I went through that process myself, as a ex-Partner at one of the Big 4 in Zurich. And over the past years I have coached and mentored many people through theirs, at both Big 4 and tier-1 consulting firms.
Writing it forced me to put on paper what I have only ever said in 1:1 sessions. The sponsor coalition. The case story. The visible record. The hidden stakeholder map that does not appear on any org chart but decides everything.
And the further I got into it, the clearer one thing became.
Almost nothing in that 16-page document is something AI can do for you.
Let me show you what I mean.
The stakeholder map. Every firm has an org chart, and every candidate studies it. But the actual decision is shaped by far more people than the chart shows. Partners you worked with on accounts years ago. Service line leaders in another country. Operational and risk leaders who can quietly veto. People-team leaders who hold influence nobody describes out loud. Identifying that wider map and engaging it is your work. Over coffees. In corridors. Over time. AI cannot have those conversations for you.
The mindset shift. Most candidates default to asking permission. "Do you think I am ready?" "Would it be appropriate to be considered?" That language sounds polite. It positions the one person as the gatekeeper deciding on a favour.
The shift that consistently moves cases forward is the opposite. Speaking as someone already operating at the next level. Stating, not asking. That has to come from your voice and your posture. Not from a prompt.
The conversation about timing. Many candidates spend a year or more being told "we will see at the right time" or "do not be in a rush", without ever getting an explicit answer. That ambiguity is costly. Asking your sponsor plainly whether you are being put forward this cycle or next is the kind of direct, partner-level question that itself signals readiness. You have to ask it. In person. With composure.
I could keep going. The roadmap is full of these moments.
Where AI does help is everything around them. You can pressure-test your case story. Rehearse difficult panel questions. Get a critical read on the gaps in your sponsor coalition. The roadmap even includes a prompt for exactly this: dropping the PDF into your own AI tool and asking it to challenge you on your specific situation. Useful work.
But the moments that decide the outcome happen in rooms AI is not in.
If you are anywhere in this journey, or coaching someone who is, the roadmap is yours. 16 pages, free, written from inside the partnership system.
Yes, I want to download the free roadmap
What AI Can Take Off Your Plate
Which brings me to the other half of this, the same principle from the opposite side.
If AI cannot have the committee conversation for you, what can it actually take off your plate?
A lot of the surface work that eats your week and leaves no time for the conversations that matter. The prep before a meeting. The notes during it. The follow-up after.
Some numbers that surprised me when I went looking.
→ Researchers measured how much of a conversation people actually remember 20 minutes after it ends. Speakers retained about 30%. The people being spoken to, about 23% [Brown-Schmidt et al., Memory & Cognition, 2025]. After one week, only 4.7% of what was said was remembered by both people in the conversation [Brown-Schmidt et al., Cognitive Science, 2023].
Two people walk out of the same meeting, and a week later, they barely overlap on what was said. Decisions drift. Owners get fuzzy. Things get re-decided in the next meeting.
→ The broader picture is just as striking. Deloitte research commissioned by Zoom found that employees spend 25 hours per week on meeting-related work, and 63% of that time is spent outside the meeting itself [Deloitte & Zoom, The Productivity Payoff of Next-Generation Collaboration, 2025]. Preparing for it. Reconstructing it. Clarifying it. Chasing what was decided.
→ PMI estimates 75 million dollars at risk for every billion spent on projects due to ineffective communication [PMI, Pulse of the Profession].
Most of us are paying for our meetings twice. Once when they happen, and again in everything we do to recover from how we ran them.
Where AI actually earns its place is here. Around the room, freeing up what happens in the room.
On Monday 15 June at lunchtime 12:00 CET, I am running a short free webinar with Anna Stando in her series AI for the Real World. The topic: AI for your meetings. Before. During. After.
Not another "here are five tools, go play" speech. Hands-on. Specific. No slides. The kind of session where you walk away knowing one thing you can use the next morning.
I want to register for the free webinar
AI cannot have the conversation that decides your promotion. It cannot be the human in the room with another human.
Almost everything else, it can.
Did you miss our last newsletters?
Inboxes can get a little crazy, right? Just in case you missed them, here are the links to our previous newsletters:
- Newsletter #33: I’m sharing how AI is testing the identity we borrowed from our roles, why your badge was never truly yours, and one prompt that helps you see what remains when the title is stripped away. → LINK HERE
- Newsletter #32: I’m sharing what leaders really fear about AI, why many feel powerless in shaping it, and how one simple prompt can sharpen your judgment and self-awareness. → LINK HERE
- Newsletter #31: I’m sharing how to tell if you’re on the right flight in the AI era, why most leaders sit in a hidden “judgment gap,” and the one prompt that forces real clarity. → LINK HERE
Thanks for reading. If something in this one landed, hit reply and tell me. I read every response, and these are the conversations I find most worth having.
Until next time,
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