Rochelle Trow

AI isn’t failing. It’s simply revealing how we already work.

Over $40 billion has been invested in AI.
But in the latest Gallup data, 89% of leaders say it hasn’t improved productivity.

That seems to surprise people. It shouldn’t.

Because AI doesn’t change behaviour it only amplifies it.

I’ve seen teams introduce AI into already stretched environments, expecting it to create relief.

But what tends to happen is different.
More output, greater speed and even more pressure to keep up.

Less clarity - Right?

If your system is already overloaded, AI makes the overload even faster.

If decisions are unclear, you get more… but not better.

And if people are already reacting under pressure, you scale reactivity.

Then we call it a technology problem? But it isn’t.

The same data points somewhere else.

Where AI is working, it’s not because of the tool. It’s because of how it’s being led. Managers are the difference.

Not in theory but in how work actually happens on a day-to-day basis.

Because the real shift isn’t speed. It’s whether people can pause inside the speed.
That’s the part that changes everything.

Without that pause, people don’t use AI thoughtfully.

They use it quickly and speed without clarity doesn’t create value.
It creates amplified noise.

This is something I come back to often in Anchored -
the ability to pause, even when everything is pushing you to move.

If you want to explore the full report behind this, I’ve shared it in the comments.

💬 Are you using AI to think better… or just faster?

Sometimes staying useful is how you stay invisible.

Denella wasn’t short on skill or ambition.
But something deeper felt off.

She wasn’t being stretched - so she kept making herself useful.

Her days were full but not fulfilling.
Staying busy became proof of her worth.
Reflection, boundaries, and reprioritising were always postponed.

Together, we worked on:

→ Naming the pressure that kept her trying to prove her value
→ Questioning the belief that worth came from output
→ Pausing long enough to choose - not simply respond

Here’s what Denella shared after our coaching journey:

💬 “I hadn’t realised how much my sense of value was tied to staying busy. Our coaching work helped me slow down enough to notice what I actually wanted to say and do.”

This is what begins to change when you stop reacting automatically:

→ The ability to pause - even when staying busy feels safer
→ A steadier relationship with your own worth
→ Choices shaped by clarity, not simply coping

Sometimes the risk isn’t speaking up. It’s what happens when you keep staying quiet.

If this reflection resonates, you might recognise the cost of staying useful for too long.

👇 I’ve shared how to book a confidential, no-obligation conversation in the comments.

For confidentiality, client names have been changed, stories adapted, and testimonials abbreviated.

Love isn’t a word we use in corporate.
And yet, its absence shapes everything.

In Be the Love, Sarah Prout writes that the foundation of all healing is learning to love yourself.

Not the polished, Instagram version. The real kind. The kind that doesn’t depend on performance.

Her words rattled me.

Because I realised it wasn’t just that I was neglecting myself.
It was that I didn’t love myself at all.
And the hardest part? I didn’t even know what love meant.

Growing up, love was service. Food on the table. Clothes on your back. Safety provision, which was ultimately your duty.

So I thought love meant doing, providing and holding everything together.

I carried that into adulthood.
Even in motherhood, my love was often expressed through control - managing everything, protecting fiercely, gripping tightly.
What I thought was love sometimes suffocated.

Real love, I came to see, isn’t about holding on.
It’s about loosening your grip so others can grow.

And in corporate life, the absence of self-love showed up just as strongly.

I didn’t walk into the office full of warmth and presence.
I walked in guarded, efficient and professional.
But notably “armoured”.

I thought that showing up polished and tough would earn respect.
In reality, it made me harder to reach and harder to trust.

Prout’s words forced a harder question: If I didn’t know how to love myself without control, how was I loving anyone else?

This week’s takeaway: Love isn’t control. It’s letting go. And you can’t let go if you’re gripping yourself the hardest.

Reflection: Where might your version of “love” actually be control?
And what would change if you loosened your grip - even slightly?

Next Tuesday: Amy Edmondson’s The Fearless Organization on why safety, not fear, is the foundation of every great team.