You Can't Mandate Curiosity...
Editor's Note: For years, organizations have approached transformation in a familiar way:
Buy the technology.
Train the workforce.
Launch the initiative.
Measure adoption.
Expect results.
The underlying assumption is simple:
If people have access to the right tools and the right training, capability will follow.
This week's signals suggest that assumption deserves a closer look.
Organizations with access to the same technologies continue achieving very different outcomes.
Some teams are redesigning workflows, building new capabilities, and discovering entirely new ways of operating.
Others are using the same tools to work a little faster.
The difference is rarely access.
Increasingly, the difference appears to be curiosity.
And that presents a challenge for leaders.
Because organizations can mandate training.
They can mandate compliance.
They can mandate process.
What they cannot mandate is curiosity.
Executive Signal #1
Access Is Expanding Faster Than Capability
What Changed
This week, Tiff Macklem, Governor of the Bank of Canada, highlighted a challenge extending beyond Canada itself. While Canada continues to play a significant role in AI innovation, business adoption and commercialization remain uneven. At the same time, the Government of Canada expanded funding to accelerate AI adoption and commercialization across Canadian organizations.
Link
IVPP Assessment
The technology is becoming increasingly available.
The capability to use it effectively is not.
In many organizations, everyone has access to similar tools.
Yet outcomes vary significantly.
A small number of people are:
Building workflows
Creating automations
Designing new approaches
Challenging existing processes
Others use the same technology primarily for:
Drafting emails
Summarizing meetings
Creating content
Neither approach is wrong.
But only one tends to create new organizational capability.
Strategic Implication
Access creates opportunity.
Capability determines whether opportunity becomes value.
Leadership Read-Through
Ask:
Is access still the constraint?
Or is capability now the constraint?
What behaviors distinguish high-value users from everyone else?
Executive Signal #2
Training Does Not Automatically Create Capability
IVPP Assessment
When organizations identify capability gaps, the natural response is training.
That makes sense.
Training transfers knowledge.
But knowledge alone rarely creates capability.
Capability is typically built through:
Experimentation
Practice
Feedback
Application
Adaptation
Many organizations measure:
Courses completed
Certifications earned
Training hours delivered
Those metrics are useful.
But they don't necessarily tell us whether new capability has been created.
Strategic Implication
A trained workforce is not automatically a capable workforce.
Capability emerges when knowledge becomes behavior.
Leadership Read-Through
Ask:
How are new skills being applied?
What evidence suggests behavior is changing?
Are people experimenting with new approaches?
Is learning translating into action?
Executive Signal #3
Curiosity Is Not Distributed Evenly
IVPP Assessment
One of the most interesting realities of technology adoption is that capability is rarely distributed as evenly as access.
Within the same organization:
Employees have access to the same tools.
Employees complete the same training.
Employees receive the same communications.
Yet outcomes vary dramatically.
Some individuals begin building:
Workflows
Automations
Decision-support processes
New operating practices
Others use the same tools primarily to accelerate existing tasks.
The technology remains constant.
The behavior does not.
Strategic Implication
This raises an uncomfortable possibility.
The constraint may no longer be access.
It may no longer be training.
It may be curiosity.
Because capability rarely develops through access alone.
It develops through experimentation, exploration, and repeated application.
Organizations can mandate training.
They cannot mandate curiosity.
Leadership Read-Through
Ask:
Where is experimentation occurring?
Who is creating new ways of working?
How is that knowledge being transferred?
Are we developing capability or simply distributing tools?
What This Means for PMOs
PMOs have traditionally focused on:
Delivery
Governance
Adoption
Reporting
All remain important.
However, AI introduces a different challenge:
How do we measure capability development?
Organizations can easily measure:
Tool deployment
User counts
Training completion
Adoption rates
They often struggle to measure:
Improved decision-making
Faster learning
Better prioritization
New organizational capabilities
One of the most important questions PMOs may need to ask is:
What capability is being created?
Because capability is ultimately what determines whether a transformation creates lasting value.
The future PMO may spend less time measuring implementation and more time measuring organizational capability growth.
Leadership Signal
The Next AI Challenge Isn't Technology
Organizations increasingly have access to the same technologies.
The tools are becoming available to everyone.
Yet outcomes continue to vary.
Why? Because technology does not create capability on its own.
People do!
More specifically,
People who are willing to:
Experiment
Explore
Challenge assumptions
Learn continuously
Apply new ideas
Capability often begins with curiosity.
And curiosity remains one of the few organizational assets that cannot simply be purchased.
IVPP Executive Takeaway
IVPP Leadership Signal
You can mandate training.
You cannot mandate curiosity.
And curiosity may be one of the most important drivers of capability development in the AI era.
Strategic Implication
Technology creates possibility.
People create capability.
Organizations create value.
The leaders who succeed may be those who focus less on deploying tools and more on creating environments where learning, experimentation, and capability development can thrive.
Executive Challenge
If every employee in your organization had access to the exact same AI tools tomorrow, what would determine who creates the most value from them?
The answer may reveal more about your organization's future than the technology itself.
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