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Jesse Jacoby

Who Moves the Boundary? The AI Decision Rights Question That Determines Everything Else

Agentic AI is an org design problem wearing a technology costume. Deploying agents without defined authority scopes, named owners, and escalation paths is the same mistake as hiring without a job description. Here is the decision rights framework enterprises need before autonomy scales.
Jesse Jacoby

The Judgment Premium: Why AI Raises the Value of the Calls It Cannot Make

Jesse Jacoby

Most New Managers Get No Training. We Promote Them Anyway.

Jesse Jacoby

The Restructuring Savings Illusion: Why the Numbers Look Right and the Organization Never Recovers

Jesse Jacoby

One Company, Two Workforces: The AI Fault Line Your Engagement Survey Cannot See

Recently Published Articles

Jesse Jacoby

Why Leadership Training Doesn’t Change Behavior

A Fortune 500 company I worked with spent $4.2 million on leadership development in a single year. Custom programs. Top-tier facilitators. Off-site retreats with all the right frameworks. Eighteen months later, their employee engagement scores hadn’t moved. Exit interviews still cited the same complaints: unclear expectations, inconsistent feedback, leaders who avoided difficult conversations. The programs […]
Jesse Jacoby

The Accumulation Problem: How Organizations Overload Themselves One Initiative at a Time

A division president I spoke with last spring described a moment of clarity that came too late. He had just finished reviewing his organization’s project portfolio and realized that nine of the fourteen active initiatives on his list had been approved individually, in separate steering committee meetings, over a period of eighteen months. Each one […]
Jesse Jacoby

Normalized Dysfunction: The Hidden Tax on Every Transformation

Before launching any change effort, find out what’s functioning and what’s functioning around a problem. The difference is where your real ROI lives. Every organization has a department that should be half its size. You can usually spot it during a transformation kickoff. The team in question has more headcount than seems necessary, more processes […]
Jesse Jacoby

The Silence Tax: What Organizations Pay When No One Speaks Up

Most leaders I work with are proud of their “no drama” cultures. Meetings run on time. People nod. Decisions get made without much friction. Disagreements get resolved offline, if at all. We tend to interpret that as success. I’d argue it’s often the opposite. When people stop speaking up, it’s rarely because they’re fully on […]
Jesse Jacoby

The Executive Presence Trap: How Vague Feedback Stalls Leaders

Jesse Jacoby

When Answers Are Cheap: The Quiet Crisis of Leadership Judgment

Jesse Jacoby

The Communication Architecture of Successful Transformations

Jesse Jacoby

When the Board Says “Transform” But the Culture Says “Survive”

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Jesse Jacoby

Jesse Jacoby, Founder of Emergent and Author of Emergent JournalI am the editor of this blog and founder of Emergent, a boutique consulting firm specializing in business transformation and strategic change. Welcome!

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Emergent Journal is a collection of business articles containing practical methods, tools, and tips for driving change and implementing business strategies from a people and change perspective. It is published by Emergent, a consulting firm headquartered in Denver and serving Fortune 500 clients across North America.

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Latest posts

Who Moves the Boundary? The AI Decision Rights Question That Determines Everything Else

by Jesse Jacoby

The Judgment Premium: Why AI Raises the Value of the Calls It Cannot Make

by Jesse Jacoby

Most New Managers Get No Training. We Promote Them Anyway.

by Jesse Jacoby
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