[Watch the video of this post here].

After almost a decade of running Aloa® Agency, let me tell you the only management advice that actually works, and how that applies to being a leader in the age of AI.

In my opinion, every management book really overcomplicates this, but it’s not that hard.

Dale Carnegie said it best in 1936: "The only way to influence people is to talk about what they want."

Adam Smith said it in the 1700s: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

It’s the foundation of modern economics.

Translation: As a leader, nobody cares about your goals. They care about theirs.

One of the best management stories I've ever heard? FedEx couldn't get packages sorted fast enough. Their workers were paid hourly. So they worked... as hourly workers do. cough

The fix wasn't motivation or threats. It wasn't culture. It wasn't KPIs or pizza parties. It was much simpler:

The big insight was to pay people by the shift instead of by hour. Finish early? You go home early. Same pay.

Packages started flying, and their problem was solved.

The workers' goal was never "sort packages efficiently." It was "get home to my family." FedEx just aligned their system with what people actually wanted.

This means everything:

→ What does this person actually need? Hint: It’s often more time and money.

→ How do I make their goal and my goal the same thing?

Great leaders know it's not enough to only have negative consequences for missed targets. That's just a stick with no carrot.

Exceed your target by X? You get X percentage. You make more money. You improve. Now we're rowing in the same direction.

That's incentive alignment.

This is exactly why most companies have a hard time communicating AI to their teams.

They announce AI initiatives by talking about "efficiency gains" and "competitive advantage”, but those are company goals.

Employees hear: "We're replacing you."

This leads to fear, resistance, and worse, quiet sabotage.

But what if you said: "This tool will eliminate the 3 hours of data entry you hate. You'll finally have time to do the work you actually wanted to do when you took this job."

Same initiative. Completely different message and response.

The fear isn't about AI. It's about people not knowing what's in it for them.

We need to stop managing people by talking in terms of what we want.

We must take the time to learn what they want, and start building a bridge to that.