<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Gardeners not Mechanics]]></title><description><![CDATA[How to cultivate change at work by thinking like gardeners not mechanics.]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/blog</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Thu, 13 Aug 2026 14:39:49 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/blog-feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title><![CDATA[The AI backlash may be what AI needs.]]></title><description><![CDATA[The backlash has already begun. Not as one coherent idea, but as a collection of different frustrations that are starting to attach themselves to AI. There are the data centres: huge, ugly, resource-hungry buildings appearing in local communities, increasingly associated in the public mind with the demands of AI. There are people at work being told they must use AI, sometimes with their usage measured, whether or not it actually helps them do their jobs. There are organisations that started...]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/the-ai-backlash-may-be-what-ai-needs</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a7b3ded2ca7f56c717cb1ce</guid><pubDate>Tue, 11 Aug 2026 15:22:41 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_a6ac3fa41f4a4b61aaef9bf159ac6ceb~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[I’ve removed data literacy from my AI leadership framework]]></title><description><![CDATA[For the past 18 months, one of my five skill groups for leaders in the age of AI has included systems thinking, critical thinking and data literacy. I no longer think data literacy deserves that place. I have replaced it with managing uncertainty and risk. Data literacy still matters, of course. But agentic AI has changed what leaders most urgently need to understand. AI agents do more than generate answers. They can act, operate across systems and pass work between one another, often at...]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/i-ve-removed-data-literacy-from-my-ai-leadership-framework</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a7b2e3cf53a5f7f65d4e040</guid><pubDate>Tue, 11 Aug 2026 14:15:08 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_6913a331e9f04788a62e73fb6186cedb~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_724,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Don’t start your AI adoption with AI]]></title><description><![CDATA[I have been trying to make sense of what is actually happening with AI adoption in organisations. Consultancies are training thousands of people to help clients implement it. Organisations are buying licences, running pilots and building agents. Some are mandating its use and measuring activity. Much of this still appears to begin with the technology. Where can we use AI? What can we automate? Which workflows can we speed up? Those are understandable questions, but they come too early. The...]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/don-t-start-your-ai-adoption-with-ai</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a66143f10a4941c072a6b13</guid><pubDate>Sun, 26 Jul 2026 14:09:17 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_0671bff0b9884c2ab3e7f162a1787568~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Writing is thinking. Speaking is thinking.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Writing is not simply a way of recording thoughts. It is often how thought happens. The same is true of speaking. We begin with an incomplete idea, hear ourselves express it, notice what does not quite make sense, and refine it as we go. That's how our brains work. That is why I worry about using AI too early. If we ask it to produce the first draft before we have formed our own view, it does more than save time. It frames the argument, chooses what matters and sets the direction of travel....]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/writing-is-thinking-speaking-is-thinking</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a44f25ff5f40624272c8397</guid><pubDate>Wed, 01 Jul 2026 10:58:25 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_57871eb06719432c9b18c8051316ca56~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Leaders: closing the knowing-doing gap]]></title><description><![CDATA[Most leaders know what good leadership is supposed to look like. Listen carefully. Stay curious. Involve people. Consider different perspectives. Avoid jumping to conclusions. But knowing what to do is not the same as being able to do it when the situation is ambiguous, the stakes are high, and somebody challenges your first answer. More than 25 years ago, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton gave this problem a name: the knowing-doing gap. Their focus was organisational performance, but the...]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/leaders-closing-the-knowing-doing-gap</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a44e72769b2dfbbf12dfdda</guid><pubDate>Wed, 01 Jul 2026 10:09:47 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_9d4d2b6c2be64cbbb5e2bf4d82d1669e~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Can a conversation reveal more about someone’s capability than a polished written answer?]]></title><description><![CDATA[I came across a fascinating new paper through Dr Philippa Hardman 's excellent newsletter on how AI is quietly reinventing assessment. Researchers at NYU used AI voice agents to conduct oral examinations with students. The AI questioned them about their work, probed their reasoning and asked follow-up questions. The resulting conversations were then assessed against a rubric by several different language models. The study is small and the approach still needs proper validation against expert...]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/can-a-conversation-reveal-more-about-someone-s-capability-than-a-polished-written-answer</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a44e6403c06bdad542bd050</guid><pubDate>Wed, 01 Jul 2026 10:07:44 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/9b778fce23064535ad2fdb20f0c0bbfe.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Your AI agent may be doing the maths correctly and still be wrong]]></title><description><![CDATA[The world has gone a bit mad for AI agents. Claude Co-work, Codex and Copilot agents, … increasingly complex workflows are being handed over to systems built on large language models. Yet somewhere along the way, we seem to have gone strangely quiet about hallucinations and other forms of AI error. In the early days of ChatGPT, if I analysed survey data, it was obvious that deterministic code was being written and executed. The calculations were automatically visible and reproducible. Today,...]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/your-ai-agent-may-be-doing-the-maths-correctly-and-still-be-wrong</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a17efcfa7aaf20e8c5492db</guid><pubDate>Thu, 28 May 2026 07:36:16 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_8c971d5d2f674fcf991fe4f86cc174cd~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why teams need to think about thinking with AI]]></title><description><![CDATA[Based on: Sun, S., Li, Z. A., Foo, M.-D., Zhou, J., &#38; Lu, J. G. (2025). How and for whom using generative AI affects creativity: A field experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 110(12), 1561–1573.   https://lnkd.in/emUfwNzx]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/why-teams-need-to-think-about-thinking-with-ai</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b3d787ecfce39c49ac16e3</guid><pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:23:36 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_b6c4d23ec12e43b6aa66828c7472ace1~mv2.jpeg/v1/fit/w_800,h_435,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bullshit automation is not progress]]></title><description><![CDATA[There's a lot of excitement right now about Claude Cowork. It's a step towards agentic behaviour: you give it access to part of your computer, and it can automate work across familiar tools like email, spreadsheets and external services. But what are we actually automating? Before we get to value, there's a background hum of risk we shouldn't pretend away. Handing AI systems access to your files and workflows assumes nothing goes wrong, nothing hallucinates, and nothing inconvenient happens...]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/bullshit-automation-is-not-progress</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b3d723c4e83ebf53c2ee04</guid><pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:22:04 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_556ecfba94544574bdb684131e3b363c~mv2.jpeg/v1/fit/w_800,h_533,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Leadershipskillbuilder.ai - Beta test now live]]></title><description><![CDATA[Below is the vison which you can test drive in beta at https://leadershipskillbuilder.ai]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/beta-test-now-live</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b3d66202e925b027b36abe</guid><pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:20:44 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_8e70bb7f3ada488badd09aaf6510c012~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Leadership Skills for the Age of AI]]></title><description><![CDATA[Leadership Skill Builder is the practical application of this framework.]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/leadership-skills-for-the-age-of-ai</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b3d605c6b514b674cce756</guid><pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:17:06 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_9c6d967b755b408f94525c823a2d51cb~mv2.jpeg/v1/fit/w_800,h_436,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Is the current wave of “agents” narrowing our imagination?]]></title><description><![CDATA[The word agent has suddenly become the label for almost anything that moves. A simple workflow is an agent. A chatbot with a memory is an agent. A string of prompts stitched together is an agent. It is the same pattern we saw when agile and disruption slipped into everyday language. Natural enough, but as the meaning spreads, the underlying idea thins out. That thinning matters, because most of what is now called an agent is really an automation. It follows a sequence. It responds to a...]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/is-the-current-wave-of-agents-narrowing-our-imagination</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69343f4904019cd6c2cc19df</guid><pubDate>Sat, 06 Dec 2025 14:36:40 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_0ae07e72f615433aaf49dd1561829bf1~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Cultivate Change]]></title><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/cultivate-change</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69343f164f0e700bce320ab0</guid><pubDate>Sat, 06 Dec 2025 14:35:05 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_4a6e422dc66f4a7c93f8e50ee863e84b~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why Lawyers Cite Imaginary Cases and What It Says About the Way We’re Using AI]]></title><description><![CDATA[A few months ago, a US court had to deal with a surreal problem: a legal brief that confidently cited a series of cases that didn't exist. The lawyer hadn't meant to deceive anyone. They'd asked a generative AI model to find relevant precedents and, under pressure, trusted what it produced. The model obliged with fluent nonsense. How does something like that still happen? Probably because the lawyer wasn't using an integrated system at all. It was almost certainly what we now call shadow AI:...]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/why-lawyers-cite-imaginary-cases-and-what-it-says-about-the-way-we-re-using-ai</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69343e829d9a9d9676728854</guid><pubDate>Sat, 06 Dec 2025 14:33:40 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_efff1c549c504a1288c7a81d0fae66a8~mv2.webp/v1/fit/w_1000,h_768,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[My biggest fear about AI Part 2]]></title><description><![CDATA[My biggest fear about AI Part 2 The influence of the LLMs on what users perceive as true will surpass that of social media. The autocrats already have those models in their sights, and organisations are already complying in advance.]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/my-biggest-fear-about-ai-part-2</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69343d8204019cd6c2cc1609</guid><pubDate>Sat, 06 Dec 2025 14:29:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_afee7da6bee847a497e7b1e9cd4828e0~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_611,h_412,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[My biggest worry for AI just got bigger.]]></title><description><![CDATA[On a recent podcast, I was asked about my biggest AI concern. My answer was deliberate disinformation. Not the crude kind we saw on...]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/my-biggest-worry-for-ai-just-got-bigger</link><guid isPermaLink="false">689307404c93746d48a6cbfe</guid><pubDate>Wed, 06 Aug 2025 07:46:10 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_f278bc72d4494e588362d86db28b3dab~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Can AI have consciousness? - A Buddhist view]]></title><description><![CDATA[In June 2022, Google engineer Blake Lemoine made headlines when he claimed that one of the company’s large language models, LaMDA,...]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/can-ai-have-consciousness-a-buddhist-view</link><guid isPermaLink="false">685d3401b504ca897019936b</guid><pubDate>Thu, 26 Jun 2025 11:51:30 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_4be3a765bcab406495fa4833f07c0f21~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Best leadership advice you’ll hear all year.]]></title><description><![CDATA[This video clip of Sam Altman is one of the best pieces of leadership advice you’ll hear all year. In the excitement surrounding AI’s...]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/best-leadership-advice-you-ll-hear-all-year</link><guid isPermaLink="false">68516f8e05d47c18c464cf7a</guid><pubDate>Tue, 17 Jun 2025 13:37:55 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="http://video.wixstatic.com/video/647756_66b423fff8d1466a9f4f24de14c0a48a/1080p/mp4/file.mp4" length="0" type="video"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hear me on the Leadership Educator Podcast]]></title><description><![CDATA[Thank you to   Lauren Bullock, Ph.D.   and   Dan Jenkins, Ph.D. , two outstanding leadership educators, for inviting me to join them on...]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/hear-me-on-the-leadership-educator-podcast</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6829e3ef0b7f5042f1ddee0a</guid><pubDate>Sun, 18 May 2025 13:45:17 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/647756_728fc2aefc0c4dd38faa0b28ccfbb457~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Just launched: the Skills Explorer Beta]]></title><description><![CDATA[In today’s AI-driven world, leadership means navigating real dilemmas — not just answering multiple-choice questions. Skills Explorer...]]></description><link>https://www.gardenersnotmechanics.com/post/just-launched-the-skills-explorer-beta</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6829e18e0b7f5042f1dde7ef</guid><pubDate>Sun, 18 May 2025 13:37:47 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="http://video.wixstatic.com/video/647756_817a7eb5a6df4735b7d661fa4bd4e69e/1080p/mp4/file.mp4" length="0" type="video"/><dc:creator>Gary Lloyd</dc:creator></item></channel></rss>