Experts often frame the future of work around novelty, sophistication and emerging tech. Transformation strategist Matt Collier sees it differently.
Even as AI tools become more prevalent and valuable, agency leaders who thrive will be the ones who emphasize the fundamentals of working well with people, he said.
Collier’s work helps leaders build those everyday capabilities so teams can adapt, collaborate and solve problems with clarity.
Design thinking in the age of AI
Over-reliance on AI tools, Collier warned, can dull the thinking skills leaders depend on most, with negative neural, linguistic and behavioral effects.
He referenced a recent MIT study that asked participants to write essays using ChatGPT, Google search or no tools at all. Researchers tracked brain activity and found that the ChatGPT group showed the lowest engagement and the weakest performance across neural, linguistic and behavioral measures.
Leaders can let AI accelerate research and synthesis while still strengthening the qualities teams need most — grit, determination and resilience, Collier said. “All of those are necessary for coaching advisors and building high-performing teams.”
He advocates design thinking, a framework that strengthens skills that cannot be automated. Design thinking is a structured, people-first approach to solving problems and improving experiences. Sometimes called human- or user-centered design, it starts with empathy, tests ideas quickly and learns through iteration. Instead of jumping to solutions, teams explore needs, experiment and refine until they find what works.
At its core, design thinking helps leaders shape better solutions by looking at any idea through three practical lenses:
Desirability: Is it something people want or need? Does it meet them where they are, accounting for their context, hopes and concerns?
Feasibility: Is it possible to deliver through tools, systems and processes?
Viability: Does it make sense to pursue? Will it create value and produce results?
Design thinking helps leaders keep human skills sharp and build them further, so when combined with AI, teams are stronger and “much more positioned to take on the future,” Collier said.
Use this design-thinking rhythm repeatedly
Design thinking is often presented as a set of tools — sticky notes, templates and playbooks that leaders can download and run with their teams.
Collier said those methods are helpful, but they aren’t the point. What matters more are the underlying mechanics: how a process shapes individual thinking and group collaboration. When leaders understand those principles, they can apply design thinking naturally in any situation, including recruiting, onboarding, retention, coaching and agency management.
Collier recommends a simple, three-phase rhythm leaders can return to whenever they need clearer thinking and better collaboration. Through these steps below, leaders explore options, make sense of what matters and decide how to move forward.
1. Diverge
The first stage generates possibilities without rushing toward conclusions. It creates space for broader input, so leaders see the full landscape of issues, perspectives and opportunities before narrowing the conversation.
“Diverge is about putting lots of options on the table,” Collier said.
Leaders must create the right conditions for this stage to work, he said. Patterns often surface only after leaders ask for specifics and give everyone space to contribute. Starting with a few minutes of quiet reflection ensures every person contributes, not just the most outspoken voices.
2. Emerge
Next, leaders can make sense of what they’ve gathered and identify the real tension underneath the symptoms. The goal is to encourage open dialogue about what is most important and what the real challenges are.
"It's messy because this space tends to deal with conversation, discussion, debate, dialogue, sometimes heated debate,” Collier said.
For example, a leadership team might wrestle with whether advisor turnover is a recruiting issue, a coaching issue or a culture issue, as different managers bring different viewpoints based on what they see in the field. Or if production is down, the first instinct might be more activity, but a design-thinking conversation might reveal that advisors are unclear on expectations, unsure how to position value or hesitant to re-engage past prospects.
In such cases, communication and facilitation matter greatly. Leaders help advisors articulate what they’re seeing and hearing so the group can move from scattered observations to shared understanding. Clarity is the goal.
3. Converge
Converge is when leaders prioritize and decide. The team narrows the options, selects the most promising path and commits to a small set of steps to test quickly.
“When you come out of brainstorming, you're looking for the three top ideas that you want to go build out further,” Collier said.
If an agency is trying to improve marketing consistency, for example, the leader might take 20 social media ideas from the team and converge on three that fit the brand and are easy to execute. After generating ideas and debating what matters most, the group chooses what to act on.
Putting the rhythm into practice
Leaders can repeat the diverge > emerge > converge sequence whenever the situation calls for it, Collier said. He compared it to breath work, where breathing in is the first step, followed by holding in the breath and finally breathing out. The rhythm begins to feel natural when leaders practice it consistently.
To help leaders experience the three stages of design thinking, Collier leads an exercise for leaders built around the prompts “roses,” “thorns” and “buds.” Roses capture positive takeaways and encourage insights. Thorns surface concerns, friction and challenges. Buds identify opportunities and ideas to try next.
Download the tool, “Roses, Thorns, Buds: A 15-Minute Team Clarity Reset.”
What leaders should protect as AI accelerates
What happens in a physical agency space — individual reflection and shared conversation — creates context and connection AI cannot replicate, Collier said.
It’s the leader’s responsibility to keep teams curious, empathetic, resilient and able to think critically together. Design thinking offers a repeatable way to develop those skills.
“Let’s not lose this fundamentally human ability to hear people’s stories, to connect with them, to draw relationships between their stories and our own and then share them with our colleagues,” Collier said.
This article is based on the 2025 MDRT Global Conference session, “Future skills and agency transformation.”
Darin Painter is a freelance writer and editor in Strongsville, Ohio, USA, and owner of the content development business Writing Matters (www.writingmatters.com).
