Someone Else's Wolves

The wolves that transformed Yellowstone would not produce the same cascade in a different park.

Different elk. Different vegetation. Different waterways. Living systems are particular — what transforms one will not automatically transform another.

Yet this is exactly how most organizations approach AI transformation: visit the company that did it well, absorb their playbook, implement with tremendous effort and fidelity — and get results that bear no resemblance to what they witnessed.

It's not that the model is wrong. It's that the model was grown in a different ecosystem.

In my book I contrast two mindsets. The engineering mindset asks: what worked elsewhere, and how do we install it here? The cultivating mindset asks: what is already alive in this system — and what's the smallest intervention that would give it permission to grow?

Your AI strategy shouldn't be borrowed. It should be grown — from your culture, your people, your community's actual needs.

Are you installing someone else's wolves, or reading your own ecosystem?

From Dancing in the Wind: An Adaptive Leadership Framework in the Age of AI.