Foreword

By Dan Roberts

Host of the Tech Whisperers Podcast

Author of Confessions of a Successful CIO

and Unleashing the Power of IT

The mantra of "developing the human side of technology" has guided me through four decades of helping leaders transform their workforce, tech functions, and companies. Having partnered with thousands of visionary CxOs, I've studied the mindset, success traits, and patterns that differentiate the good from the great leaders. What you find is a laser focus on getting the fundamentals right. You also find a series of big bets and answer-the-call moments that took vision and courage. These leaders are business first and are laser focused on their Big C: Customer.

They also lead with H.E.A.R.T. in recognizing how they show up with humility, empathy, adaptability, resilience, and transparency.while balancing the need to deliver results, hold people accountable, and have the hard conversations from the board and C-suite to peers and teammates.

That's why this book is such a breath of fresh air.

Show AI-Don't Tell It isn't a technical manual or another opportunistic play on the AI hype cycle. It's the leadership playbook for these times, rooted in real-world experience and grounded in the belief that transformation happens only when people feel it, see it, and trust it. And it's written by someone who knows that better than anyone I know.

Dr. Lisa Palmer brings what I call The Dr. Lisa Factor, a rare combination of practitioner experience, big tech scale, boardroom advisory chops, academic depth, and research rigor. She's been a CIO who knows the pressures of execution. She's been a trusted voice to C-suite leaders navigating disruption. And she earned her doctorate studying applied AI, resulting in the Five Pillars of AI Success, a framework that is helping countless organizations turn good AI intentions into business results.

Dr. Lisa understands what the best leaders already know: Bold AI Leadership is not about the latest algorithm ("a fool with a tool is still a fool!"). It's about people, building trust, communicating with clarity, and energizing teams around an exciting future.

That's why this book resonates so deeply with me. Not coincidentally, this book aligns perfectly with a set of characteristics I've observed across every great leader I've known. These leaders never allow themselves to get distracted by the latest bright shiny object. I call these the 7 Cs of Great Leadership, and you will see how Dr. Lisa has masterfully woven these themes throughout her book. Let me highlight a few examples.

Customer: The best leaders put the customer at the center of their strategies. They ensure that everyone in the organization, from the front lines to the boardroom, is aligned around customer needs. Jeff Bezos famously called this "customer-back" thinking, and it has been one of Amazon's greatest differentiators.

Dr. Lisa makes that crystal clear. Her cautionary tale of the airline whose AI chatbot increased frustration, not loyalty, should be required reading for any leader. In contrast, her story of Starbucks' Deep Brew shows what happens when you start with the customer: personalized experiences, higher engagement, and direct revenue growth.

As PwC found, 73% of customers say experience drives buying decisions, yet 60% of AI projects fail because they ignore customer needs. This book's frameworks will help you avoid that trap. Dr. Lisa shows you how to align every AI effort with what your customers value, how to measure the right metrics, and how to ensure AI isn't just efficient, but delightful.

Culture: As Peter Drucker famously said, "Culture eats strategy for lunch." I've seen it happen over and over: organizations with perfect AI roadmaps fail because they didn't build a culture ready to absorb failure, iterate, and learn. Culture truly is the invisible force that determines success.

Dr. Lisa brilliantly devotes a chapter to building cultures where AI thrives. Imagine working in a place where curiosity replaces fear, experimentation is encouraged, and learning is capitalized. The book's case study contrasting Amazon's AI-embedded culture with a Fortune 500 retailer's failed rollout is a masterclass on why culture, not algorithms, determines success.

I especially love her Decision Evaluation Framework: simple, actionable questions that force cultural clarity before launching any initiative. Questions like "Will this democratize access?" or "Are we chasing signal or noise?" don't just guide AI, they shape the kind of culture you're building.

Cultivate: One of the greatest insights I've gleaned from great leaders is their genuine passion for setting their people up to thrive as a future-ready workforce. People/Talent are not the last pillar of their overarching strategy; they're the first. These leaders build workforce strategies that are more holistic, data-driven, and differentiated. They inspire ambition in their people. They know, grow, engage, retain, and attract the best workforces, setting their companies up to win.

Dr. Lisa shows that scaling AI isn't just about adding algorithms; it's about scaling your people's capacity to create value. Sarah Chen's journey reveals how AI pilots succeed when frontline employees become active participants, not passive users. The book's upskilling strategies-educating leaders, training cross-functional teams, and redefining roles to embrace Human + AI partnerships-are a blueprint for cultivating the agile, highly adaptive teams every organization needs.

And when resistance appears, Dr. Lisa demonstrates how AI literacy can turn skeptics into innovators, unlocking creativity across your workforce.

Courage: Fear is the enemy of progress. It's also the common denominator of courage, because without fear, there's no need for courage.

As I've studied successful transformations, there is always a "burn the ships" moment. There's that courageous act that signals to everyone that there's no turning back. That the path ahead, while uncertain, is the one we must take together.

Throughout the book, stories like Sarah's illustrate courage in action: transforming skepticism into trust, persisting through execution resistance, and building unstoppable momentum with the AI Performance Flywheel. Dr. Lisa operationalizes courage with practical tools like Visual Dartboarding, a way to move from abstract ideas to visual clarity that sparks alignment and action.

This book doesn't just tell you to be bold; it gives you a system for making bold decisions with speed and rigor, a necessity when AI moves faster than traditional decision cycles.

Change: The great leaders know how to take people on a journey, even when the road ahead is fraught with risk, unknowns, and the promise of hard work and long hours.

Driving lasting change takes a sustained top-down commitment and a strong, grassroots, bottom-up approach. It also takes what I call "winning the middle." Because middle management is the make-or-break layer. If you can move the middle from frozen to magic, you will have a greater likelihood of building and sustaining momentum.

The AI Performance Flywheel shows that success isn't a linear path. Rather, it's iterative and layered, cycling through foundation, execution, scale, and innovation. The Visualization Tool Decision Framework is a game-changer, helping leaders secure buy-in by turning complexity into clear, shareable visuals.

Southwest Airlines' iconic napkin sketch is the perfect metaphor: clarity and simplicity can launch billion-dollar ideas. Dr. Lisa shows how to apply that principle to AI adoption, recognizing that clear visuals create shared vision and unstoppable momentum.

Collaboration: "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." That proverb has never been more relevant. The journey ahead will require collaboration on a scale we haven't seen before, not just internally across functions, but externally with a growing ecosystem of partners, suppliers, and innovators.

AI is not a solo sport. It requires cross-functional collaboration at every level. The book's chapter on collaborative teams is one every CIO should bookmark. The story of John Deere integrating farmers, agronomists, and AI engineers proves how diversity of expertise transforms AI from a tech experiment into a business force.

Dr. Lisa's frameworks for orchestrating multiple AI initiatives across different maturity levels will help you avoid silos and tap into your organization's collective genius.

Communication: The best leaders differentiate themselves and their organizations by communicating with clarity. This is critical because we know confused minds don't act.

In the age of AI, clarity is more important than ever. We need everyone rowing in the same direction and at the speed of AI.

The most successful leaders don't just explain, they show. This book's relentless focus on visualization as a storytelling tool ensures AI doesn't remain an abstract mystery. Whether you're sharing opportunity maps with executives, risk heatmaps with boards, or customer journey maps with frontlines, Dr. Lisa gives you the visual tools to make your case. Once again, her frameworks will help you turn skepticism into...