Blogs

The IMI Masterclass series for 2025 opened with a fascinating session featuring Dr Vivienne Ming, a neuroscientist, entrepreneur and AI expert. Renowned for addressing some of the world’s most complex human challenges—from cognitive decline to organisational dysfunction—Dr Ming offered compelling insights on how leaders can future-proof their organisations, foster innovation, and leverage AI to unlock human potential and drive meaningful transformation.

From Neural Networks to Leadership Networks: The Evolution of Intelligence

Dr Ming’s journey into artificial intelligence began during her undergraduate years, when she built a neural network that could distinguish real smiles from fake ones. Funded by the CIA, this work on facial expression recognition laid the groundwork for today’s AI-driven technologies – or as Dr Ming called it, the birth of modern AI.

Yet her story is not about technology alone; it’s about the human element. While AI can recognise facial expressions, it cannot comprehend their meaning. As Dr Ming highlighted, “AI doesn’t know what a smile means – happiness, awkwardness, or something else entirely.”

Her point was clear: the future of leadership isn’t about replacing human intelligence with machines but about using AI to amplify the qualities that make us uniquely human—creativity, resilience, and the ability to explore the unknown. Today, Dr Ming’s work spans from digital health innovations at Dionysus to tackling some of the most ill-posed problems: children experiencing hundreds of seizures a day, nations struggling to attract investment despite following every economic rulebook, even the looming cognitive decline caused by over-reliance on GPS systems.

The Anatomy of Smart Teams: Small, Diverse, and In Sync

One of the session’s most compelling insights was Dr Ming’s research on team intelligence. What makes a team smart and highly effective? According to her, it boils down to three critical factors:

1. Small Size, Big Impact: The smartest teams are typically composed of 3-5 people. Due to their agility and minimal bureaucracy, they tend to outperform larger teams. Beyond this size, the benefits diminish and the need for structure increases, often stifling innovation.
2. Complementary Diversity: Psychological, socio-economic, and expertise diversity is essential. Not every member needs to excel in every area, but together they create a balance where trust and divergent perspectives coexist.
3. Inter-Brain Synchrony: High-performing teams exhibit cognitive alignment, meaning their mental processes sync up, leading to more novel and effective problem-solving. Whether in innovation labs or classrooms, this synchronisation is a predictor of success.

Dr Ming’s research during the pandemic with tech giants like Amazon and Facebook revealed that water-cooler chats weren’t the secret sauce of smart teams. Instead, it was these three elements that kept the brightest teams shining even when physically apart.

Dr Ming challenged leaders to rethink team composition, emphasising that diverse, well-synced teams can outperform even the most brilliant individuals working alone.

Rethinking Intelligence and Hiring

Traditional hiring metrics—degrees, grades, and alma maters—are poor predictors of success, Dr Ming asserted. Instead, meta-learning abilities, self-regulation, creativity and social intelligence are the real differentiators, with her AI-driven analysis of LinkedIn profiles revealing resilience to be a key success trait – yet most hiring processes fail to measure it.

The lesson for leaders trying to identify top talent? Hire for potential and adaptability, not just credentials.

But this insight poses a crucial question for leaders: Are your talent strategies aligned with the traits that truly drive performance? Investing in developing these capabilities within leadership teams and the broader workforce is not just beneficial—it’s essential.

The Cost of Inaction: A Leadership Wake-Up Call

In the face of rapid technological change and rising global competition, leaders who fail to invest in their people risk obsolescence. Dr Ming painted a vivid picture of what this could mean: waning competitiveness, organisational dysfunction, and missed opportunities for innovation. The cost of doing nothing today is irrelevance tomorrow.

Investing in people – their leadership, their teams, and their development – is not optional; it’s essential for survival and success. Building organisations where continuous learning, psychological safety, and bold experimentation are ingrained in the culture.

Dr Ming urged leaders to embrace uncertainty, acknowledging that setbacks are often necessary for breakthroughs. Offering a unique perspective on incentivising innovation, Dr Ming advocated for a “minority incentive scheme,” where rewards are given only when someone takes a risk and proves the majority wrong. This, she argued, pushes teams to think differently and value unique insights over safe bets.

Leveraging AI for Harder, Not Easier, Work

In a world where AI is automating many tasks, the unique human ability to explore the unknown becomes invaluable. Dr Ming’s call to action for leaders was clear: “Don’t use AI to make your work easier; use it to make it harder in ways that matter.” AI’s true value lies in augmenting human potential, not replacing it. Leaders must challenge their teams to tackle complex, ill-posed problems that AI alone cannot solve.

As Dr Ming aptly concluded, “AI can give you millions of answers, but only human intelligence can ask the right questions.” For leaders ready to embrace uncertainty, foster innovation and leverage the full potential of their people, the future is brimming with possibilities.

A Call to Action for Leaders

Dr Vivienne Ming’s Masterclass was more than just an exploration of intelligence and AI; it was a challenge for leaders to lead through uncertainty, seize the digital advantage and reimagine high performance. Over the next five years, leaders will need a specific set of skills and capabilities at both the individual level and the organisational level.

Building on our deep expertise and understanding of evolving organisational needs, IMI is committed to driving sustainable growth through leadership excellence. As part of our newly launched IMI Leadership Model we have developed a whitepaper which delves into what leadership will look like in the future, the specific capabilities and competences leaders will need, and how you and your organisation can prepare. Download Leadership 2030: Why Learning Today Can Shape Tomorrow here.

The cost of doing nothing is too high. The future belongs to those who prepare today.