When the Work Gets Hard, You Want a Human You Trust. Even the AI Giants Know It.

<p>There's a question I ask before I take on any new client: does leadership already know what's broken, or are they hoping I'll discover it so they don't have to say it out loud themselves? If the answer is the second one, I walk.</p><p>This week I connect that standard to something quietly telling: OpenAI and Anthropic, the two companies insisting AI is about to remake white-collar work, needed to walk into real organizations and make hard calls about how work actually gets done. They didn't hand that job to a model. They partnered with McKinsey, BCG, Deloitte, and Accenture. Humans they trust.</p><p>I break down the three questions I use to decide when trust is actually in the room versus when I'm being paid to paper over the fact that it isn't. And I make the case that walking away from paid work is a privilege — which is exactly why it matters more, not less, for those of us who can actually afford to do it.</p><p>Is there a line you've actually walked away from money over, or just one you tell yourself you'd hold?</p>