The Tale of Two Teenagers: Finding and Nurturing Talent in the Age of AI

Last week, two extraordinary moments in sports caught my attention and sparked some deep thinking about talent, potential, and what it means to build capability in our organisations.

First, there was Kimi Antonelli, a 19-year-old prodigy who Mercedes has been developing since his karting days. He's now leading the 2026 Formula 1 World Championship, and at the Canadian Grand Prix he stood on the podium alongside Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, two drivers with eleven world titles between them. A teenager, standing between the greatest of his generation and the greatest of the generation before. Seeing that image was remarkable.

Then, just days later in India, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi played for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL Eliminator. He's 15 years old. He scored an incredible 97 runs off just 29 balls at an extraordinary strike rate, defeating my favourite team, Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Looking at these two young athletes, my first reaction was: "Wow, what exceptional talent!" But when you dig deeper, you realise it's not just about raw talent. What we're witnessing is the result of years of deliberate work, finding the diamond in the rough, seeing the potential of what someone can become, and systematically building their capabilities over time.

The Business World Has Much to Learn

In business, we often expect our team members and leaders to arrive fully formed. We expect them to show up as complete professionals ready to make an immediate impact. But elite sports teaches us something different: you have to work with the talent. Talent doesn't just manifest automatically, it requires cultivation, investment, and patience.

As we build co-intelligent organisations and figure out the interplay between human capability and AI, this lesson becomes even more critical. We need to find the diamonds in the rough within our organisations, the people who will be key to our future success.

Finding Talent for the Co-Intelligent Organisation

The challenge isn't just about identifying talent; it's about finding talent in a way that allows people to create real value. It's not about their current level in the organisation, it's about identifying who is ready to lead the co-intelligent organisation of the future and how we work with them to develop that potential.

Just as Mercedes invested years in Antonelli before he stood on that podium, and just as the Rajasthan Royals saw something in Sooryavanshi worth developing, we need to take the long view on human potential in our organisations.

This requires a different mindset, because what we need for the co-intelligent organisation is someone who understands business but cares deeply about changing themselves quickly enough to experiment and adapt. And here's the thing I keep seeing in my work: the best people for this aren't the obvious candidates.

Let me share a few examples.

I'm working with a council in Australia where the team is remarkably focused on enabling this new way of working. The CEO, the general manager, the strategic lead, the tech people, the person who translates to the business, the finance team, the person who manages corporate services, the person who oversees lawn mowing on the ground, and the engineering team, all of them see extraordinary value in this and are adapting and learning quickly.

I'm working with a timber manufacturer, and over the last seven to eight months it's been incredible to see their journey, from asking "What does it mean to work with AI?" to helping the top 50 leaders understand and work with AI, to developing an AI strategy. Now the team is actually building proof-of-concept AI systems, and from there we're moving to production-level AI agents.

In government, I'm working with the Department for Education, where we're really pushing the cutting edge of what multi-agent architecture looks like.

I see this work across the board, and what strikes me is that this isn't really about a traditional way of thinking. Across all of these engagements, and this is a big one for me as I work with a range of clients, the human is so important. The human brings so much value to the game.

Part of this is understanding the importance of this new capability. If you have new intelligence in your organisation, it needs to have values that the organisation cares for, not just the values of the people building the AI. The most important thing is caring for the organisation, for the customers, and for the employees, the care to make a real difference. That's what's driving them.

As you find those people, I think it's super important to work with them to enable a new way of working that takes time and builds capability. None of these people I work with are traditional AI people. They don't have computer science degrees. They don't even come from the tech space. That's what makes this exciting, the idea of working with and enabling them.