Activating the human advantage for strategic AI impact
Trust Rating before Open Water
Client Recommendation Score
to strategic partner
In a single session, you have brought us back from dysfunction. We are not thriving yet, but you have made us functional. And that alone is a huge, huge achievement.
VP, Head of Medical Analytics
A Medical Analytics & AI function of a global biopharma was becoming increasingly important to how the organisation shaped medical strategy.
The team had moved beyond producing reports towards generating AI-led insight with greater strategic visibility and influence. Its ambition was to become an invaluable strategic partner – closer to the decisions where business strategy was set.
But the growing technical capability was exposing a different challenge.
Low trust, guarded communication, unclear decision rights, internal competition and tension within the Leadership Team were limiting collective performance. Frequent reprioritisation and a tendency to say yes to senior stakeholders made it harder to protect priorities and challenge constructively.
For an AI-enabled team, human dynamics can make or break outcomes. AI can increase the speed and volume of insight, but value still depends on people being able to question, interpret, challenge and act together.
Open Water was initially brought in to work with the function’s wider team. The brief centred on building greater assertiveness and confidence in difficult conversations. Diagnostics revealed something more fundamental: many of the issues presenting at team level were symptoms of an unresolved leadership dynamic.
The Leadership Team completed a Lencioni team assessment to understand how effectively they were working together. It confirmed significant barriers to collective performance, particularly around trust, constructive challenge and accountability. Wider diagnostics also identified strained leadership relationships and communication as important sources of friction.
This was a team that delivered strongly, but whose internal dynamics were limiting its ability to create greater strategic value.
Open Water worked across both the wider team and Leadership Team to address the human and organisational barriers limiting impact, strengthen alignment and support the shift from responsive service provider towards empowered strategic partner.
The wider team took part in an immersive EQuip for Influence experience focused on mindset, emotional intelligence, self-awareness, influence and behavioural styles.
The work reconnected people to shared purpose and built greater understanding across sub-teams with different priorities and reporting lines. It strengthened collaboration, communication and the shared voice needed for the function to operate with greater confidence and influence – while creating firmer ground for the leadership work that followed.
The Leadership Team then came together for a dedicated session to focus on the dynamics underpinning what the wider team had surfaced.
The work addressed trust and cohesion, stakeholder relationships, decision-making, priorities and boundaries, constructive challenge and shared accountability. It created space to address difficult issues openly, clarify expectations and strengthen the collective leadership needed to move the function forward.
Targeted 1:1 coaching also addressed strained senior relationships directly – improving collaboration, reducing disruption within the Leadership Team and creating clearer expectations around communication, decision-making and accountability.
“"In a single session, you have brought us back from dysfunction. We are not thriving yet, but you have made us functional. And that alone is a huge, huge achievement." VP, Head of Medical Analytics
The team is on its way to achieving its primary goal – be seen as a trusted, invaluable strategic partners with a strong voice at the "top table" where strategy is set.
Progress has included:
The Open Water sessions received a client recommendation score of 9.2/10.
Looking back at the work we did with the team through Open Water’s Seven Human Dimensions of AI Transformation shows where mindsets and behaviours were limiting the team’s ability to turn AI capability into strategic value:
Trust – people did not always feel safe enough to speak openly, challenge or admit uncertainty.
Judgement – the team needed to move beyond producing analysis towards interpreting what mattered and shaping better decisions.
Meaning – people needed a clearer connection between their work and the strategic value the function was there to create.
Relationships – strained leadership relationships, guarded communication and internal competition were getting in the way of effective collaboration and influence.
Courage – people needed to challenge priorities, push back on senior requests and address difficult issues more openly.
Identity – the function was shifting from being seen as a service provider to operating as an empowered, trusted strategic partner.
Collective Alignment – clearer priorities, ownership, decision rights and ways of working were needed so the team could operate as one rather than as competing individuals or functions.
Strengthening these dimensions moved the team from dysfunction towards stronger collective performance – creating better conditions for its AI capability to translate into strategic impact.
AI can expand what an organisation is capable of. But greater technical capability does not automatically lead to better decisions, stronger collaboration, or strategic impact.
As a human transformation partner, Open Water strengthened the human advantage around AI – through clearer identity, better judgement, stronger and improved relationships, and greater collective alignment needed for the team’s AI capability to create greater strategic impact.
Activating the human advantage for strategic AI impact
Trust Rating before Open Water
Client Recommendation Score
to strategic partner
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Constructive Conflict Strengthened
Successful Transition
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