LEADING
with AI

Training for 'AI-First' Managers and Leaders who build high performance teams, the human way

Restore the balance between people and performance
with AI

Do you choose people or performance? High performance requires both: All People Alive and Kicking.

Over-emphasizing kindness erodes accountability (Survival of the Nicest). A rigid results-focus creates politics (Survival of the Toughest). Both stifle effectiveness.

AI helps create that balance, regardless of your natural style. It assists you with everything: from the most ‘mundane’ administration to razor-sharp strategies and the most nuanced human challenges.


E-mail: joris@managingwithoutpower.com
Mob: +31 6 463 474 85

INCOMPANY training

AI-First Leadership for Agile Organizations

Leading with AI enables your leaders to role model effective, ethical AI application—without needing to be the most technical person in the room.

We deliver action-based training and a practical toolkit for every aspect of management and leadership. Build High Performance Teams while accelerating AI adoption across your entire organization.

Through Leading with AI your organization will benefit from:

  • Higher productivity through effective thoughtful AI application.
  • High Performance Teams built on trust and intrinsic motivation.
  • Reclaimed leadership time reinvested where it matters most.
  • Sharper strategies with a seamless transition to execution.
  • Growth-minded leaders who accelerate technology adoption.
  • Higher retention with less burnout and ‘quiet quitting’.

E-mail: joris@managingwithoutpower.com
Mob: +31 6 463 474 85

It’s the perfect fit for...

Large Organizations aiming to…

  • Accelerate AI adoption while setting the standard for ethical, effective application.
  • Build High Performance Teams that are resilient and ready for change.
  • Break the AI deadlock, removing the fear and the need for deep technical expertise.
  • Close consistent gaps between strategy, prioritization and execution.
  • Create consistency in style and quality of management and leadership.
  • Secure talent by boosting engagement and preventing burnout.

Start ups & Scale ups aiming to…

  • Scale while retaining culture and effectiveness.
  • Lead the industry by embedding AI across the entire organization.
  • Professionalize young managers without without turning them into 'traditional style' managers.
  • Reduce growing pains by sharpening strategy, prioritization, and execution.
  • Create consistency in management style and leadership quality.
  • Secure talent by boosting engagement and preventing burnout.

E-mail: joris@managingwithoutpower.com
Mob: +31 6 463 474 85

Course structure

Train your managers and leaders to build high performance teams, with AI as their sparring partner

We will work on real management and leadership challenges in your organization. With a systemic approach supported by proven frameworks, AI-applications and measurement we help groups of managers and leaders, and their management team apply principles of Managing Without Power. You'll co-create the management principles and structures needed for lasting change.

Trainings are run incompany, and are customized to the needs of the organization. Elements of the program can be run separately or be combined. We regularly run trainings during offsites, and can also guide individual managers, or do new manager onboarding.

Module 1

Brilliant Basics
Part 1
  • Kickstarting your journey to apply AI for all aspects of management and leadership.
  • Measure upward feedback on the ten behaviors of great managers, and analyze results with AI.
  • Applying the five brilliant basics to build trusted relationships and intrinsically motivated teams.
  • How to manage effectively in a remote environment.
  • How to run meaningful conversations about personal growth, career and life.

Module 2

Brilliant Basics
Part 2
  • Writing strategy and objectives 90% faster with AI, reclaiming time for strategic thinking and alignment conversations.
  • Agreeing and cultivating healthy team norms, including norms for thoughtful use of AI.
  • Tracking progress, course correcting and providing ongoing feedback.
  • Running fair and predictable performance evaluations.
  • Dealing with low performers timely, effectively and respectfully.
  • Creating accountability in a human way.
  • Using AI to practice difficult conversations and to set consistent expectations.

Module 3

High Performance
Through Human Leadership & Safety
  • What makes a high performance team, and how to combine high performance and humaneness?
  • Creating psychological safety through actions in the ‘moments of the truth’.
  • Making objective decisions under pressure with AI.
  • Coaching on the job, and practicing it with AI.
  • How to make sure all types of people can succeed.
  • Using AI to become a more versatile leader and adapt your style to the needs of different people.

Module 4

Org Transformation Space for change
Making change the new normal in any organization
  • Making change part of core work by writing strategy and objectives with data, mind and heart.
  • Use AI to make your vision and strategy actionable, and bring people along with change.
  • Applying the ‘change formula’ for teams and organizations: rolemodel, amplify, (don’t) tolerate.
  • Fostering ownership and entrepreneurship in all layers of the organization.
  • Using data based experiments to optimize your people strategy.
  • Creating space to innovate in a growing organization.

E-mail: joris@managingwithoutpower.com
Mob: +31 6 463 474 85

Packages

Example: Training for leaders and Management Teams
2 days, incompany:

Applying the five Brilliant Basics of high performing teams at scale. Defining your personal leadership philosophy and applying it with both idealism and pragmatism. Leading with data, mind and heart. Being a rolemodel for growth mindset and thoughtful application of AI.

We'll explore desired leadership principles and the gap versus reality. We jump back and forth between the role of individual leaders as manager of their team and as role model for the organization. We will review and co-create supporting tools and AI-Prompts to enable consistent quality and style of leadership in all layers of the organization.
€10,000
(price is per group of 6 to 12 leaders)
This is an indicative example. All content will be customized to your ways of working. For large assignments a discount will be applied. Suitable for Management Team offsites. Online or blended formats are possible.  
Example: Brilliant Basics for Managers
3 days, incompany:

Applying the ten behaviours of great managers with personal and situational awareness using feedback from your team. Five Brilliant Basics for high performing teams. Developing Personal & Strategic Leadership. Using AI across all aspects of management and leadership.

We apply AI prompts and practical tools directly to real-world challenges, ensuring application on the job between training days. Every element of the program is customized to your organization and can be delivered in flexible formats, including face-to-face, online, or blended sessions. By learning from peers and tackling actual business challenges together, participants form the personal and strategic allyships necessary to drive impact.
€13,500
(price is per group of 8 to 14 managers)
This is an indicative example. All content will be customized to your ways of working. For large assignments a discount will be applied. Online or blended formats are possible.
One-on-one Leadership Coaching
In one-on-one coaching, we help you build high-performance teams by mastering the balance between people- and performance-centric leadership. We believe consistent behavior is far more critical than eloquent words or polished strategy decks.

In a series of one-on-one video calls, Joris Merks-Benjaminsen helps you pinpoint the weakest links across the '5 Brilliant Basics' for high-performance teams. You will utilize upward feedback from your team on Google's 'ten behaviors of great managers'.

Core focus is on applying tools and AI-prompts on 'moments of truth' across all aspects of management and leadership. This is how you convert good intentions into consistent, impactful leadership.
€3,000
(price is for 10 one-on-one sessions excl. VAT)
One-on-one sessions are always custom.

E-mail: joris@managingwithoutpower.com
Mob: +31 6 463 474 85

Customer testimonials

If you’re a manager, or are looking to upskill managers, if you want to establish an inclusive culture with start-up spirit in a large organization, or you’re a scale-up, growing rapidly but eager to maintain the culture you’ve built, then look no further than Joris’s Leading With AI.

Kim Wylie

Global Director of People Development & Change at Farfetch

Leading With AI is NOT ‘Edutainment’. It’s practical application of learning. It achieves change and transformation at a systemic level, which is the only way to achieve lasting impact in my experience. I can highly recommend working with Joris.

Stephanie Conway

Senior Director Talent Development EMEA & LATAM at LinkedIn

What makes or breaks a startup is the team and culture that you build. In the day-to-day chaos of building its easy to not be deliberate about building that culture. Joris provides practical, low-nonsense tools and training to help us create a high performance team in a human way. We would highly recommend him.

Stef van Grieken

CEO and founder of Cradle.bio

Joris offers immediately applicable, practical and strategic tools. He helps leaders run teams in a human focused, performance driven and consistent way. He combines a wealth of experience with humaneness, pragmatism & authenticity.

Joris de Haas

Global People Business Partner at Wise

Joris' trainings have given us not only a proven framework but also very practical tools to become a more performance- oriented organization. His step by step explanation and focus on practical application have helped us tremendously to get a good foundation and start with that.

Jasper ten Hove

PostNL Director of IT E-commerce
(the Dutch national postal service)

Seeing Joris bring his book Leading With AI to life and apply it to GetYourGuide's challenges was nothing less than energizing. It was a valuable binding experience for our group of Directors and VP's who were sometimes moved to tears.

Wouter Blok

Vice President Growth Marketing at GetYourGuide

About us

Joris Merks-Benjaminsen

Joris integrates technological innovation with authentic leadership. As the former Head of Google Digital Academy, he accelerated the digital transformation of the top 100 brands in EMEA. Within Google, he was recognized as one of their highest-rated managers worldwide. Drawing on this hands-on experience, he developed the programs Managing Without Power and Leading with AI.

Joris is an award-winning author with a clear mission: helping leaders restore the balance between people and results while empowering organizations to fully embrace new technology. He guides executives and teams through action-based in-company training and coaching.


E-mail: joris@managingwithoutpower.com
Mob: +31 6 463 474 85

Some of the companies I’ve worked with:

Joris is a rare kind of leader and mentor: generous, super smart, insanely knowledgeable, insightful and humble. He’s truly collaborative, and fun with an abundance of quiet energy. He is the person you really want to be leading your team. And if you can't have that, you definitely need him to be working WITH your team to enable them to be the best they possibly can be.

Jo Royce

AVA Head of People, Culture and Capabilities, ex-Unilever

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Book Joris
for your event or podcast

In my quest to create organizations that are highly effective as well as great to work for, I frequently speak at leading industry conferences and incompany events. I also make guest appearances on podcasts, contributing to conversations that matter. Here’s a podcast I joined recently.