How to Partner With AI in Your Breakthrough Work
A practical guide for collectives — without losing what makes you human.
By Dr. Michael E Nagel
Organizations today face a unique opportunity: artificial intelligence can dramatically accelerate breakthrough work — but only if integrated thoughtfully within a causal framework.
Introduction: Why AI + BIQ?
Breakthrough Intelligence (BIQ) is the capability to recognize and work with the hidden forces that actually drive sustained organizational flourishing. Most leaders operate blind to the deeper causal dynamics in their organizations. BIQ enables teams to discern what's really shaping their results and work with the forces limiting or generating breakthrough.
The five causal forces of BIQ are:
- 1Breakthrough Future — A desirable yet seemingly impossible future reality your collective works from, not toward. Transformational by orders of magnitude — so audacious it disrupts the status quo and calls forth something new.
- 2Social Structure — The formal and informal mechanisms that shape behavior — roles, norms, policies, meeting designs, reward systems. These actively enable or constrain what feels possible for your team.
- 3Agency — The capacity of individuals and collectives to reflect together and act intentionally. The emergent ability of your team to operate as a collective, not just report to each other.
- 4Organizational Context — The situational factors and environmental conditions surrounding your work. Context isn't passive background; it's causally active in shaping what your team can achieve.
- 5Providence — Openness to transcendent guidance and resources beyond human control. Organizations that exclude this may systematically constrain their capacity for breakthrough.
"AI's superpower emerges when you ask: What becomes possible if we partner with AI to help us rethink things — not just optimize what we're already doing?"
Part 1: AI in the BIQ Order of Operations
The BIQ Order of Operations provides four phases for breakthrough work. This section shows you how to actively partner with AI in each phase — the specific prompts, strategic advantages, and collective practices that accelerate breakthrough.
Phase 1 — Awaken to Causal Patterns
Do What's in Parentheses First · AI as Cross-Domain Pattern Detector
Your collective dialogue is limited by your direct and personal experience. AI can bring pattern recognition from across industries and contexts — expanding what you can perceive. Have team members individually query AI, then reconvene to test AI's insights against your lived reality.
Phase 1 Example Prompts
"In [your industry/sector], what structural mechanisms most commonly constrain collective agency when teams pursue breakthrough goals?"
"Organizations like ours [describe characteristics] often face predictable contextual forces that derail breakthrough. What patterns emerge?"
"When teams have strong individual talent but less strong collective performance, what causal patterns typically explain this?"
Use AI's breadth to enrich your collective dialogue and sense-making, not replace it.
Phase 2 — Frame Your Breakthrough Future
Solve the Exponents · AI as Boldness Stress-Tester and Possibility Expander
Draft your breakthrough future collectively first. Then use AI to stress-test it and expand possibilities. AI connects dots across domains, surfaces analogous breakthroughs you haven't considered, and pressure-tests your frame.
Phase 2 Example Prompts
"Here's our breakthrough future [describe it]. Given our context [describe it], what causal dynamics would need to shift most dramatically to realize it? What are we underestimating?"
"What breakthrough transformations in adjacent industries could inform possibilities we haven't imagined?"
"If our breakthrough future feels too safe, what would a truly audacious version look like?"
"What second-order consequences — both risks and opportunities — are we likely not considering?"
AI can't write your breakthrough future — but it can help you make it more compelling and grounded.
Phase 3 — Turn to Tangible Matters
Multiply and Divide · Primarily Human and Collective Work
Phase 3 is about creating an inventory of what currently exists — initiatives, offerings, operations, resources, technology, processes, tools. You're preparing to engage these tangibles through your BIQ lens, not yet deciding what to change.
AI is not equipped to do this inventory — it doesn't know the history, purpose, or significance of what exists in your organization. But once you have that inventory and clear criteria, AI becomes a powerful objective partner in Phase 4. Phase 3 is the human preparation that makes Phase 4's AI partnership valuable.
Phase 4 — Subtract Before You Add
Reverse the Order · AI as Objective Analyzer in Socially Charged Territory
Because AI is uncoupled from your organizational social dynamics, it can analyze your work without political constraints. Your team evaluates AI's recommendations rather than critiquing each other's projects. Share your full portfolio and breakthrough future with AI. Let it identify misalignment. Then your collective exercises the courage to act.
Phase 4 Example Prompts
"Here are our current initiatives and practices [list]. Here's our breakthrough future [describe]. Map each to: (1) Aligned to breakthrough, (2) Maintaining the past, (3) Unclear. Explain reasoning."
"Which structural mechanisms or practices were designed for a context and priorities that no longer exist?"
"If we designed from scratch with our breakthrough future as north star and no legacy constraints, what would we NOT include?"
"What work consumes significant resources but contributes minimally to breakthrough? Show us the misalignment."
AI brings objectivity uncoupled from social constraints; your collective brings wisdom and courage to act.
Part 2: AI for Continuous Exploration
While the phase-based applications align AI with your breakthrough campaign, AI can also support ongoing exploration — ways to keep sensing, discovering, and adapting as your breakthrough work unfolds.
Future Sensing
Use AI to scan trends, anticipate disruptions, and identify emerging opportunities.
"What future scenarios in [your industry/sector] are likely to affect our breakthrough future [describe it]? What emerging or converging trends should we be monitoring?"
Market Insight
Analyze demographic shifts, emergent signals, and unmet needs to deepen your understanding of who you're serving.
"Describe the likely future lives of our customers/stakeholders. What problems will they face that our breakthrough might solve?"
Hidden Pathways
Surface non-obvious routes to breakthrough by drawing on analogies from other domains.
"What potential pathways to our breakthrough future might currently be hidden from our view? Where have similar breakthroughs emerged through unexpected routes?"
Constraint Analysis and Solution Generation
Reframe problems, identify root causes, and generate solution options you haven't considered.
"Here are the constraints we face in reaching our breakthrough goal [list them]. Help us reframe these challenges and generate potential solutions we might not have imagined."
Talent Development
Define capability gaps and design development pathways aligned with your breakthrough future.
"Given our breakthrough future [describe], what capabilities will our team need that transcend current ways of working?"
Process and Resource Optimization
Identify efficiency opportunities and automation potential, unlocking time for breakthrough pursuits.
"What workflows or resource allocations could we streamline to unlock significant capacity for breakthrough work?"
Data-Driven Insight
See patterns in your own operations that indicate breakthrough opportunities or early warning signs of derailment.
"How can we use our current data to better measure breakthrough progress and reveal what we've been blind to?"
Part 3: Making AI Your BIQ Co-Designer
AI dramatically expands what your collective can perceive, imagine, and analyze. But breakthrough work ultimately requires distinctly human capabilities that AI enhances but cannot replace.
The internal conversation where agency deliberates and drives action. AI surfaces possibilities; people discern meaning and choose direction.
Relentless commitment to uncovering reality. AI analyzes data; people commit to what's objectively real despite social pressure.
The synergy that arises when diverse people co-create through rich social interaction. AI connects dots; people bring the contextual awareness that interprets what those patterns mean.
The courage to act despite structural constraints and social resistance. AI recommends objectively; people courageously act in politically charged territory.
Openness to transcendent resources, guidance, and timing beyond human control. AI optimizes based on data; people remain open to wisdom that can't be manufactured.
Organizational breakthroughs cannot bypass the essential process of navigating shared understanding and consensus through dialogue. AI gives you better inputs for dialogue. But the dialogue itself — the collective sense-making, the building of shared conviction, the social courage that emerges from genuine exchange — remains irreducibly human work.
"The question isn't whether to use AI in your breakthrough work. The question is how to integrate it in ways that amplify rather than replace the distinctly human and social capabilities that breakthrough requires."
Building Your AI + BIQ Working Rhythm
Encourage team members to experiment with these prompts and share what works. Create psychological safety for "AI experiments" just as you do for breakthrough attempts. Consider establishing:
Weekly check-ins — Members share AI-surfaced insights about emerging patterns or opportunities
Monthly reviews — Use AI to pressure-test progress and surface blind spots
Quarterly strategic sessions — Bring AI-generated analyses to inform major decisions