„We’re not discussing that here.“ — The most expensive sentence in a company

There is a moment I experience in almost every engagement.

Someone puts a topic on the table. Usually not the loudest person in the room. And before the sentence is finished, the topic is gone again. Not with a counter-argument. With a tone of voice.

„We’ve looked into that.“
„This isn’t the right moment for it.“
„We’re not discussing that here.“

Nobody objects. The agenda moves on. And everyone in the room has understood what just happened.

It took me a long time to understand that this is not just a leadership failure. It is protection. A topic becomes taboo when it touches something that has not been decided — or something that would cost someone: budget, role, certainty. Taboos are not stupid. They are expensive.

And right now there is one topic that gets made taboo more often than many others.

Not: „We need to do something with AI.“ That is in almost every strategy, and it costs nothing. But: „What happens to the thing our customers pay us for today, if it can be produced elsewhere in a fraction of the time?“

That is the uncomfortable version. And in a surprising number of companies it is never asked.

I am explicitly not saying that AI solves everything. I have little time for the salvation narrative. But between „AI solves everything“ and „we don’t talk about that here“ lies a large space. In that space it is currently being decided which business models will still hold in five years.

Anyone sailing new waters with old means will not notice the problem on day one. The boat is fine. The crew can sail. It is the water that has become a different one.

What is interesting is where the brake actually sits. In May 2026 the Adecco Group surveyed two thousand board members and managing directors across thirteen countries. 70 per cent of employees feel ready to work with AI agents. Only 39 per cent of leaders believe their people are ready for it.

Thirty-one percentage points. The team is less often the problem than leadership assumes. The team is waiting.

Part 1 was about the team lead who only asked his question during the coffee break. This is the same story, one level up. In the executive team, too, there are questions with no place — except that above them there is usually nobody left to notice.

That is where my work begins: putting the topic back on the table that has already been cleared away twice. Saying the uncomfortable truth, even when nobody wants to hear it. And when it stays without consequence, risking the engagement rather than carrying on alongside. Not because I would have the answer. But because the question deserves to be asked.

My question to you: which topic has come up twice in your organisation over the last twelve months and disappeared twice — and who would have something to lose if it stayed on the table the third time?

Lead yourself, and everything else follows.
— Ralf