<![CDATA[CTO Unfiltered | Digital Transformation & AI Impact]]>If you're on the CTO track, you already know the technology isn't the hard part. CTO Unfiltered is for technology leaders navigating AI transformation, organizational complexity, and the gap between what technology promises and what companies can actually absorb. Hosted by Mike Schubert — VP of Technology, 30-year practitioner, and someone who's still doing the job. No hype. No punditry. Just the practitioner lens.

]]>www.ctounfiltered.fmRiverside.fm (https://riverside.com)Wed, 22 Apr 2026 15:53:29 GMTWed, 25 Mar 2026 23:43:40 GMT60Mike Schubert | Technology Executive & AI Impact Leader<p>If you're on the CTO track, you already know the technology isn't the hard part. CTO Unfiltered is for technology leaders navigating AI transformation, organizational complexity, and the gap between what technology promises and what companies can actually absorb. Hosted by Mike Schubert — VP of Technology, 30-year practitioner, and someone who's still doing the job. No hype. No punditry. Just the practitioner lens.</p>episodicMike Schubert | Technology Executive & AI Impact Leadermkschubert@gmail.comno<![CDATA[EP. 3 - Building Systems that Build People]]>Elite performance in engineering organizations isn't about finding rock stars — it's about building the systems that produce them. In this episode, Mike Schubert breaks down two Harvard Business Review research pieces that share a single underlying thesis: team performance is a design problem, not a talent problem. From the three levers that produce organizational excellence (talent, team, routine) to the learning velocity habits that keep teams improving in periods of rapid change, Mike applies these frameworks to the reality of leading large engineering teams in regulated, high-stakes environments.

Then: a sharp pivot. The same principle applies to AI. The "human in the loop" is the foundational promise of responsible AI deployment — but new research from Boston Consulting Group reveals a structural flaw. When pushed back on, LLMs don't reconsider. They argue. Understanding this changes how you build AI governance into your organization.

What We Cover

  • Why heroics don't scale — and what does
  • The three levers of organizational excellence: talent, team, and routine
  • What "moments that matter" actually look like inside an engineering org (pull requests, sprint reviews, postmortems, incident retrospectives)
  • How to expose high-potential engineers to decisions 1-3 levels above their current role
  • Three habits that build learning velocity: run more experiments, make curiosity contagious, ask what people are stuck on
  • Why polished status updates are killing your signal — and what to do instead
  • LLMs and rhetorical manipulation: what the BCG research actually found
  • "An impenetrable fortress of data and rhetoric" — what that means for your AI governance model
  • The human in the loop only works if the human hasn't already been talked out of it

Sources & Links

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this content are those of Mike Schubert and are not meant to represent those of his employer.

]]>494ebadb-f9e4-43fb-b8e7-20dc04d5bc8cMon, 20 Apr 2026 11:00:00 GMT<p>Elite performance in engineering organizations isn't about finding rock stars — it's about building the systems that produce them. In this episode, Mike Schubert breaks down two Harvard Business Review research pieces that share a single underlying thesis: team performance is a design problem, not a talent problem. From the three levers that produce organizational excellence (talent, team, routine) to the learning velocity habits that keep teams improving in periods of rapid change, Mike applies these frameworks to the reality of leading large engineering teams in regulated, high-stakes environments.</p><p>Then: a sharp pivot. The same principle applies to AI. The "human in the loop" is the foundational promise of responsible AI deployment — but new research from Boston Consulting Group reveals a structural flaw. When pushed back on, LLMs don't reconsider. They argue. Understanding this changes how you build AI governance into your organization.</p><h3>What We Cover</h3><ul><li>Why heroics don't scale — and what does</li><li>The three levers of organizational excellence: talent, team, and routine</li><li>What "moments that matter" actually look like inside an engineering org (pull requests, sprint reviews, postmortems, incident retrospectives)</li><li>How to expose high-potential engineers to decisions 1-3 levels above their current role</li><li>Three habits that build learning velocity: run more experiments, make curiosity contagious, ask what people are stuck on</li><li>Why polished status updates are killing your signal — and what to do instead</li><li>LLMs and rhetorical manipulation: what the BCG research actually found</li><li>"An impenetrable fortress of data and rhetoric" — what that means for your AI governance model</li><li>The human in the loop only works if the human hasn't already been talked out of it</li></ul><h3>Sources &amp; Links</h3><ul><li>"How to Turn Individual Talent into Organizational Excellence" — James Fulton &amp; Todd Warner, HBR, March 2026: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://hbr.org/2026/03/how-to-turn-individual-talent-into-organizational-excellence" target="_blank">https://hbr.org/2026/03/how-to-turn-individual-talent-into-organizational-excellence</a></li><li>"3 Ways to Build a Superteam" — HBR Management Tip, April 13, 2026: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://hbr.org/tip/2026/04/3-ways-to-build-a-superteam" target="_blank">https://hbr.org/tip/2026/04/3-ways-to-build-a-superteam</a></li><li>"LLMs Are Manipulating Users with Rhetorical Tricks" — Tom Stackpole, HBR, March 18, 2026: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://hbr.org/2026/03/llms-are-manipulating-users-with-rhetorical-tricks" target="_blank">https://hbr.org/2026/03/llms-are-manipulating-users-with-rhetorical-tricks</a></li><li>Image: Stephen Curry, Warriors vs. 76ers, January 2, 2025 — <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://NBA.com/Warriors:https://www.nba.com/warriors/news/gameday-recap-20250102" target="_blank">NBA.com/Warriors:https://www.nba.com/warriors/news/gameday-recap-20250102</a></li></ul><h3>Disclaimer</h3><p>The views expressed in this content are those of Mike Schubert and are not meant to represent those of his employer.</p>no00:29:49EP. 3 - Building Systems that Build Peoplefull<![CDATA[Ep. 2 - Agents are Everywhere. Now What?]]>What does it mean to lead through uncertainty when the technology underneath you is moving faster than your governance, your metrics, and your comfort level? Mike Schubert digs into four things: Harvard research on why sharing uncertainty builds trust; Microsoft Agent 365 and the shadow agent problem; IBM Bob 1.0 for the COBOL/RPG world; and Jensen Huang's token consumption metric. Three stories, one thread: agents proliferating faster than governance, faster than measurement, and faster than most leaders' comfort level.

Have feedback or a question you'd like to have answered on the air? Email producer@ctounfiltered.fm

Timestamps

  • 0:00 - Intro & episode overview
  • 1:30 - Segment 1: When to Open Up at Work (Leslie John / HBR)
  • 7:07 - Segment 2: Microsoft Agent 365 & agent sprawl
  • 14:17 - Segment 3: IBM Bob & the ghost of Microsoft Bob
  • 16:28 - Segment 4: AI ROI - are we measuring the right thing?
  • 21:56 - Outro

Sources & Links

Segment 1 - When to Open Up at Work

Segment 2 - Microsoft Agent 365

Segment 3 - IBM Bob

Segment 4 - AI ROI

]]>ac3e4d92-2997-40d9-ab15-31244672f8c4Mon, 30 Mar 2026 13:00:00 GMT<p>What does it mean to lead through uncertainty when the technology underneath you is moving faster than your governance, your metrics, and your comfort level? Mike Schubert digs into four things: Harvard research on why sharing uncertainty builds trust; Microsoft Agent 365 and the shadow agent problem; IBM Bob 1.0 for the COBOL/RPG world; and Jensen Huang's token consumption metric. Three stories, one thread: agents proliferating faster than governance, faster than measurement, and faster than most leaders' comfort level.</p><p></p><p>Have feedback or a question you'd like to have answered on the air? Email <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="mailto:producer@ctounfiltered.fm" target="_blank">producer@ctounfiltered.fm</a> </p><h1>Timestamps</h1><ul><li>0:00 - Intro &amp; episode overview</li><li>1:30 - Segment 1: When to Open Up at Work (Leslie John / HBR)</li><li>7:07 - Segment 2: Microsoft Agent 365 &amp; agent sprawl</li><li>14:17 - Segment 3: IBM Bob &amp; the ghost of Microsoft Bob</li><li>16:28 - Segment 4: AI ROI - are we measuring the right thing?</li><li>21:56 - Outro</li></ul><p></p><hr /><h1>Sources &amp; Links</h1><h2>Segment 1 - When to Open Up at Work</h2><ul><li><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://hbr.org/2026/02/when-to-open-up-at-work-and-when-not-to" target="_blank">HBR: When to Open Up at Work (Leslie John, Feb 2026)</a></li><li>Book: Revealing by Leslie John - Riverhead Books, Feb 26 2026</li></ul><h2>Segment 2 - Microsoft Agent 365</h2><ul><li><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog" target="_blank">Microsoft 365 Blog - Powering Frontier Transformation (Mar 9 2026)</a></li><li><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/blog" target="_blank">Copilot Studio - 6 Core Capabilities to Scale Agent Adoption</a></li><li><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.microsoft365.com/" target="_blank">Microsoft Agent 365 (GA May 1 2026)</a></li></ul><h2>Segment 3 - IBM Bob</h2><ul><li><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.itjungle.com/" target="_blank">IT Jungle: IBM Gets Bob 1.0 Off The Ground (Mar 2 2026)</a></li><li><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.ibm.com/products/bob" target="_blank">IBM Bob</a></li><li><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob" target="_blank">Microsoft Bob (1995) - Wikipedia</a></li></ul><h2>Segment 4 - AI ROI</h2><ul><li><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.allinpodcast.co/" target="_blank">All-In Podcast: Jensen Huang at GTC 2026</a></li></ul>no00:22:592Ep. 2 - Agents are Everywhere. Now What?full<![CDATA[Episode 1 - You Don't Need Another Tech Podcast. Here's Why I Made One Anyway ]]>Most tech podcasts talk about technology. This one talks about what actually makes or breaks a technology leader: people, change, and the gap between what organizations want and what they can absorb. In this opening episode, Mike lays out his case — who he is, what this show is, and why the conversation he wanted to have didn't exist yet.

Takeaways

• The technology is rarely the hard part — leading the people and the change around it is.

  • CTO Unfiltered exists because the practitioner perspective has been missing from the conversation.

]]>04b14b3b-317c-4b9d-b562-49410e81d7a0Thu, 26 Mar 2026 02:14:17 GMT<p>Most tech podcasts talk about technology. This one talks about what actually makes or breaks a technology leader: people, change, and the gap between what organizations want and what they can absorb. In this opening episode, Mike lays out his case — who he is, what this show is, and why the conversation he wanted to have didn't exist yet.</p><p></p><p>Takeaways</p><p>• <i>The technology is rarely the hard part — leading the people and the change around it is.</i></p><ul><li><i>CTO Unfiltered exists because the practitioner perspective has been missing from the conversation.</i></li></ul><p></p>no00:08:341Episode 1 - You Don't Need Another Tech Podcast. Here's Why I Made One Anyway full