Leadership to insanity

Recently I’ve run across a very interesting definition of the word “insanity.” It’s a very fitting one for the world of business. Insanity is taking everything to the extreme.

Any action, any decision — anything at all — when taken to the utmost extreme will constitute insanity. Love of cats is a nice, cute thing when you have one or two critters at home. They’re nice and cuddly. Love of cats — when one goes around, picking up and kissing every stray cat he sees — might look quite loony to some. And there are other ways to love cats that could lead to my ban on this platform, and those definitely constitute insanity.

So, we have degrees of insanity. Not all actions are sane; not all actions are insane. Some actions are more sane, and some are less. And your work as a manager of an organization is to balance everything out. There is no set boundary or limit. What you are trying to do is to make sure that your organization is producing to the best of its potential. And on this path, you have to balance things out — to work toward maximum potential without driving something into the insane band.

For example: One may want to demand that staff arrive on time and produce the work and products required of them. And this is quite a sane request. One might observe that not all staff share the same beliefs and, hence, go for different measures like time control and HR talks. And that would be a sane action. One can also install AI-powered monitoring cameras that face-track every person who is producing something, automatically counting the products and writing pink slips for those who did not meet their quotas. That’s quite insane. Man, if someone does not want to work for you that hard, you’d better figure out what’s going on. It might be that the camera is the problem. Or the staff pay. Or you might have the wrong person on your hands.

Another example, much more real to all of us in 2026: the use of AI. Your designer is using AI to blend different parts of photos in? Perfect! What about your programmers, who run auto-tests with AI-generated data? Amazing! Well done. Get more of that AI in, and ensure that people have the tools they need. One day you will find out that none of your programmers ever look at the code they churn out, and there is no quality control or any other tests. It just goes into production as long as it passes AI testing, and your bills to Claude and OpenAI go into the stratosphere. That’s quite insane — just as insane as blocking all AI in the company altogether.

You see, there is no set limit to what can go to the extreme. You can be too much on something and too little on something. And there is no specific limit on where and what can be too little or too much. So you, as a good manager, are responsible for keeping the balance — and ensuring that everyone knows what to do and where not to go astray.

Allow AI, and keep an eye on those who make it into a god. Also, keep an eye on those who are always stingy about AI. Keep the balance.