Hi First name / there,

 

FICO just announced its plan to cut about 15% of its workforce as part of a restructuring that includes bringing AI into how it builds product. Reuters did the math: roughly 570 people.

 

I'm not going to debate whether AI is taking jobs. What I keep thinking about are two sentences leaders say, often in the same meeting:

Both can be true. But both treat capacity as people plus tools. That's not how work actually moves.

 

Every business runs on two operating models.

 

One is written down: the org chart, the SOPs, the workflow someone configured in the software. 

 

The other is the one that actually runs. The person who knows which client gets the exception. The spreadsheet nobody admits is the system. The meeting after the meeting.

 

Remove people and add a tool in the same quarter, and you've changed both at once. Only one was ever documented.

 

The tool gets built around the version on paper. The work nobody wrote down doesn't leave with the person. It goes looking for someone to land on.

 

Usually, that's whoever has the most authority and the least time.

 

I don't know what's happening inside FICO, and the company says a simpler structure will help it move faster.

 

But this is the part I would watch.

 

The savings show up early. The cost shows up later. A delay here. The same question asked again. A decision that sits.

 

You don't need 3,800 employees to make a version of this move. "We won't backfill that role. We'll use a tool." 

 

It makes sense on a spreadsheet.

Before you do it, trace the work, not the role. Write down what that person actually does in a week, including what nobody asked them to do. Then decide what the tool takes and who inherits the rest.

 

If you can't answer that second part, you haven't created capacity yet. You've moved the work to someone else's desk.

Here's a question to sit with this week. What does your business do that isn't written down anywhere, and who does it?

 

If the answer is you, that's worth knowing before you remove anyone or add a tool.

 

I write more about how this plays out on our Insights page.

C.E.O,  Founder & Behavioral Operational Strategist