{"podcast":{"title":"Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts)","slug":"lead-the-team-top-2-of-podcasts-1064768","podcast_index_feed_id":1064768,"rss_url":"https://feeds.captivate.fm/leadtheteam/","website_url":"HTTPS://benfanning.com/blog","image_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/10af0b95-04e6-42cc-b03d-73690ea3bb8a/QKJ4Hxs4kaKpd554m1ArvK6B.jpg","author":"Ben Fanning","episode_count":465,"summary":"Real CEOs. Real Stories. Hosted by Ben Fanning—2025 Gold Stevie Award winner for Best Business Podcast and ranked in the Top 2% globally—Lead the Team draws on over 600 CEO interviews to take you inside the minds of leaders from brands like Honeywell, HP, IBM, Dunkin’, and L’Oréal. In each episode, you’ll hear raw, unfiltered stories of leading through rapid growth, high-stakes decisions, and make-or-break moments—plus the CEO-tested tools and strategies they use to build high-performing teams. From turning around billion-dollar brands to sparking innovation at scale, these leaders share lessons you can put into action right now to lead your own team better. Subscribe now. ------------- https://www.benfanning.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/benfanning/","last_synced_at":"2026-07-23T04:21:29.253817+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/lead-the-team-top-2-of-podcasts-1064768"},"episode":{"title":"Why Most AI Initiatives Are Failing Before They Start  (Ascendion CCO, Arun Varadarajan)","slug":"why-most-ai-initiatives-are-failing-before-they-start-ascendion-cco-arun-varadarajan","published_at":"2026-05-13T08:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/lead-the-team-top-2-of-podcasts-1064768/why-most-ai-initiatives-are-failing-before-they-start-ascendion-cco-arun-varadarajan","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/lead-the-team-top-2-of-podcasts-1064768","url":"http://www.benfanning.com/theceosessions/arun-ascendion","audio_url":"https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/06afd1e4-9f3b-4acc-bdbd-a172674c6bc3.mp3","summary":"Getting AI Wrong Arun Varadarajan, Chief Commercial Officer at Ascendion, reframed how I think about why so many AI initiatives are failing. “90% of projects fail because people don’t spend enough time defining the problem.” Not because the technology failed or the team wasn’t smart enough. It's because leaders started building BEFORE they got clear on what actually needed to change. So what looked like AI progress was really just motion without transformation. And once leaders DO identify the real problem, many still don’t move boldly enough to create meaningful change. They get stuck in pilots. Experiments. Incremental improvements. But never challenge the “untouchable” systems and ways of working that have existed for years. And when that happens, the real transformational impact of AI never materializes. The organization just falls further behind while thinking it’s making progress. Arun shares with us the leadership conviction and organizational courage to get AI right. Where do you think most organizations are still getting AI wrong? ----- Follow Arun on Linkedin Learn more about Ascendion ----- Connect with the Host, #1 bestselling author Ben Fanning Speaking and Training inquires Subscribe to my Youtube channel LinkedIn Instagram Twitter","meta_description":"Getting AI Wrong Arun Varadarajan, Chief Commercial Officer at Ascendion, reframed how I think about why so many AI initiatives are failing. “90% of proje…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3795,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/lead-the-team-top-2-of-podcasts-1064768/episodes/why-most-ai-initiatives-are-failing-before-they-start-ascendion-cco-arun-varadarajan/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/lead-the-team-top-2-of-podcasts-1064768/why-most-ai-initiatives-are-failing-before-they-start-ascendion-cco-arun-varadarajan.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}