AI Won't Unlock Your Team's Amazing Potential - Understanding PAEI Will
- Rick Cramblet
- Jun 23
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 28
Artificial Intelligence has its place, but understanding your organization's PAEI dynamic can change everything!
This is the first of a few posts on this topic - kept short for a busy world...
Artificial Intelligence is all the rage and the number of news articles, books, podcasts, YouTube rants, documentaries, etc. about it seems to expand exponentially by the day. As a daily user of AI tools (I have several paid subscriptions and currently use a variety of AI's for different purposes), I appreciate AI's expanding capabilities to make certain repetitive or mundane tasks quick work. I also have a certain level of fear about how it could be used (or misused) as it becomes "smarter" and is allowed to function independently...
As powerful and useful as AI can be, one place it will not help you is in the work of aligning your organization's team members within the functional roles that make everything happen. Unless you master the skill of role alignment, your are wasting time and energy on unnecessary conflict and miscommunication, leading to frustration and suboptimal performance. PAEI informed role alignment makes for happy leaders, engaged employees, satisfied customers and improved profitability. If your business would like any of those things - or all of them? - please read on!
What The Heck is "PAEI"?
I'm using the language of the Adizes Organizational Lifecycle Methodology here and "PAEI" is shorthand for the four roles in any/every organization that are essential to making things happen. Depending on the maturity of the organization, these roles will have different degrees of importance but for this discussion we'll focus on them conceptually. These roles are: the Producer, the Administrator, the Entrepreneur and the Integrator.
PAEI Roles Defined
The four roles are described as follows:
P - Producer (Performing): Focuses on achieving results and meeting immediate goals. Producers are task-oriented, emphasize efficiency, and ask "What needs to be done?" They ensure the organization delivers on its commitments.
A - Administrator (Administering): Concentrates on systematizing processes and maintaining order. Administrators are detail-oriented, value procedures and controls, and ask "How should it be done?" They ensure the organization runs smoothly and efficiently.
E - Entrepreneur (Entrepreneuring): Drives innovation and long-term vision. Entrepreneurs are creative, take risks, and ask "Why are we doing this?" and "What should we be doing instead?" They ensure the organization adapts and grows.
I - Integrator (Integrating): Builds consensus and maintains team cohesion. Integrators focus on people and relationships, facilitate collaboration, and ask "Who should do it?" They ensure the organization works together harmoniously.
In the real world, a person's job responsibilities are seldom confined exclusively to one role. Most of us have two, three or perhaps elements of all four roles but generally there is one that overshadows the others. That predominate role is where the "fun" begins!
A few examples of jobs segregated by the PAEI role most closely aligned to it:
Producer (P) Roles:
Sales managers and sales representatives
Production managers and operations supervisors
Project managers focused on delivery
Customer service managers
Field service technicians
Manufacturing supervisors
Account managers with revenue targets
Administrator (A) Roles:
Finance managers and controllers
HR managers and compliance officers
Quality assurance managers
Operations managers focused on processes
IT managers (systems and infrastructure)
Legal and regulatory affairs managers
Procurement and supply chain managers
Entrepreneur (E) Roles:
CEOs and founders
Business development managers
Product managers and innovation leaders
Strategic planning directors
Marketing managers (brand and growth-focused)
R&D managers
Venture capitalists and investment managers
Integrator (I) Roles:
HR business partners and organizational development managers
Team leads and department heads who manage cross-functional work
Internal consultants and change management specialists
Executive assistants to senior leadership
Corporate communications managers
Union representatives and employee relations specialists
Facilitation and training managers
Preventing "Vitamin Deficiency"
You can think of the PAEI roles as "vitamins" for your organization and if you experience a vitamin deficiency, you will face the resulting adverse effects. Just as a human's deficiency in Vitamin C leads to scurvy or low Vitamin D can result in rickets, a lack of any of the PAEI "vitamins" will likewise have a harmful impact:
Too little "Vitamin P" and you'll experience:
Missed deadlines and poor execution
Low productivity and declining sales
Customers become dissatisfied due to unmet commitments
Projects stall and initiatives fail to deliver results
Organization becomes all talk, no action
Revenue and profitability suffer
Too little "Vitamin A" and you'll experience:
Chaos and inconsistency in operations
Poor financial controls and budget overruns
Compliance failures and regulatory issues
Duplicated efforts and wasted resources
Important details fall through cracks
Scalability problems as the organization grows
High employee turnover due to unclear processes
Too little "Vitamin E" and you'll experience:
Stagnation and loss of competitive advantage
Reactive rather than proactive decision-making
Missed market opportunities
Products and services become obsolete
Short-term thinking dominates
Innovation dies and the organization becomes bureaucratic
Eventually loses relevance in the marketplace
Too little "Vitamin I" and you'll experience:
Internal conflicts and silos between departments
Poor communication and coordination
High employee turnover and low morale
Talented people leave due to toxic culture
Teams work at cross-purposes
Resistance to change initiatives
Loss of institutional knowledge and relationships
Too much of a specific PAEI "vitamin" can also create problems (let's put a pin in that for now) - but you get the idea.
So we find ourselves at an organizational "crossroad" - we need all of our PAEI "vitamins" present and in the proper amount to avoid the consequences their deficiency (or excess) will create, but we also realize that each of these roles are somewhat at odds with their counterparts roles.
It's not hard to imagine that "Producers" may struggle to collaborate well with their "Integrator" coworkers or that your "Entrepreneurs" might not enjoy working side-by-side with the "Administrators". It's easy to see how - without some very specific structural components in place - the sparks will fly!
To recap... In every organization you need to have all four PAEI roles represented and working together. Each role brings a unique perspective and a different way (style) of doing things, which lead to misunderstandings and create the "sparks" that make teamwork a bit tricky. At the same time, each of these roles are vital - their absence will create a "vitaman deficency" which will harm the business. So, it's critical to figure out how to move forward in a positive and productive way.
The PAEI challenge - developing the essential balance:
To Cultivate: Diversity in styles + Commonality of interests
To Avoid: Similarity of styles + Differences of interests
More on this topic in the next installment!
Do topics like this cause frustration? Could you use someone to help you work through your business roles and their alignment? Starting a business is difficult, growing it into a long term success is even more difficult. The elite in every field or discipline have coaches to advise & guide them to their peak performance - do you?
If this post has made you think "Maybe we could use some help in these areas" - please reach out for a free, no obligation initial consultation.
Thank you for investing your time to read this - let's make the future a better place to be!
Contact me at rickcramblet@brite.consulting or (231) 577-9138
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