Houston? We have a translation problem.
For decades, the agency and consultancy model has relied on a very specific kind of handover. A Strategist creates the vision: a deck, a roadmap, a prototype of a desirable future. It is often beautiful, logical, and inspiring. Then, they throw it over the proverbial “fence” to Engineering to build.
In the traditional world, this was inefficient, but manageable. In the Agentic world (where we are building AI systems that act, reason, and execute), that “fence” has to come down.
The problem is that as AI tools become more powerful, the gap between “having an idea” and “making it work” is widening. We are seeing incredible creativity on one side: strategists solving meaningful consumer needs and identifying deep pain points. On the other side, we have technical brilliance: engineers building robust, scalable architecture.
But the connective tissue is missing.
When “Pure Strategists” meet “Pure Technologists” without a translator in the middle, you end up designing a Ferrari and handing the keys to a team equipped to build a tractor. Great ideas die in the backlog not because they were bad ideas, but because they couldn’t survive the translation into logic.
The Danger of the “Pure Play” Specialist
There is a physical reality to specialisation. If you plant your foot firmly in the “Strategy” camp, you often have to lift your foot out of the “Implementation” camp. You can’t stand effectively in both places without effort.
The further you entrench yourself in pure strategy, the more you drift from the reality of the tools. You start selling science fiction. You promise outcomes that sound plausible in a boardroom but fall apart when an engineer tries to prompt an LLM to actually do it.
Conversely, if you stay purely in the technical weeds, you lose sight of the “Why.” You build elegant code that solves the wrong problem.
We don’t need to replace these specialists. We need to connect them.
Enter the M-Shaped Human
We’ve talked about “T-shaped” for years (broad general knowledge, deep expertise in one area). But for 2026 and the age of AI, I believe we need “M-shaped” employees. These are people with multiple depths of expertise who can straddle the divide.
They aren’t “Unicorns” who can code full-stack apps and write five-year business strategies perfectly (although they are still incredibly valuable). These M-shaped people are Orchestrators, Integrators, and Translators.
(Image Source: Dan Futrell, “M-shaped people are critical to your team’s success in the next decade”, 2024).
For these M-shaped people, this is the mix of disciplines I see becoming essential:
- 60% Business Strategy: This is still the anchor. Understanding the “Desirable.” Understanding the business strategy, the consumer need, and the “Jobs to Be Done.” Without this, we’re just playing with expensive toys.
- 20% Commercial Acumen: Understanding the “Viable.” Can we sell this? Does the ROI exist? What’s the value of the output?
- 20% Tech Literacy: This is the new non-negotiable. Understanding the “Feasible.”
In my mind, that last 20% is where the gap is today. This isn’t about asking Strategists to become Python developers. It is about asking them to understand the grain of the material. You need to know the difference between a prompt, an agent, and a workflow. You need to know what “good” data looks like. You need to speak “Engineer” well enough to articulate a vision that is actually buildable.
The Uncomfortable Truth for Leaders
If you are a leader reading this and thinking, “I need to go hire some of these M-Shaped people,” I have some bad news. They rarely exist in the wild.
And its our fault. We created these silos.
For decades, we rewarded people for staying in their boxes. We told them: “You do the strategy; let the devs handle the how.” We built performance reviews and career paths that discouraged crossing the line.
Now, we need people who can converse in three languages (Strategy, Finance, and Tech) and we’re surprised we can’t find them.
But the solution isn’t to go out and try to “buy” this talent. The solution is to build it.
Your current team is likely desperate to cross that line. Your strategists are hungry to understand how these tools actually work so they can design better solutions. Your developers are eager to understand the commercial strategy so they can build things that matter.
The talent isn’t missing; the pathways are.
The Path Forward: Training Over Hiring
The most high-value move a leader can make right now is not opening a new headcount, but opening a new learning pathway.
We need to give our teams the permission, the time, and the safety to learn that “third language.” We need to normalise the “Strategist who prototypes” and the “Developer who presents business cases.”
We don’t need to replace our people to survive the AI shift. We need to unlock them. We need to give them the mandate to lift their foot out of their comfortable camp and test the ground on the other side.
That is how we close the gap. Not by outsourcing the thinking, but by expanding the thinkers.
Thanks for reading and see you on the next one!
Jen