I had barely watched this World Cup. I tuned into the final along with some friends. I was supporting Argentina, mostly because of Messi. Not long in, I found myself quietly and then loudly supporting Spain.
It wasn’t the score. It was the tone of those opening exchanges—the lunging tackles, the constant edge, the sense that the match could spill over at any moment. By the final whistle, it had.
Back at work, I mentioned the switch to few team members. A colleague said something almost in passing: maybe it is the team culture. The same players turn out for their clubs every week and often look like different footballers.
That stayed with me. The players do not suddenly lose their ability between club and country. What changes is what the group rewards, tolerates, and amplifies.
For some reason, it brought me back to my favourite topic. A lot of the agentic AI conversation assumes capability is the variable. Yet two organizations can deploy the same models and tools and still end up somewhere very different.
First published on LinkedIn, July 22, 2026.