A Degree Above

What does it mean to feel powerful... without raising your voice?

This Saturday, we partnered with Womoneysta to host “Power: A New Lens” — a session designed to explore how women experience power in everyday moments. Delivered by our founder, Vidhi Kumar Aiyer and wonderfully moderated by Neha Singh, the dynamic founder of this community of women, this session created a safe space for so many 'power' stories to be shared and collectively inspire each other.

We spoke about the invisible scripts that shape our responses and how a simple shift in thinking can help us show up with more clarity, presence, and intention.

Here are a few highlights from the session that stayed with us.

Swipe through the carousel to see what we talked about.

See the full recording here: https://shorturl.at/bc0IM

We're back with our Silos to Systems series. Raise your hand if you've also seen this next challenge we're unpacking this week: Decisions slow down when no one owns the whole system.

What does fragmented decision-making look like:

* Decisions bounce across functions

* Teams wait for inputs they don’t control

* Accountability diffuses instead of sharpening

The result? Important calls take weeks, not because they’re complex, but because no one owns the system end-to-end.

Our carousel walks through this maze of siloed decision making and how leaders can redesign decision flow without adding layers.

Because speed doesn’t come from urgency. It comes from clarity.

Research tells us that organisations with strong cross-functional collaboration are 5x more likely to achieve faster innovation cycles. This is why leaders today aren’t just managing performance—they’re designing how work connects.

Because when everyone is busy but nothing moves, the issue isn’t productivity.

It’s coordination.

A question worth asking this week: Where is work stalling between teams—and who owns unblocking it?

January is about breaking silos, but not in theory. Each week this month, we’ll take one real organisational challenge that silos create and share a practical way of solving it.

We’re starting with the most common one we see:

“Everyone is busy. But nothing is moving.”

If your teams are delivering, but outcomes are still slipping…

If priorities feel clear inside functions but fuzzy across them…

That’s not a performance issue.

It’s a design issue.

This week, our carousel unpacks what this problem really looks like in action and a simple framework leaders are using to realign work, without adding layers or meetings.

Use it as a lens for your next leadership conversation.

As we step into a new year, many organisations are investing in sharper systems, smarter tools, and faster decision engines. However, one pattern keeps showing up in our conversations with leaders:

Strategy breaks down not because of lack of intelligence, but because of silos.

Transformation stalls not because of intent or tools, but because teams don’t move together.

Research backs this up. Studies consistently show that organisations with strong cross-functional collaboration outperform peers on innovation, speed, and resilience, even when using the same technology. The differentiator isn’t tools. It’s coherence.

This January, we’re shifting the conversation. We’ll explore breaking silos as a system, not a slogan:

* How teams build shared purpose beyond org charts

* Why clarity of ways of working matters more than role definitions

* How trust, visibility, and decision flow create momentum

* And how collaboration, when designed well, becomes a growth engine—not a meeting overload

In the year ahead, collaboration won’t be about working harder together.

It will be about working intelligently as one system.

That’s the lens we’re bringing into 2026. Actionable strategies you can start applying to your team from tomorrow.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year! Here's to a wonderful festive season.

See you all in the new year 2026!

With love,

Team A Degree Above

AI isn’t theatre—it’s infrastructure for impact. And that's what we explored this month of December. As you ready yourself to plan the KRAs for next year, here are the top three takeaways from the month:

* Anchor every KRA to outcomes before introducing AI

* Keep human judgment distinct from AI-enabled tasks

* Embed quality gates—prompt hygiene, bias checks, and reviews

From playbooks to practice, let's get set to create impact.

What if the most effective collaborator on your 2026 goals isn’t on your org chart? It’s your AI teammate.

A groundbreaking experiment at P&G (776 professionals, with real innovation challenges) just confirmed something we’ve been seeing with our clients too:

AI isn’t just a productivity tool — it behaves like a teammate.

Here’s what the research found:

1. Individuals + AI performed 40% better

2. AI-augmented cross-functional teams generated 3× more breakthrough ideas

3. AI helped people think beyond their domain (R&D professionals became more commercial; commercial leaders became more technical)

4. Teams experienced 60%+ boosts in positive emotions — excitement, confidence, motivation

5. Silos broke without reorgs because AI pulled in missing expertise

This is the real unlock for 2026: AI makes cross-functional thinking the default — not the exception.

Read the full case study by François Candelon in Fortune here: https://fortune.com/2025/10/31/ai-artificial-intelligence-cybernetic-teammate-business-collaboration/

The 'cybernetic teammate': How AI is rewriting the rules of business collaboration | Fortune A novel experiment shows how AI is evolving from 'tool' to coworker.

2026 will be the year every leader is asked the same question:

“What will AI change in the way you plan, prioritise, and deliver?”

Here’s the real opportunity: AI isn’t here to rewrite your goals — it’s here to expand your capacity to meet them.

Our one-pager today helps you redesign your 2026 KRAs through a simple, future-ready lens:

1. What Stretch goals can you take: What higher-value work can you take on now that AI lifts the load?

2. What can you Delegate: What can AI act on as your “agent”?

3. What can you Automate: What can run without you?

4. Can you Eliminate some tasks altogether: What no longer deserves space in your role?

Remember to start with business outcomes — not AI tools. Run each workflow through these 4 filters and validate impact with your key stakeholders.

Because in 2026, the leaders who win won’t be the ones who know AI… but the ones who can design their work with it.

Before we talk about AI-ready KRAs, we need to talk about something more fundamental.

We come across many professionals - early and late career - struggling with goals, not because they aim too high — but because they anchor too vaguely.

Every December, we hear the same questions:

“How do I break down goals for next year?”

“How do I plan when I don’t know what will change?”

“How much should I commit to?”

Here’s the truth:

If your goals aren’t clear in human terms, adding AI won’t magically fix them. It will only amplify the confusion.

So this Wednesday, let’s return to 'first principles thinking' — the simplest, cleanest way to set goals for 2025:

1. Start with one business problem, not ten possibilities.

2. Define one measurable outcome tied to that problem.

3. Identify the 3 behaviours that will drive that outcome.

4. Map the dependencies (people, systems, approvals).

5. Only then ask: “Where can AI accelerate this?”

If you’re planning for 2026, here’s a simple rule: "Simplify before you scale."