Why do promising AI initiatives fail even when the technology works? Heather McLean believes the answer usually involves people, processes, leadership, and trust.

Heather is an Air Force veteran, technology leader, entrepreneur, and founder of McLean Forrester. In this conversation with Joey Pinz, she shares how leading experienced teams as a 22-year-old officer taught her to respect technical expertise and earn trust instead of relying on rank. She also explains why leadership means caring for people, keeping commitments, and becoming someone others genuinely want to follow.

The conversation moves into practical AI strategy. Heather outlines three questions every organization should answer before investing: Where are you now, where do you want to go, and do your leaders and employees support the change? She identifies poor governance, weak use-case selection, bad data, and unchanged business processes as common causes of disappointing AI results.

Heather also discusses corporate burnout, entrepreneurial vulnerability, people-first decision-making, learning sales as an introvert, and why consistency and healthy boundaries matter.

🌟 Top 3 Highlights:

🤖 Why most AI project failures are people problems—not technology problems

🫡 How military leadership taught Heather to earn trust without possessing every technical skill

🔥 Why burnout forced her to establish healthier boundaries and rebuild consistency