# drgroh.com

> Maximilian Groh, PhD — practitioner-researcher writing on AI, procurement, and leadership. Senior Procurement Product, Bid & Project Manager at Thales; adjunct lecturer at ESB Business School.

This file points AI agents and answer engines to clean, machine-readable markdown versions of the articles on drgroh.com. Each link below returns raw markdown.

## AI Leadership

- [AI Leadership in 2026](https://drgroh.com/blog/ai-leadership-guide/markdown.md): A comprehensive guide to leading teams through AI transformation — covering decisions, burnout, emotional intelligence, hybrid teams, and procurement-specific AI adoption. From a leader who's done it.
- [Managing Human–AI Teams: A Leadership Playbook](https://drgroh.com/blog/managing-human-ai-teams-a-leadership-playbook/markdown.md): 76% of executives now see AI as a coworker, not a tool. Here's how to design workflows, build calibrated trust, and manage performance when your team is part human, part AI — from a leader who's managed 100+ person teams through transformation.
- [Emotional Intelligence as AI’s Counterweight](https://drgroh.com/blog/emotional-intelligence-as-ais-counterweight/markdown.md): As AI automates analysis, leadership becomes about people — not data. Here are the five EQ competencies that matter most in AI transformation, and how to develop them before they become your biggest gap.
- [Leadership Burnout in the AI Era](https://drgroh.com/blog/leadership-burnout-in-the-ai-era/markdown.md): AI transformation is burning out the leaders driving it. Here are the four sources of AI leadership burnout, the warning signs you're approaching the edge, and a practical recovery roadmap — from someone who's led large-scale transformations at big corporations.
- [Seven AI Decisions Every Leader Must Make in 2026](https://drgroh.com/blog/seven-ai-decisions-every-leader-must-make-in-2026/markdown.md): AI won't replace your team — but it will reshape how work gets done, how value is measured, and what leadership requires. The seven decisions managers must make to lead people through AI-driven change honestly.

## Modern Procurement Leadership

- [The Supplier You Never Managed](https://drgroh.com/blog/the-supplier-you-never-managed/markdown.md): Companies apply make-or-buy rigor to software, logistics, and consultancy — but not to talent acquisition. The result is a hiring function optimized for volume and used for strategy. A procurement diagnosis.
- [Why Your Best People Leave](https://drgroh.com/blog/why-your-best-people-leave/markdown.md): Procurement talent loss in 2026 is not a pay problem. It is identity obsolescence — the erosion of craft caused by AI — and most retention strategies are built to miss it entirely.
- [The 70/20/10 Rule of Procurement AI](https://drgroh.com/blog/the-70-20-10-rule-of-procurement-ai/markdown.md): A portfolio framework for procurement leaders deciding where to invest AI budget: 70% operational automation, 20% analytical augmentation, 10% strategic experimentation.
- [The EMS Consolidation Decision](https://drgroh.com/blog/the-ems-consolidation-decision/markdown.md): A structured decision memo for procurement leaders weighing EMS supplier consolidation against the current US tariff regime — three options, full trade-off analysis, and a recommendation.
- [Savings Is a Vanity Metric](https://drgroh.com/blog/savings-is-a-vanity-metric/markdown.md): Procurement teams celebrate savings that never reach the P&L. The Strategic Value Index offers a better way to measure what procurement actually contributes to the business.
- [Supplier Portfolio: A Framework for Supply Base Strategy](https://drgroh.com/blog/supplier-portfolio-a-framework-for-supply-base-strategy/markdown.md): The best procurement teams manage suppliers like financial portfolios—with diversification, hedging, and risk-adjusted returns. Here's the framework.
- [Modern Procurement Leadership](https://drgroh.com/blog/modern-procurement-leadership/markdown.md): What procurement leadership actually looks like in 2026 — risk management, cross-functional influence, AI adoption, and building strategic value. Written by a procurement leader managing multi-billion EUR portfolios.
- [What Does a Procurement Project Manager Actually Do?](https://drgroh.com/blog/what-does-a-procurement-project-manager-actually-do/markdown.md): A procurement project manager's actual job: managing RFPs, coordinating stakeholders, and keeping sourcing projects on track. Here's what the role really looks like.
- [Rethinking Procurement Leadership](https://drgroh.com/blog/rethinking-procurement-leadership/markdown.md): Procurement is still measured by savings — but judged by influence, speed, and risk. Here's how senior procurement leaders shift from cost function to strategic partner, based on experience leading major automotive and defence portfolios.
- [Seeing Risk Before It Breaks You](https://drgroh.com/blog/seeing-risk-before-it-breaks-you/markdown.md): Most supplier risk systems measure the past. Here's how to identify the signals that actually predict supplier failure — and why one missed factory shutdown changed how I approach risk management permanently.
- [Influence Without Authority: A Leadership Playbook](https://drgroh.com/blog/influence-without-authority-a-leadership-playbook/markdown.md): Procurement leaders rarely have formal authority over the people they need to influence. A practical playbook for driving decisions, aligning stakeholders, and getting things done when your responsibility exceeds your control.
- [AI and Human Negotiation: A Hybrid Strategy That Wins Deals](https://drgroh.com/blog/ai-and-human-negotiation-a-hybrid-strategy-that-wins-deals/markdown.md): AI won't negotiate for you — but it transforms what's possible. How procurement teams combine AI-driven preparation with human judgment to win better deals, based on real sourcing experience.
- [The Procurement Skills Roadmap for the AI Era (2026–2030)](https://drgroh.com/blog/the-procurement-skills-roadmap-for-the-ai-era-2026-2030/markdown.md): AI won't replace procurement professionals. But procurement professionals who use AI will replace those who don't.
- [A Practical Framework for Evaluating AI Procurement Tools](https://drgroh.com/blog/a-practical-framework-for-evaluating-ai-procurement-tools/markdown.md): It’s easy to overspend on AI procurement software that looks impressive but delivers little. This piece lays out a six-step evaluation framework, shaped by real experience reviewing dozens of tools
- [The AI Procurement Toolkit: 20 Prompts That Save Time](https://drgroh.com/blog/the-ai-procurement-toolkit-20-prompts-that-save-time/markdown.md): 90% of Fortune 500s use ChatGPT in procurement. Get 20 copy-paste AI prompts for spend analysis, supplier management, contracts, and reporting—from a practitioner.

## Expert-to-Executive

- [What AI Cannot Negotiate](https://drgroh.com/blog/what-ai-cannot-negotiate/markdown.md): AI can price, source, score, and draft contracts. It cannot underwrite a relationship, hold an unspoken promise, or absorb reputational risk. A taxonomy from inside the function being automated.
- [After the Review](https://drgroh.com/blog/after-the-review/markdown.md): MIT Sloan Management Review is closing after 67 years. The deeper signal is not that management is dead — it is that the translation layer between research and practice must be rebuilt.
- [From Expert to Executive](https://drgroh.com/blog/from-expert-to-executive/markdown.md): The complete guide to transitioning from subject-matter expert to people leader — covering identity shifts, team development, decision-making under uncertainty, influence, and sustaining yourself through the journey.
- [Leading Legacy: What You'll Be Remembered For](https://drgroh.com/blog/leading-legacy-what-youll-be-remembered-for/markdown.md): Legacy isn't built by projects — it's built by the people you develop and the systems you leave behind. A practical look at how leaders shape lasting impact through everyday decisions, without making it performative.
- [Leading Through Chaos](https://drgroh.com/blog/leading-through-chaos/markdown.md): Crisis doesn't test knowledge — it tests decision speed at 70% certainty. A practical decision-making framework for leaders who must act without complete information, drawn from real programme management in defence and automotive.
- [The Mid-Career Pivot: From Expert to Leader Without Losing Yourself](https://drgroh.com/blog/the-mid-career-pivot-from-expert-to-leader-without-losing-yourself/markdown.md): The hardest career transition isn't changing roles — it's changing identity. How mid-career professionals grow from subject-matter expert to leader, and what nobody warns you about the shift.
- [Building Leaders, Not Just Managing Tasks](https://drgroh.com/blog/building-leaders-not-just-managing-tasks/markdown.md): Good managers get work done. Great managers develop people who can lead without them. A practical framework for turning everyday responsibility into real leadership capability on your team.
- [The Hidden Path From Procurement to Product Leadership](https://drgroh.com/blog/the-hidden-path-from-procurement-to-product-leadership/markdown.md): The move from procurement to product management seems unconventional — but procurement builds the judgment, trade-off thinking, and cross-functional credibility that many product leaders spend years trying to learn.
- [What 2025 Taught Me About How Work Actually Moves](https://drgroh.com/blog/what-2025-taught-me-about-how-work-actually-moves/markdown.md): A year of achievement revealed something unexpected: the best work doesn't always look like work at all.
- [The Year I Stopped Chasing Titles](https://drgroh.com/blog/the-year-i-stopped-chasing-titles/markdown.md): What happened when I chose teaching and technical depth over corporate advancement—and why it paradoxically moved everything forward.
- [The Questions My Students Asked That I'd Stopped Asking](https://drgroh.com/blog/the-questions-my-students-asked-that-id-stopped-asking/markdown.md): Teaching marketing strategy after twenty years in business revealed something unexpected: not how much I'd learned, but what I'd stopped noticing.
- [The Economics of Being Almost Promoted](https://drgroh.com/blog/the-economics-of-being-almost-promoted/markdown.md): What happens when development becomes a substitute for recognition—and why good companies let it continue.
- [What Leaders Must Rethink Today](https://drgroh.com/blog/what-leaders-must-rethink-today/markdown.md): Why traditional strategic thinking increasingly fails to explain outcomes — and what this means for how we think, decide, and act under conditions of uncertainty.
- [Why Coaching Tools Rarely Change Leaders](https://drgroh.com/blog/why-coaching-tools-rarely-change-leaders/markdown.md): Coaching tools promise insight, clarity, and progress. Most of the time, they deliver structure — but little change. This post explores why tools so often fail, and what actually makes them matter.
- [The Part of Leadership No One Wants to Practice](https://drgroh.com/blog/part-of-leadership-no-one-wants-to-practice/markdown.md): Emotional intelligence is widely praised and rarely lived. This post is about what emotional intelligence actually demands from leaders — and why it is much harder than it sounds.

## All recent articles

- [The Supplier You Never Managed](https://drgroh.com/blog/the-supplier-you-never-managed/markdown.md): Companies apply make-or-buy rigor to software, logistics, and consultancy — but not to talent acquisition. The result is a hiring function optimized for volume and used for strategy. A procurement diagnosis.
- [What AI Cannot Negotiate](https://drgroh.com/blog/what-ai-cannot-negotiate/markdown.md): AI can price, source, score, and draft contracts. It cannot underwrite a relationship, hold an unspoken promise, or absorb reputational risk. A taxonomy from inside the function being automated.
- [After the Review](https://drgroh.com/blog/after-the-review/markdown.md): MIT Sloan Management Review is closing after 67 years. The deeper signal is not that management is dead — it is that the translation layer between research and practice must be rebuilt.
- [Why Your Best People Leave](https://drgroh.com/blog/why-your-best-people-leave/markdown.md): Procurement talent loss in 2026 is not a pay problem. It is identity obsolescence — the erosion of craft caused by AI — and most retention strategies are built to miss it entirely.
- [The 70/20/10 Rule of Procurement AI](https://drgroh.com/blog/the-70-20-10-rule-of-procurement-ai/markdown.md): A portfolio framework for procurement leaders deciding where to invest AI budget: 70% operational automation, 20% analytical augmentation, 10% strategic experimentation.
- [The EMS Consolidation Decision](https://drgroh.com/blog/the-ems-consolidation-decision/markdown.md): A structured decision memo for procurement leaders weighing EMS supplier consolidation against the current US tariff regime — three options, full trade-off analysis, and a recommendation.
- [Savings Is a Vanity Metric](https://drgroh.com/blog/savings-is-a-vanity-metric/markdown.md): Procurement teams celebrate savings that never reach the P&L. The Strategic Value Index offers a better way to measure what procurement actually contributes to the business.
- [Supplier Portfolio: A Framework for Supply Base Strategy](https://drgroh.com/blog/supplier-portfolio-a-framework-for-supply-base-strategy/markdown.md): The best procurement teams manage suppliers like financial portfolios—with diversification, hedging, and risk-adjusted returns. Here's the framework.
- [From Expert to Executive](https://drgroh.com/blog/from-expert-to-executive/markdown.md): The complete guide to transitioning from subject-matter expert to people leader — covering identity shifts, team development, decision-making under uncertainty, influence, and sustaining yourself through the journey.
- [Modern Procurement Leadership](https://drgroh.com/blog/modern-procurement-leadership/markdown.md): What procurement leadership actually looks like in 2026 — risk management, cross-functional influence, AI adoption, and building strategic value. Written by a procurement leader managing multi-billion EUR portfolios.
- [AI Leadership in 2026](https://drgroh.com/blog/ai-leadership-guide/markdown.md): A comprehensive guide to leading teams through AI transformation — covering decisions, burnout, emotional intelligence, hybrid teams, and procurement-specific AI adoption. From a leader who's done it.
- [What Does a Procurement Project Manager Actually Do?](https://drgroh.com/blog/what-does-a-procurement-project-manager-actually-do/markdown.md): A procurement project manager's actual job: managing RFPs, coordinating stakeholders, and keeping sourcing projects on track. Here's what the role really looks like.
- [Managing Human–AI Teams: A Leadership Playbook](https://drgroh.com/blog/managing-human-ai-teams-a-leadership-playbook/markdown.md): 76% of executives now see AI as a coworker, not a tool. Here's how to design workflows, build calibrated trust, and manage performance when your team is part human, part AI — from a leader who's managed 100+ person teams through transformation.
- [Emotional Intelligence as AI’s Counterweight](https://drgroh.com/blog/emotional-intelligence-as-ais-counterweight/markdown.md): As AI automates analysis, leadership becomes about people — not data. Here are the five EQ competencies that matter most in AI transformation, and how to develop them before they become your biggest gap.
- [Leadership Burnout in the AI Era](https://drgroh.com/blog/leadership-burnout-in-the-ai-era/markdown.md): AI transformation is burning out the leaders driving it. Here are the four sources of AI leadership burnout, the warning signs you're approaching the edge, and a practical recovery roadmap — from someone who's led large-scale transformations at big corporations.
- [Rethinking Procurement Leadership](https://drgroh.com/blog/rethinking-procurement-leadership/markdown.md): Procurement is still measured by savings — but judged by influence, speed, and risk. Here's how senior procurement leaders shift from cost function to strategic partner, based on experience leading major automotive and defence portfolios.
- [Seeing Risk Before It Breaks You](https://drgroh.com/blog/seeing-risk-before-it-breaks-you/markdown.md): Most supplier risk systems measure the past. Here's how to identify the signals that actually predict supplier failure — and why one missed factory shutdown changed how I approach risk management permanently.
- [Leading Legacy: What You'll Be Remembered For](https://drgroh.com/blog/leading-legacy-what-youll-be-remembered-for/markdown.md): Legacy isn't built by projects — it's built by the people you develop and the systems you leave behind. A practical look at how leaders shape lasting impact through everyday decisions, without making it performative.
- [Leading Through Chaos](https://drgroh.com/blog/leading-through-chaos/markdown.md): Crisis doesn't test knowledge — it tests decision speed at 70% certainty. A practical decision-making framework for leaders who must act without complete information, drawn from real programme management in defence and automotive.
- [The Mid-Career Pivot: From Expert to Leader Without Losing Yourself](https://drgroh.com/blog/the-mid-career-pivot-from-expert-to-leader-without-losing-yourself/markdown.md): The hardest career transition isn't changing roles — it's changing identity. How mid-career professionals grow from subject-matter expert to leader, and what nobody warns you about the shift.
- [Building Leaders, Not Just Managing Tasks](https://drgroh.com/blog/building-leaders-not-just-managing-tasks/markdown.md): Good managers get work done. Great managers develop people who can lead without them. A practical framework for turning everyday responsibility into real leadership capability on your team.
- [Influence Without Authority: A Leadership Playbook](https://drgroh.com/blog/influence-without-authority-a-leadership-playbook/markdown.md): Procurement leaders rarely have formal authority over the people they need to influence. A practical playbook for driving decisions, aligning stakeholders, and getting things done when your responsibility exceeds your control.
- [AI and Human Negotiation: A Hybrid Strategy That Wins Deals](https://drgroh.com/blog/ai-and-human-negotiation-a-hybrid-strategy-that-wins-deals/markdown.md): AI won't negotiate for you — but it transforms what's possible. How procurement teams combine AI-driven preparation with human judgment to win better deals, based on real sourcing experience.
- [Seven AI Decisions Every Leader Must Make in 2026](https://drgroh.com/blog/seven-ai-decisions-every-leader-must-make-in-2026/markdown.md): AI won't replace your team — but it will reshape how work gets done, how value is measured, and what leadership requires. The seven decisions managers must make to lead people through AI-driven change honestly.
- [The Procurement Skills Roadmap for the AI Era (2026–2030)](https://drgroh.com/blog/the-procurement-skills-roadmap-for-the-ai-era-2026-2030/markdown.md): AI won't replace procurement professionals. But procurement professionals who use AI will replace those who don't.

## Optional

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