The Natural Intelligence 20 - André Darmanin

The consultant who left government for conviction

Canadian Blue Jay | Photo: Nature Canada

André is part of my Canadian trio - alongside Jennifer Houle and The Chief Absurdist Officer - though I honestly can’t recall how we first connected. What I do know is that we’re both consultants who have seen well-intentioned initiatives die slow deaths due to bureaucracy.

His Substack, Cultural Currents, explores that tension: the gap between what organizations say about culture, equity, and belonging versus what actually happens when policy meets reality. Recent posts dissect everything from Montreal’s baseball stadium priorities to how organizations lose the people they can’t afford to lose when trust erodes.

As someone who built the Equity Ecosystems Model after witnessing equity work get trapped in HR checkboxes and feel-good moments, André brings the perspective of someone who’s been inside government, seen the dysfunction, and refused to accept symbolic gestures as progress.

What makes André’s POV valuable for AI conversations? He’s spent his career watching technology and systems reshape how institutions function - or fail to function. He understands that tools don’t exist in a vacuum; they land in organizational cultures that either amplify or resist change. And as a consultant who helps organizations transform entire ecosystems, he thinks about second and third-order effects most people miss...

Read André’s analysis of culture, governance, and organizational change at Cultural Currents.

1. Do you build friction into your use of AI, and if so, how?

Yes - I never accept AI’s first response without questioning it and applying my own critical thinking. I treat AI like a starting point, not a finish line.

The friction I build in resembles how I review policy documents or governance frameworks. I ask: What assumptions is this making? Whose perspective is missing? What cultural context did AI miss because it cannot read between the lines? When I’m working on RFP responses or strategy documents for Cultural Nexus Group, AI can draft structure and pull research, but I strip out the generic consulting language and rebuild it with specificity. AI gives me “stakeholder engagement” - I need to specify which stakeholders, what engagement actually means in that institutional context, and why previous engagement failed. That iterative questioning, that refusal to accept the first draft, mirrors how I approach any strategic work. AI speeds up the mundane parts; critical thinking ensures the substance actually matters.

2. What’s your favorite sci-fi movie or show that features AI, and what did it get right?

I’m not sure if “Her” with Joaquin Phoenix would be considered sci-fi because I don’t watch sci-fi. I must have watched the movies 7 or 8 years ago. But after watching it, who knew that many would look to AI for love advice and people building romantic relationships?

3. If you had to assign AI an astrology sign, what would it be and why?

Virgo like me. Perfectionist and overthinking. AI exhibits that Virgo tendency to endlessly refine and optimize, producing multiple versions of the same thing with slight variations. It overthinks in the sense that it will give you exhaustive answers when you needed decisive ones. But here’s the difference: Virgos eventually develop judgement about when perfectionism serves the work and when it becomes paralysis. AI lacks that wisdom. It will keep refining without knowing when “good enough” actually serves the purpose better than perfection. I’ve learned that timing matters as much as technical perfection. A good strategy implemented now beats a perfect strategy that arrives after the political window closes. AI hasn’t learned that lesson yet. It’s all the Virgo perfectionism without the hard-won experience that teaches you when to stop editing and start implementing.

4. Complete this sentence: “AI is most dangerous when...”

it thinks for us. For my work, it displaces institutional judgement. Organizations already struggle with transformation, for example, adding that AI that automates decisions without building institutional capacity to question those decisions compounds existing dysfunction. While I support it for mundane tasks, it takes away the critical thinking aspect of any decision we make.

5. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever prompted an AI to do?

Provide pep talk advice for two coaches - 2017 MLS Cup-winning coach for Toronto FC Greg Vanney and Current Blue Jays Manager John Schneider - ahead of Game 7 of the ALCS between the Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners. FYI, they moved on but lost in Game 7 of the World Series. 🙁

6. What’s the most helpful thing AI has ever suggested to you?

Seeking coaching advice. I mean I did ask to play the role of an executive coach but it did ask me to seek the advice of an actual coach at the end of the conversation.

7. What’s the most nonsensical response you’ve gotten from AI?

Everything is nonsensical because you have to prompt it to be corrected. I mean nothing really comes to mind in response to this question. I guess I can ask AI, right? ;)

Let me elaborate. AI doesn’t produce nonsensical responses because it’s broken. It just can’t understand what you actually need versus what you literally asked for. Let me put this into perspective. I’ll ask it to analyze healthcare organizations in light of current socioeconomic upheaval, and it gives me those textbook descriptions. Technically correct but utterly and completely useless. I needed insight into why reforms fail when the people who actually hold power don’t match the org chart. AI cannot read that subtext without me spelling it out because it cannot interpret how organizations actually function or where the political tensions sit.

The nonsense isn’t wrong answers, but it usually misses the point entirely because AI took my question at face value. I spend my deep consulting work interpreting what clients actually mean when they ask for “strategic planning” or “organizational review.” Those requests carry institutional histories, political dynamics, and unspoken frustrations that determine whether any strategy succeeds or dies quietly. AI misses ALL of that, which is why I correct every response until I’ve taught it the context it should have picked up from how the question was framed. That also includes the personal relationships you make to understand the sensitivities behind the decision. I read what clients aren’t saying out loud. AI just answers the words on the screen.

8. If AI could only help you with one task for the rest of your life, what would you choose?

Writing accurate proposals that can guarantee me a million dollar income.

9. What AI myth do you wish would die already?

AI is going to kill jobs. No job is going away. They will all be redefined by AI. The internet redefined how we do research right? AI is going to multitask when humans aren’t wired to do that. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

10. What’s your #1 practical tip for someone starting their AI journey?

Prompt properly and use your critical thinking skills as if you are still in university. Don’t use the first answer as gospel.

11. In what unexpected way do you think AI will change your industry?

For any type of consulting, it could do away with consultants. I came across an article not too long ago about the Consulting Crash is Coming on The Free Press by Joe Nocera. He thinks big consulting firms confront a future “they can’t outsource”. In essence, this would level the playing field for small boutique consulting firms, like mine - Cultural Nexus Group, that can specialize in certain areas and differentiate themselves from the competition of those large firms.

Large firms can’t easily deploy AI requiring Cultural Intelligence - understanding how cultural dynamics actually operate in work or organizations. AI can describe theoretical cultural differences, but it cannot read the room when reform is failing because of unacknowledged cultural communication patterns. It cannot navigate the unspoken dynamics when stakeholders from different cultural backgrounds interpret ‘consensus’ or ‘accountability’ fundamentally differently. It cannot apply cultural agility in real-time when a board meeting is going sideways because power operates differently than the org chart suggests.

My dual Canadian-Maltese citizenship means I navigate different cultures directly – Anglo versus European institutional norms. My lived experience, combined with Cultural Intelligence frameworks, helps me interpret cultural cues to determine whether technically sound reforms actually get implemented or die quietly in committee. AI needs human input to apply cultural intelligence; it cannot replicate the interpretive work that determines whether transformation succeeds or fails in specific institutional contexts.

12. What about the future of AI gives you hope? What gives you pause?

Eliminating the redundancy of technical tasks, such as spreadsheets and presentations. AI has replaced the internet in terms of searching. I use AI, so I’m not a luddite. I just hate anything that requires work and is unproductive because I’m stuck figuring out how to a pivot table.

13. What’s your Substack about, and why should people subscribe?

Cultural Currents explores governance transformation for senior public sector leaders and consultants navigating institutional change. I write from a unique vantage point - Canadian public sector experience combined with Maltese citizenship that gives me a perspective on governance challenges spanning North America and Europe. Recent posts examine EU enlargement momentum and Canadian speculation about EU membership as parallel examples of challenges to institutional belonging. I connect cultural intelligence, organizational transformation, and political shifts that reshape how public institutions function. Subscribe if you’re tired of generic leadership content and want analysis grounded in actual governance work.

14. What’s your writing superpower?

Storytelling. I have learned through my previous jobs in the public sector that I abhor and detest technical writing. Also being on social media, the echo chamber was so loud, I couldn’t handle those technical, halo effect, confirmation bias types of conversations. So I was able to transition from that academese boring style to an authentic storytelling style because that is what attracts an audience.

15. If you could have dinner with any writer (living or dead), who would it be?

Barack Obama. I always liked his cool, calm and collected style. He is a great orator and to sit with him and pick his brain about any global issue would be spectacular.

16. What’s the best book you’ve read this year?

Hmm... probably I would say so far Identity Trap by Yascha Mounk. You see, I used to briefly work in the DEI space. I came away from that experience with a lot of questions and concerns. As we get older, we tend to be more culturally and socially aware. Identity Trap spoke to me as a pragmatist. Some might come away from the book as nerdy and academic, but it left with a lot of answers in saying “ya that make sense”, “ya I agree with that”. But also asked some really deep philosophical questions about my political beliefs - past and present.

17. Coffee, tea, or something stronger when you write?

Hmmmm, I usually have my coffee before, not during, when I write. I don’t want to spill my iced maple almond milk latte onto the keyboard or table. If I had something stronger, like a maple old fashioned (not using American bourbon for now), maybe my inner inhibitions would come out in my writing.

18. What’s your most contrarian opinion?

DEI failed because it was placed in HR and we were left with checkboxes and bloated bureaucracies with no action.

19. If you weren’t a writer, what would you be doing?

Writing to me isn’t a fixed thing. It’s more of a mood. So really if I wasn’t writing, I’d be watching sports at home or at a bar with my friends, or going to dinner with my wife.

20. What question do you wish people would ask you more often?

Why does equity work matter to you personally? The truth is, I witnessed equity initiatives fail spectacularly because of endless checkbox activities and feel good moments. We trapped the transformative work inside bureaucracies designed to resist change. I could have stayed comfortable in government, nodding along to policies that sounded good but changed nothing, but I felt complicit every time another initiative died in committee or got watered down to meaninglessness.

That’s when I realized equity work isn’t separate from transformation - it is transformation. You cannot change outcomes without changing how institutions make decisions, allocate resources, and distribute power. Cultural Intelligence replaced cultural competence in my practice because competence suggests a fixed skill set you acquire, whereas intelligence requires ongoing institutional learning and adaptation, similar to continuous improvement.

Reading books about revolutionary organizations, such as Reinventing Organizations or Corporate Rebels, while trapped in hierarchical dysfunction was maddening. It made me realize that fixing public institutions wasn’t enough. We needed to transform entire community ecosystems. That frustration, that refusal to accept symbolic gestures as progress, that’s what drives everything I do now. So when someone actually asks why this matters to me, it tells me they understand that equity work isn’t just methodology - it’s personal, it’s political, and it requires genuine commitment to uncomfortable change.

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Up next: The Natural Intelligence 20 takes a break for the holidays. See you on January 3rd with Laura O’Driscoll, the humanitarian researcher who thinks AI is most dangerous when you forget it’s there.