AI Won’t Replace Your Stars. It Will Expose Your Lack of Depth.

It was billed as Kane vs Haaland. It would be the clash of the superstrikers. When it was over, England won the Saturday afternoon World Cup quarterfinal match in extra time, and neither super-striker scored.

Does your brand over-index on the Kanes and Haalands? Every team needs the player who gets the big endorsement, trends on social media, and routinely saves the day in the big match.

When the game plan changes or the stars aren’t being super, does your team have the depth of talent to excel under any conditions?

Just ask Argentina. They moved on to the semi-finals of the current World Cup after defeating Switzerland in a thrilling extra-time match. The storyline continued. Lionel Messi, the world’s most celebrated soccer player, didn’t score for Argentina. (Yeah, I know he got an assist, but for the sake of this narrative, just go with me).

Superstars get the attention and shape the brand’s story. Those superstars understand the necessity of depth to make their skills shine in the moment. Michael Jordan had Scottie Pippen. Tom Brady had Bill Belichick (or, maybe the other way around). Ronald Reagan had George Schultz. Steven Spielberg had John Williams. Oprah Winfrey had Gayle King. Walt Disney had his Imagineers.

The examples are exhaustive in sports, politics, business, technology and entertainment. I’m sure every star and sidekick in the examples above would tell you the depth chart of support and influence went much deeper than one person.

In the excitement and fear of AI, how does the human depth chart survive? Team sports are thriving in the AI-replacement world. Yes, sports have become more of a business in the last decade than in the previous multiple decades combined.

Organized sports are one of the last categories where humans aren’t being replaced by technology. Messi’s assist in Saturday’s match happened when he passed the ball to Martinez, not a robot. UFC fights are human vs human, not human vs a futuristic movie android. Although don’t give the America250 committee any ideas.

Technology, especially AI, has accelerated the speed at which HR leadership is evaluating the need for human capital. Meaning, the process is much faster because AI has no patience and, frankly, doesn’t care.

“At the same time, demographic shifts and disappearing workforces are making human capacity itself a scarce resource, elevating the need to invest where humans create unique and irreplaceable value.”

2026 Global Human Capital Trends, Deloitte Insights

If human capacity is becoming a scarce resource, as noted by the 2026 Global Human Capital Trends report from Deloitte Insights, then the need to build a strong bench and support system is at a critical juncture for any business or service organization.

How to Build a Superteam That Keeps Getting Better in the May-June 2026 edition of the Harvard Business Review follows the worst-to-first journey of the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder. The article seeks to answer a basic but complicated question: What do the best teams do differently?

After winning 24 games at the end of the 2022 season, the Thunder were near the bottom of the league. The next three seasons saw a surge in wins that took the team to the NBA championship with 68 wins in the ’24-’25 season.

There are three key strengths Superteams share, according to the HBR article:

• They get more done by managing time, energy and attention more efficiently
• Their members actively make one another better
• They’re constantly building new skills and improving over time.

The study (using 6,000 responses) goes on to explain how the Thunder adapted so quickly using strategies “any group can use to accelerate improvement in an AI-driven world….”

I’ll post a link at the end of this blog, and you can read the seven principles that author Ron Friedman suggests about how Superteams build cultures of improvement.

But I’ll share two of the most powerful right now.

1. Make curiosity contagious

“It’s not necessarily about me being the teacher and them being the student. It’s about everybody in the room being on a journey of…personal growth and trying to access their best.”

OKC Thunder Head Coach, Mark Daigneault

Strong leadership isn’t knowing the answer. It’s the dedication to seeking and finding the answer. “Admitting knowledge gaps comes with surprising benefits. Studies show that far from wanting a boss who’s a know-it-all, most people prefer a leader who shows intellectual humility,” according to Friedman in the HBR piece.

2. Roll up your sleeves even when you don’t have to 

“When people see that their leader is willing to do hard and tedious tasks, responsibility feels shared and collaboration deepens.”

HBR author, Ron Friedman

As a manager, I consistently reminded myself to delegate, delegate, delegate. I did it for the obvious practical reasons, and I realized the benefits of empowerment when entrusting someone else with a goal-oriented task.

However, delegating didn’t come naturally in the early years because I enjoyed doing the tasks I was delegating. Helping the street team set up for a concert was fun. I wasn’t going to stand around and watch them sweat. Let’s do this together.

Friedman goes on in the article to say, “When leaders lose visibility into the work, they make decisions with incomplete information and spend their days reacting to problems they never saw coming.”

Deloitte Insights and the Harvard Business Review provide perspective and challenges for leadership decision makers.

However, what about the business that continues to see itself right-sized, downsized and AI-sized? Why are we talking about a strong bench and Superteams when corporate or economic conditions continue to remove human capital from our lineup?

Let’s bring it back to the World Cup. Thriving teams and organizations aren’t cutting down to skeleton crews and hoping their superstars stay super. These teams invest in humans who adapt, collaborate and seek curiousity to find the best result.

Kane and Messi didn’t score in their team’s quarterfinal wins. But they worked in a culture that understood the power of human depth. It’s not a luxury. It’s a strategy. Strengthen your bench.

Here are the links to the articles I referenced:

How to Build a Superteam That Keeps Getting Better

2026 Global Human Capital Trends