In an era where trillions of dollars are being invested to modernize the systems that power our economy, communities, and everyday lives, a bold new class of technology executives is redefining what critical infrastructure means in the age of AI.
These leaders are building the digital platforms that make assets like pipelines, power grids, and data centers smarter, faster, safer, and more resilient. This Critical Infrastructure for Critical Infrastructure (CI4CI) is the backbone behind the backbone — the essential technologies and leadership sustaining the systems that American digital innovation relies on.
Afshean Talasaz is a CI4CI trailblazer who’s leading at the edge. As SVP of strategic projects and innovation and chief technology and data officer at Colonial Pipeline, he’s helping modernize and protect vital energy arteries that fuel much of the East Coast. It’s a mission that demands tech vision, clarity, adaptability, and a steady hand in an era of constant disruption.
On a recent episode of the Tech Whisperers podcast, Talasaz shared powerful insights on scaling AI for real business value. In a follow-up discussion after the show, he talked about what it takes to lead when change is relentless, quick decisions are needed, the stakes are higher, and the next hill to climb always seems steeper than the last. Here’s that conversation, edited for length and clarity.
Dan Roberts: In today’s environment of nonstop change, there’s hardly time to catch your breath before you have yet another hill to climb. As a technology leader and as a business leader at the center of America’s energy backbone, how do you approach that reality?
Afshean Talasaz: First and foremost, at the strategic and the technical level, it’s about positioning, creating options, and focusing on the mission of safe, reliable operations. The trade-offs from the decisions we make today can become the opportunities or problems of tomorrow. In an environment of nonstop change, it’s important to ensure I’m being thoughtful about the decisions and trade-offs I’m making every day.
I keep our mission and outcomes at the forefront, so when there is a new hill to climb, it allows for clarity and focus in decision-making. When I’m making a decision, particularly in response to change, I consider whether it is a decision that could impact our ability to adapt and change in the future. That mindset of adaptability is important because you should expect things to change, whether that’s in the business or technology.
At the same time, not everything needs to change. That’s an important distinction we as leaders need to make. Deciding what needs to change, and what doesn’t, is crucial to adapting to change successfully.
It’s not always necessary to make large changes, or large changes at once, to your organization, technology, or operating model to be adaptable. Some things are perfectly fine staying the same and some things need to change, and at different times. The approach to handling change, both on what and when, differs for every organization depending on the business strategy and the speed needed to meet that strategy.
You need to ask yourself: What are you changing for? Are you giving up something that’s important to get something else? Again, it comes back to those trade-offs.
As you face these critical moments, and the right path isn’t obvious, what guiding principles help you navigate with clarity and confidence?
First and foremost, I focus on our mission and the outcomes we need to achieve. At Colonial our mission is to deliver over 100 million gallons of refined products to over 50 million Americans safely and reliably 365 days a year, day in and day out. When you know what your mission is, it brings decisions into focus and provides clarity into what’s important and what’s not. It also brings clarity into what trade-offs you’re willing, or not willing, to make. I know what we’re here to do, that it is vital, and that we must do it reliably and safely. That’s what guides us so we can make the best decisions.
There are times when you make a decision, go down the necessary path, and something changes beyond your control — the data, the environment, the landscape. To know whether to double down, adjust, or change course entirely, you’ve said you ask yourself, ‘If I’m wrong, how stuck am I?’ Can you expand on that?
I had a CEO once tell me that effective executives consistently make good decisions. That stuck with me. So one way I frame up a decision is to ask, How do I not make a decision that gets us stuck in a situation we don’t want to be in? One way to do that is to think about the kind of decision it is and what the potential downside may be while identifying how to capture the upside.
When up against a change that requires reassessment, the first thing I do is, I ask questions and look at the information to understand what has changed. Understanding what has changed drives a lot of what comes next. If the outcome or constraints we set out to achieve have changed in some way, I consider the magnitude of the change, upside and downside, and the options we can create to pivot from where we are at now. I focus on how we leverage our talent, resources, what we have done to date, and the key trade-offs that need to be made to position ourselves well to achieve the new outcome or adapt to new constraints.
How do you help people stay engaged, resilient, and adaptable when there is yet another hill to climb?
In short, focus on the fundamentals, celebrate the wins along the way, and always be a student of the business. Although change will always be a constant, I like to look for what isn’t changing. This can help create stability and provide meaningful insights. There is a lot of valuable information for leaders in the relationship between what is changing and what isn’t.
I go back to focusing on the fundamentals. My music analogy is that if you’ve got the fundamentals, you can walk up on stage and read a chart you’ve never read before and it still sounds good. That’s a simple way to look at how you can more easily adapt to something you’ve not seen before when the fundamentals are there. The more you master the fundamentals, the more adaptable you can be.
Having different skill sets and diversity on a team can also make that team more adaptable, because if one person is seeing something or has strong fundamentals in an area, they can pass that on to the rest of the team. As long as the team has trust and is willing to listen and work together as a unit, you’ll have a team that is highly adaptable and successful.
How has being a musician shaped your leadership? Do you see parallels between composing music and orchestrating large-scale technology and business transformations?
The study and performance of music has had a profound impact on my life and my leadership. Music has taught me more about conducting business than business school did. When performing music in an ensemble, you must learn how to actively listen, adapt, and respond to what you’re hearing in real-time. You must learn when to play a supporting role and when to step up and take the lead. These are all things I have found are crucial in business.
Music has also taught me a lot about adaptability, how to respond to mistakes, and resilience. You have to learn how to make a mistake and keep going. If you play the wrong note, you can’t just stop playing and dwell on the mistake. You have to shrug it off and keep playing — even when you are getting a side-eye from your fellow musicians!
It comes back to mastering the fundamentals. There are only 12 notes in Western harmony, and somehow those 12 notes have translated into hundreds of years of beautiful music. How can there be people who take 12 notes and create such beauty, complexity, and variety?Mastering the fundamentals. When we get the fundamentals right, which includes our strategy, our people, and the technical stuff, we build a foundation that materially and positively impacts our ability to get the outcomes we want.
When you look ahead at the next hill on the horizon, for Colonial and the broader critical infrastructure ecosystem, what excites you most? And what advice would you share with other technology leaders about staying ready and bold?
First and foremost, we have to ensure we are executing our core mission extremely well and are positioning ourselves to adapt to change as it comes our way. We also have a tremendous opportunity in the industrial space to take advantage of the IT/OT convergence, to approach technology wholistically, to use AI in a targeted way to help solve challenging problems and add operational and commercial value in new ways, and to create capabilities that could deliver competitive advantages in the way our companies execute and compete in our markets.
In my view, there’s a lot of opportunity to be captured if we look for opportunities that have positive value asymmetry — more upside than downside. If we can build portfolios of these opportunities, develop the capabilities to deliver effectively, and build partnerships across our business, the value proposition is extremely exciting. Most importantly, the execution and delivery of these opportunities must be done thoughtfully, without undermining or sacrificing the core mission.
To stay ready and be bold, we must be enterprise leaders first and technology leaders second. This means being a student of the business. Take time to understand the business you’re in and, where you can, dive deeper to understand the details and nuances of executing that business. This is a component of mastering the fundamentals, which leads to what I think is the second critical component.
As senior technology leaders we are active participants and partners in formulating the strategy and execution of our organizations, bringing unique perspectives to the conversation, and ensuring the technology domain is represented in a way that allows us to influence strategy and execution. Technology can create new capabilities, enable new ways of executing our business, and create strategic options from the use of technology that may be missing from the conversation.
To be bold yet practical, as senior leaders we must do those two things. The next thing we need to do is make it clear what our goals and objectives are, not only for what our vision is in three, five, or 10 years out, but for what we as a team need to accomplish in the short term to set ourselves up for success. When we can make the path clear, our team members and business partners can walk the journey with more confidence and trust.
For more from Talasaz’s leadership playbook, tune in to the Tech Whisperers podcast.
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Read More from This Article: Colonial Pipeline’s Afshean Talasaz on decision-making at the speed of AI
Source: News