On Resilient Teams, Disrupted Systems, and the Next Generation
Lars has been profoundly fortunate in his career — blessed to work with truly exceptional individuals and to have formed and led several remarkable teams that consistently exceeded expectations by wide margins. Although most team members have transitioned to other professional vectors, many of those colleagues maintain contact, particularly around the holiday season.
Imagine Lars's peculiar delight (and a trace of alarm) to receive this holiday card with an image of railroad tracks severely dislodged by an earthquake. The note inside read: "Always happy to follow your lead, Boss!"
This is an elegant — if slightly unsettling — metaphor for leading high-performing systems. Teams are not built for smooth sailing; they are built for stress testing and disruption. The greatest tribute is not meeting baseline requirements, but witnessing them bend, withstand, and ultimately hold their integrity when the ground beneath them shifts.
On Teaching and Growth
It has been a genuine joy to teach and bear witness to some remarkable professional growth over the years. (Yes, Lars knows former team members still regularly curse — and begrudgingly appreciate — him for requiring those daily hand entries in their Focus Journal — each and every friggin` day. The discipline mattered, and somehow Six Sigma insights were imparted without the time and expense of fancy, expensive classes!
The principles remain constant: provenance over convenience, critical thinking over computational ease, systems integrity over expedient shortcuts. These lessons become more critical, not less, in an era of agentic AI where "the computer says so" becomes gospel and intellectual rigor becomes a competitive advantage.
The Next Generation
Lars' daughter, Kyra Toomre, followed her father's path to Wall Street. Within the last month, her employer, Goldman Sachs, announced Kyra's promotion to their 2026 Managing Director class. For those unfamiliar with Wall Street hierarchies, the MD level sits immediately below the highly coveted Partner rank — a recognition of sustained excellence, client trust, and leadership capability.
Kyra now assumes expanded responsibility for people, their development, organizational culture, and the long-term stewardship of the business. This is a remarkable achievement and a testament to Kyra's talent, resilience, and work ethic.
Lars confesses to being a wee bit, proud father.
On Resilient Systems
Here is to resilient teams, high-integrity systems, and leadership that accepts the challenge of navigating the terrain after the earthquake. Even for railroads, with mighty engines like the Union Pacific "Big Boy" steam engines, the track ahead can be "challenging" to say the least.
The track ahead will inevitably shift. Earthquakes, literal and metaphorical, will disrupt the system. What matters is whether the underlying structure holds, whether the team adapts, and whether the integrity persists.
Is the Agentic system resilient? Can the Agentic AI system handle the extreme stresses that are inevitably forthcoming?
In the age of Agentic AI, these principles are not nostalgic — they are survival infrastructure. Critical thinking will be even more important. Intellectual laziness and the passive acceptance of what the "computer says" are unacceptable vulnerabilities when models hallucinate with confidence!
The ground will shift. Build teams that hold. Be keenly aware of the risks and liabilities of new and "wonderful" technologies!
Lars Toomre
Managing Partner, BRC FinTech
Agentic Architect | Systems Engineering | Capital Markets
*What Is Lars Thinking (WILT) is an occasional insight series exploring the intersection of leadership, systems design, and the operational realities of deploying autonomous intelligence in high-stakes environments where trust and accuracy truly count*
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**Topics:** Leadership, Team Development, Resilient Systems, Next Generation Leadership, Critical Thinking, AI Era Challenges
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