After months of work, “The AI Readiness & Performance Assessment™” is published. It is the second volume in The Operating Discipline for AI Library™, the nine-volume executive reference series I am building for operators accountable for AI outcomes within their organizations.
The subtitle tells you what it is: A Practical Operating Discipline for Scaling AI in Small and Mid-Sized Businesses.
Volume I, The AI Business Enablement Audit™, gave you the discipline for assessing whether AI belongs inside specific functions of your business. Volume II picks up where that ended and answers the question that follows: once AI is in your business, how do you know whether it is ready to scale?
That is the gap I wrote this book to close.
The problem I kept seeing.
Across the conversations I have been part of with operating executives over the past two years, one pattern keeps surfacing. A CEO, a CFO, or a COO will say some version of this:
We are using AI across the business, but I have no structured way to know whether it is producing what we hoped, where it is producing it, or whether we should be scaling further. The decisions feel like guesswork.
That is the gap.
Mid-sized businesses adopted AI quickly. The tools spread across functions without governance, without measurement, and without the kind of operating discipline a serious leader would apply to any other function. And now executives are being asked questions they have no structured way to answer.
The AI Readiness & Performance Assessment™ gives you a structured way.
What's inside.
The book walks executives through:
The six readiness conditions that decide whether AI produces real value or a quiet loss inside a business
A 1-to-5 maturity scale that converts executive judgment into evidence that the board will accept
A decision protocol that translates the assessment score into one of three actions: expand, refine, or pause
A 90-day execution roadmap that moves you from baseline measurement to defensible decision
A repeatable governance framework that keeps the discipline running long after the assessment closes
It is structured the way a serious operator would actually use it. The frameworks are tested. The worksheets are usable. The scoring is reproducible. By the time you finish the book, you have what you need to run the assessment inside your own organization.
A short excerpt.
“Nobody knows if the AI in your business is working, including you.
It's drafting your emails, supporting your decisions, and shaping the work that goes to your clients. It's running inside your tools, your vendors' platforms, and your employees' personal accounts. None of it was governed the way you govern hiring, finance, or compliance. You've been signing off on AI for months without a defensible way to know whether it's helping the business or quietly costing you money, accuracy, and trust.
That gap is what this book closes.”
From the introduction:
The 300+ pages that follow give you the discipline to close it.
Who it is for.
If you are an owner, president, CFO, or COO running an organization between 20 and 1,000 employees, this book was written for you. It is especially relevant if you are:
Reporting on AI performance to a board, an investor, or a stakeholder group
Trying to figure out where AI is genuinely working and where it is quietly underperforming
Inside a regulated industry where AI use needs a documented operating discipline
Running a business where AI has spread organically across functions without a coherent management framework
If any of that sounds familiar, the book is structured to be immediately useful.
Where to find it.
Volume II is available now on Amazon in three formats:
Paperback — $24.99
Hardback — $64.99
Kindle — $9.99
Within the next several weeks, the book will also be available through Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Bookshop.org, and library acquisition systems through Ingram's wholesale distribution network.
If you read it and find it useful, the most valuable thing you can do is leave a brief review on Amazon. Reviews drive discovery for executive buyers who are looking for the same answers you were when you opened this email.
What is next?
Volume III is in development. Volumes IV through IX follow.
I am writing this series for one reason: AI is the most consequential operational shift business leaders have faced in a generation, and most of the available material is either marketing copy or technical documentation. Executives need something different. They need operating discipline, organized in a way that can be applied tomorrow.
That is what The Operating Discipline for AI Library™ is for. Volume II is the next installment. Thank you for being part of this from the beginning.
Stephen R. Jordan
Founder, SRJ Consulting & Services LLC