Latest / Human Equilibrium: Wise Leadership in the Age of AI / Working at the Speed of Thought: AI Leverage Meets Human Advantage – with Craig Forman

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Working at the Speed of Thought: AI Leverage Meets Human Advantage – with Craig Forman · Human Equilibrium: Wise Leadership in the Age of AI

• speaker-0: I believe we're on the the tip of the iceberg of probably the biggest transformation in our workplaces since the Industrial Revolution. And I think a lot of people are kind of coming around and agreeing with that. We may have fewer managers, air quotes going up, but gosh, they're gonna have to be much better now. And we're still not talking about how do we develop managers and leaders and all we're talking about is like the tech, the tech, the tech. so I think that's that's still a challenge. And when I think about it, the truth is everybody's gonna have to be a manager soon. Everybody's gonna have to think about managing agents at some level. I don't care if you're entry level, you're gonna be asked to like your work is going to be about you managing tools that are helping you do the work. speaker-1: Welcome to Human Equilibrium, a podcast about leadership at the intersection of artificial intelligence and human wisdom. I'm Dan Molly, a leadership advisor, executive coach, and facilitator. On the show, I talk with founders, people leaders, and experts in AI and transformation. And together we explore how AI is changing leadership, organizations, and the experience of being human. In these conversations, we step beneath the hype and the doom. To explore what leaders are really experiencing with AI and how we can leverage increasingly powerful technology while strengthening the human leadership capacities needed to guide it wisely. This is Human Equilibrium. My guest today is Craig Foreman. Craig is the founder of Culture C, a people and culture advisory firm helping organizations build listening cultures through a simple framework. Collect, understand, act. He spent six years as lead people scientist at CultureAmp and is on the teaching team for Groups in Culture and Motivation at the Harvard Graduate Extension School. He is also the author of Listen Up, as well as a US military veteran, and he lives in Marin County, California. Craig, welcome to the show. speaker-0: Dan, good to be here. Thanks for having me. Happy to be part of this as you're ⁓ you're kicking this off. So it's good to be here. speaker-1: Awesome. Thanks, Craig. Yeah. So what what's the what's like the short story of how you came to do the work you're doing today? speaker-0: Short story, ⁓ a couple big beats. I mean, I think I think it's important to sh share that I I grew up ⁓ my parents split and after that was a lot of disruption. That was around twelve. And I say that because I I moved around a lot through middle school and high school ⁓ before college, and I think that's important too because that was the first time in my life where I really had to lean on people. Like that was how I that's how I got through it, through the moving and whatnot, and I realized that there's definitely something very social about me and my love and interest of people. ⁓ didn't have a straight path, took some time off after high school, eventually wanted to go to college, needed some money to do that, and I went to the air for. So at four years in the Air Force, that was pretty, a pretty ⁓ important experience in my life. ⁓ it also brought me out to California for the first time. So after the military, I went back to Florida, I finished my undergraduate degree, and as soon as I did, I packed my car and moved to California, which I feel like is the beginning of my pro truly professional phase. ⁓ I wanted to be here. I got situated, I started in higher ed, ⁓ started a family, and then eventually had the opportunity to go back to grad school. And through my experiences and you know, thinking about what I what I really enjoyed and didn't enjoy, I felt like if I was going to invest the time and energy to go back to grad school at at night with a kid at home and one on the way, that ⁓ I had to study something that was important to me, and that was organizational psychology. It just called me and it was probably the best ⁓ educational experience of my life and it reaff reaffirmed that I I loved this idea of people and work and how work We can do better, organizations can do better, and people can thrive, and those two don't have to be mutually excuse exclusive. ⁓ and that wrapped right around the time that tech was starting to happen in San Francisco. So I spent the next well over ten years, you know, with HR technology. ⁓ or w worked with companies like Achievers doing recognition rewards. I went to LinkedIn, I ⁓ worked on some talent programs and then landed at Culture Amp, as you mentioned, which was a really those six years at Culture Amp were really important where I finally was in the room with organizations and leaders and helping them think about how are you defining culture, how are you thinking about it, and how are you truly building intentionally with with data behind you? And that was something that to this day I still think organizations struggle with. I did that for six years and then had the opportunity to go on the the Most rewarding, exciting, and most challenging journey of my life, which was starting my own business, Culture C Consulting, ⁓ and that was three years ago. And here we are talking. So that's my quick story. speaker-1: Thanks, Craig. Well, it seems like you've had so many opportunities to get to support and learn from leaders. And what I'd really love to hear a bit about is like, what does leadership mean to you? And what are the influences that have shaped you, like the role models maybe that you've looked up to along the way? speaker-0: Yeah, great question. You know, over the years, you know, going through grad school and now that I'm involved in in these courses, you know, really looking at this, I've thought a lot about this leadership. I mean, the first thing I'll say is I think it's important to anybody thinking about this that we separate leadership and management. They they're concentric circles, they can overlap, but I think leadership and management are different and sometimes we conflate those in our organizations and we talk about these two things. And when I think about leadership, I first like if we just really strip strip it back. I think leadership is a is a dynamic ⁓ situation, right? That you I don't believe you can be a leader unless there's something, you know, it's like a firefighter needs fire, right? A ⁓ a leader needs what? And you know, I think about the a lot about that. And I think a leader needs followers, right? So to lead, something must follow. And so I think at its core fundamental level, I think a lot about that. And not from I mean, it could be nefarious, like how do you know, people you can get people to follow through duress or stress, but That's short term. You know, that's could backfire very quickly. but it still holds, you know, that that this idea that leadership requires follow follow followership, I guess is the right word. So at a certain level, I think about that is how do we develop people to create the most healthy skills, to create that sort of dynamic between having people follow you somewhere, some vision, some place. And by the way, we all can s we all sit in both all the time. There are moments where we need to to to follow and the moments we need to lead. ⁓ so I think about it that way at a at a core level is what are the skills and what is it required to to to to build that. that would be like a high level. Do you want me to share a little bit more about kind of my experiences or things that influence me? speaker-1: Yeah, I mean I'd love to hear more of your experiences and if there is a particular leadership style that you feel is most effective or that you you have seen people want to follow. speaker-0: Yeah, you know, as I think back about this, it's interesting because I, due to my makeup and nature, also sort of a kid that had to kind of go on my own and oftentimes authority, I felt like I mean, one of my notes here is around this positional like positional authority. It's something I've always struggled with. You know, I've never done well in situations where, you know, you're managing that team, go in there and do their performance reviews. Like I don't like positional authority personally. ⁓ I like to I I like to give my followership to a leader, right? So I think that's important to say and I want it to be earned. So I always I I was thinking about this question, looking back over my life and the most important experiences and the people that influenced me are those that that earned that from me. I think Back to early days at a camp, like the camp director, you know, was one of these early kind of you felt really inspired by this person. they felt like they were in control and charge, and it was a very important role and it was very clear how how it was situated. So I mean, I think most of us can think back and think about those leaders in our lives. I would say that because of what I just mentioned around my journey with the two sides of it, that in the beginning I I struggled with a little bit. I didn't want. It and I didn't feel comfortable being in it. And I think that a big piece and something that we share is that a 10-year stretch of my life was heavily influenced by men's work and men's circles and being around and doing that work. And I think that was really big for me to find my place and to find my kind of grounded who I am and what I'm about and where I'm going. Because again, before you have that, it's all kind of a facade. For leadership. But once I got very clear on my purpose and my mission, I felt like I started to notice people would naturally kind of gravitate towards me in certain situations. And that was the first time where I got to taste like leadership as an adult from a mature place. And it was really because of the role modeling and the work and the be for me in spaces with other men. Cause I think I had some stuff around that authority and and male figures in my life. And to just do that work. So that was that was a big one for me around leadership. ⁓ and then I also I've found in my journey, I've always done really well when it's again, I've never particularly loved ⁓ being a manager of a team and doing performance reviews. But in my journey at Culture Amp, you know, not only did I work with organizations and like in those moments when I'm in the room with a leadership team sharing results and and facilitating those conversations, that's leadership to me, even if it's for three hours to kind of take that. that moment and and and ask for them. Like I I need this for the next three hours so I can lead and you can be here so we can get through this. those were examples. And then we started doing events and I got very involved in that. So really working and bringing together ⁓ many people from different sides of the organization to pull off these big events. ⁓ leading through our experience design and our our facilitation and working with our speakers. Like again Creating trust, having a vision, and having people really respect and and be willing to go along with that. And then the final piece of my time at Cold Tramp was building community, which I think was a very big ⁓ leadership piece and really powerful because there were no dollars involved. And I think that to what I just said before, if you're really gonna test leadership and authority outside of the bounds of positional authority or what we do in our organizations, remove money and see. Right? And see. And I and I think that was probably the biggest ⁓ a real experience over many years and that we but when I left that we had seventy chapters and, you know, we'd started that. So that felt those are these moments where I I leaned into it. And then I of course starting my own business, I think that it would be very hard to do it if you haven't done the work yourself and are comfortable because I lead, you know, I have to lead my clients, I have consultants that work with me. ⁓ and the end of the day the the buck stops here. So you know, and I have to take full responsibility and ownership. So I think that is kind of the culmination of my journey with with leadership. Yeah, so that's that's kind of ⁓ me riffing on what's inspired me and how I think about leadership. speaker-1: Yeah, I appreciate that. I think one of the core themes that I heard is that leadership is best practice when it is earned rather than when it's necessarily like positional or granted in some other way. And that we want to follow people that we're choosing to follow, that have earned our trust, that we feel genuinely interested and inspired by. And I think that's that's a really important theme for us to keep in mind as we continue in the conversation. Because I think what I wanna turn to now is How are you using AI in your work today? Yeah. Because I want to make this link between leadership and AI and how it's shifting the conversation around leadership. speaker-0: Yeah, one last thought on that. And you just mentioned I think it kind of came through, but as you were talking, you know, a practice that I've really started to to use is I ask, I ask for can I can I lead here? Right. And I do that often. I do that inside if I'm doing it for a f ⁓ an offsite with a leadership team or if I'm working with somebody. You know, and I think it goes back to that dynamic that we spoke about. And I really appreciate by doing that, it showcases that, hey, is there anything you need from me, you know, for me to lead here? Is is there something you need me to change? But I think it it it it speaks to that I am asking for you to allow me to lead, you know, and that this is also this is consensual and I you know, and and I think we don't have those conversations often enough. and we're not clear, so the boundaries get blurred and then we have these problems with authority and power dynamics and push and pull versus can we be more explicit in this situation on this team? I'm asking the rest of you, will will you let me be the leader here? And if you have any hesitations, can we talk about it? So we can get there. And I think that goes a long way and I think that's something that people could could could embody. So I I'll I'll I'll pause I'll I'll stop there, but just when you're speaking, I you know you have me think about the idea of of asking permission to lead. speaker-1: Yeah, I mean I appreciate that because it goes back to this theme you brought up from earlier on in your life where you had this real questioning of authority and resistance to authority, maybe. ⁓ and you wanted to really just be in a position where you could choose what authority you believe in, right? And and so because of that, you're really attuned, you're relationally attuned to how your ⁓ declaration of authority will be received by those around you. And you wanna make sure that they're also having the chance to to make a choice there rather than just having it thrown on them, right? speaker-0: Exactly. And I find usually unless there's something really big, a simple conversation can go a long way. Maybe somebody's struggling and they just, you know, the opportunity to be heard and maybe you can say, Okay, let's get some agreements here, but let's move forward. It's it's really powerful. So I think it's just respecting it and not I think early in my life I wanted it. I wanted to take it, I wanted the power of it, but in life learning that it's really a d it's a delicate dance and it's a relationship between followers and leaders and sometimes I need to to follow and it strengthens my followership as well. So speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that. So let's circle back then now to this idea of AI and how how is it that AI is changing what it means to be a leader today? And in particular for you, how are you using AI in your work today? speaker-0: Yeah, you know, I mean I I think the verdict's still out on how it's changing leadership. We can talk about that a little bit. I think it's a a little early, just you know, I think we're in a unique phase where we're still as much as it feels like it's it is so here and it's so omnipresent, we are still in the early stages of grappling with it through how we use it and leverage it. But I'll talk a little bit right now about myself. I mean, one thing, you know, that has come up in some conversations that you and I have had earlier, probably what, seven, eight years ago now ⁓ while learning about my daughter and her having ADHD, I realized that, ⁓ my gosh, I too have ADHD, which is a very big aha for me, something that I'm proud of. I appreciate my brain and the way it works. And I think a lot I get a lot of really unique things that come from that. And it helped me understand some of the challenges and some of those question marks I'd always wondered about. Like why there were just things that felt different for me without and without the context, it didn't make sense. And I think learning about how my brain works helped me understand a bit more about how sometimes I interact with the world. So one of the first things I'd say and and I think it's important to say, I went on my own in May of twenty three. which is important because ChatGPT was born November thirtieth of twenty-two. So we're talking about within five months, really the early days. ⁓ and the reason I remember that date, 'cause I'm awful with dates, is cause we share a birthday, myself and Chat GPT, which I think is kind of funny. but I started a business and I number one didn't have any restraints as far as an organization saying you could, you couldn't, what you know, I was I had nobody telling me otherwise, no authority. And ⁓ I've always I've interested in technology, I've always leaned into technology and I simply at first saw it as ⁓ yeah, an opportunity that I wasn't gonna, you know, I was gonna look at it through this lens and question the morality and and and myself and we'll talk about that. ⁓ But I wasn't gonna shy away from it and I needed ever any edge I could get. And I, you know, I saw the inside, the inner workings of these organizations, and they were paying for people to come in and write that had no experience in the space or whatnot. And it was like, well, I have a tool now that can help me with that. So I leaned in pretty quickly. But the first thing back to the ADHD was I likened my first experience with chet, you know, with AI in the even in the early days, was kind of like when I got glasses for the first time and everything gets a little clearer, and you're like, ⁓ my gosh, you know, I've existed without, I've compensated. But then the c that clarity. So first and foremost, it was a tool for me. And when I say that, the best way I can explain, I mean, I think there's lot of levels, but anybody with ADHD will probably resonate with what I learned is I had a bottleneck problem that I have a lot happening in my head. ⁓ I'm processing a lot, ideas pop in a lot, and I could never keep up with the output. ⁓ both a systems, the way to document, the way to get it out. And I started very early figuring out how can I record things and then use that to process an AI. So I would record on my phone, then I'd upload it, ⁓ notes, ideas, thoughts. ⁓ and that to me, all of a sudden, when I could work at the speed of thought, the speed of at the speed of the spoken word, It was a beautiful unlock and then learning, you know, and then I could use AI to help me organize and keep that documented somewhere. I used Notion, that became my kind of my portal. So first and foremost, beyond any of the what it is, what it isn't is it changing our world, is it safe? It just as a tool for me it it it really it opened up I I couldn't imagine a world right now if I didn't have it for those basic things on how I work. And finally I wasn't limited between getting an idea through my fingers out into a keyboard and then editing and writing. Like it those things just slowed me down. So that's that's number one. I think the other thing is being able to just simply be the boss of it all. Like, you know, we talked before about earning leadership. I don't need to earn leadership through AI. You know, like clearly the way you talk to it's gonna change the output. But my point was I can move fast. I didn't have to work we got pleasant trees. I could just sometimes bark orders at it, get my what I needed back. Again, not a problem. I love humans. I will always you know but that's a layer when we're working with each other. We deal with that kind relationship. So I think the second was it allowed me to work at a new speed and not be worried about the recipient as much. I could just get the stuff out and not have to think about that layer. let's see here. You know The I then it evolved. So I'd say in the beginning that would that was that, but then it evolved to my output layer. That I was able to start outputting things that are such a higher level of quality. Look And the areas that I struggle with. I don't like typography. I don't I'm not visually I'm way more auditory. So all of a sudden I could start to get my ideas, my thoughts, my notes out clean form, fast. You know, professional emails, proposals, you know, and everything we'll talk about that. I mean, everything I put out is mine. ⁓ you know, I will spend an hour, two hours crafting something, but that thing could have taken me two weeks or three weeks. And then with the ADHD brain, they just would have layered and stacked on top of each other. And I would become overwhelmed. So I think being able to move quickly and like focusing on my core strength, the way I think, the what I know, the way I put things together, and not have to sit and spend as much time on the output, which now, again, ADHD glasses, the output was slowing me down, getting the final format. And I had it all in my head. I know that now. ⁓ You know, and then it evolved more recently. I'd say in the last seven or eight months. Look, we made a big there was a big leap when Fable. came out, which was, you know, Anthropics, you know, first it was Mythos and Fable came out. The beginning of the year, ⁓ the agentic thing really hit. It went from something that could help me as a tool to really being able to do some pretty wild things. I can build now in ways that I couldn't before. so I can build a small assessment. Like if I do large scale assessments, I work with tools that are already pre-built. But I found that I can do a lot more work with simple leadership assessments. you know, ways to collect a lot of data, synthesize it, and then present it, you know, the way I want to. And I look at some of the stuff and I think to myself, I would have had to been an a an organization of 15, 20, 30 people to to be putting this out at the speed. ⁓ so my speed, my, you know, it's the deliverables, and we'll get to that without without sacrificing the core me inside of it all. ⁓ the final thing I'll say to anybody else out there is I've started recording all of my conversations. ⁓ I let people know that I'm recording the conversations. That has been awesome. So, you know, I again looking back at school in my life, the time it took, I couldn't pay attention to the to the speaker and take notes. There was always a a conflict in that for me in my brain. That now I can be exclusively focused on who I'm talking to, on what I'm trying to extract, and then I can go back later and get the the bits and pieces out. Again, how have I sp it's just all the tools to speed up the things that don't take away from the core thing that is me. speaker-1: And how would you articulate the core thing that is you, Craig? speaker-0: Funny when you asked this. I didn't think we'd go here, but it goes back to this ADHD brain of mine. It is the dot connector, the way the relationship builder, the creative in me. I mean, I think part of my journey was having to figure out how to fit in this very linear world when really at my core, I'm pretty creative, a musician. I love performance growing up. ⁓ I love creative thought, I love creative solutions. So you know. I was thinking about this. It's it and it's it's funny if you stop and think for all of us that use it a lot now, I don't veer, I wouldn't go try to do anything architecturally. I have everything I need at my fingertips, probably every arc you know, piece of information, it could probably put together plans for me. Yet I do not have the confidence, I do not have the understanding, I would never put my thumb my human accountability, which I think is important with AI, then at the end of the day, whatever comes out, no one's going back to the AI for punitive damages. But if I put something out, they're coming back to me. I have to stand behind it. ⁓ so what what's core me, and I think for anybody listening, what I want to get across here is for all of us to examine that thing that's uniquely you, that I am not a proposal with great font, right? I am the the understanding of how organizations and people work. How can we both gather good information, quantify it, and get in front of the hands of of the right people. It's the coaching that goes involved with that. You know, I have a client now, a construction ⁓ a company, and at first they had never they had never done this sort of work with employee listening or they were just building their their HR team. And when we first started talking, the CEO said, you know, can I just go on to chat GT you he's very into Chat GPT. Can I just go in there and get get a get a survey? And he even came to one of our meetings with a survey he printed out. You know? And I think my response to him was ⁓ give me fifteen minutes, I'll come back to you with some plans to build a building. Would you hire me to build a building? Right? So y yes, you can get the survey. I can go get blueprints and a plan to build a building. But do I understand the order of operations? Do I understand how it works and how these people come together? How long would it take me and would I have the confidence? So we you know, it so that was part of the journey, and then we ran a very small assessment so I could showcase it's not the survey. It is standing behind it and going, Are these These questions really designed for what you're looking for. Were they written in the right way? How do we roll this out and communicate that to your organization? How do we support you to make sure you're communicating this correctly? When it gets back in your hands, how quickly can we get from all that data to a few key points that you can go communicate back? You know so could he spend the next six months or a year figuring that out? Sure. Is that what he's focused on? No. So I think for all of us saying if you're a salesperson You know, I know a lot of your worth up to this point has been, can you get the information to Salesforce quickly? Can you update your documents for your next manager? That's really not your job. Your job is having as many phone calls as possible, building relationships, getting conversations, extracting the right information, and advancing those. And all the other things, if you think that's your job, you're gonna lose your job pretty quickly. So I think all of us thinking about what's the core part that is the human interactive tissue of your work, and which part is simply wrote repeatable information and I think that's tricky for us because a lot of our economy's been built on that. You know, think about financial analysts like 10 years ago. You needed that. But that doesn't mean financial analysts go away. But the best ones are gonna be the creative ones that understand their their field and their industry the best and that use AI to do more work, better work, faster. ⁓ and I think we have to continue to focus on that. speaker-1: Yeah, I think you bring up such an important point here, which is like our value is not the output. Our value is knowing how to get to a good output because of all the years of experience that we've that we've gained, right? And and the wisdom we have. So you don't somebody doesn't pay you to come up with the survey. They pay you for the expertise you bring to know what you're even trying to create and what kind of ⁓ you know, engagement you're looking for in the organization and how to work backwards to get that. So I think, yeah, that's such an important point just to go back and say, as a leader, what is the thing that's irreplaceable about you? And you're bound to find that that's going to be some combination of your capacity relationally, connection to your own wisdom and your own experiences and your own context that you bring to the table. And then some kind of secret sauce that no matter how hard you try, AI just can't do it better. ⁓ at least not yet. I think that's a really important thing, but I'm curious then, Craig, like on the flip side, are you noticing that there are any places in your work where you're choosing deliberately not to use AI? And if so, why? speaker-0: It's a good question, the way you frame it. Am I choosing not to use AI? I don't that I'm choosing not to use AI. I think it's more that I have kind of a fundamental kind of framework in my mind of how I use AI that I feel aligned with and that is aligned with me and my values and ⁓ you know, so yeah, I don't I look I look I still to this day, and I adopted this early in my usage of AI was I always saw it as, like I said to you in the beginning, you know, in the early days before any of us had processed this, I'd just come out of working in SaaS tech companies for the past ten years. My last three years were in a marketing team. So I w I saw firsthand kind of the inner workings of some of this stuff. And like I said, realizing like I didn't get prior to that that organizations hired writers. Like truly about $80,000 a year. And these people would come into any organization and write, right? There'd be a a topic or something They would be given to them. They would go research it. They'd write a piece. They'd come back to somebody that knew better. They'd say, give notes, edit, they'd tweak it. The skill was great writing. And then they'd turn around and push it out. And like that I remember I remember like, whoa, that's what's really happening. All these articles and blog posts and the clickbait and all that stuff, I didn't I didn't fully understand it. So when I went on my own, it's like it's already being done. You know, so this idea in the beginning that might be cheating if I had it right for me for professional purposes, I think quickly I looked at like Because I had the framework of what organizations were doing, I and to back to my main point, I I organized a framework in my mind of I'm gonna do the same thing, that I get to be the boss and I for a hundred dollars a month have access to like what organizations are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a year. why would I back away from that? But I also and you know, look, ⁓ all of us along the way, you hit those moments where you know there's that inner thing of going, Am I cheating? Am I cutting a corner? I I don't want to feel that. You know, and I think that probably because I learned to use audio, to me, that was that was the biggest shift that I don't need to cut corners. The corner was cut for me. I needed to get my ideas, my thoughts, the things that have propelled me in my career and that I've seen people respond to out as quickly as possible. I don't mind if ⁓ professional email comes out a little flat. If somebody asks me if it's AI, sure, whatever. I didn't ask it to just generate anything though. And almost any time I generate something, I'm always back and forth. Like again, you're my personal assistant. I think back to like you know the days of the typists and that you know they'd sit in front of the boss and you just spit out edits and change this, do that, do that, and go, Wow, I can do that. I'm gonna do that. But I always envision myself sitting in the center, right? I'm the leader to that point. I'm in charge here. And and And paying attention. I'd be lying if I didn't say there's been times where I knew in my gut I cut a corner and I'd ask anybody listening to this just being able to pay attention to that because those I think that's the place where it's about accountability and integrity. That if we feel that and you just keep going, then slowly you normalize behavior that's not aligned with your values. And ⁓ for me, I also I run my own business. I have to be accountable to my clients. I don't care where, you know, AI or not. So I think about that everything I said. Like I scrutinize it to make sure, like, but the reality is it probably wrote it better than I would have. And I was able to get all my thoughts out and th the the iterative process I can do in one hour is mind blowing. And I've honestly, Dan, I don't think I've had any negative responses from anybody around it. And if I want to write off something authentic, I'll write it authentically. ⁓ but my look, my writing has always been a struggle for me. So even authentically, I'll say, Well, you just tighten this up for me, keep it my voice. I've trained my AI, I have skills built into my AI around what is my voice. you know, that helps a bit, you know. I'm sure somebody that really knows what they're looking at can tell. ⁓ but I kinda don't care because I assume that most shit I'm reading anymore. Sorry if I ⁓ tossing or not, most of the stuff I read anymore, I assume ⁓ AI has been used to help. So I really care about the context, what they're trying to convey. and what my relate experience is when I'm relating to them as as humans. speaker-1: Yeah, I mean it sounds like overall you've had the kind of Goldilocks experience with AI that I think was promised in many ways, which is we're gonna free you up to do what you're great at and reduce the burden of all the other work, right, behind the scenes. It seems largely that's been true for you, which is awesome. And I'm curious, like speaker-0: ⁓ and maybe Goldilocks, but maybe I will say this. What I witnessed was that first year to year and a half, most of my peers that were still in organizations weren't touching it. We're scared of it, weren't allowed to touch it. So I wonder if it's Goldilocks. Maybe also because no one told me, back to my thing about authority, that maybe people coming up now are being told how to use it. That no so I don't know if it was Goldilocks or just got to trial and error and do it my way and find my way and stay clear on who I was. And I wonder if more people will be Goldilocks in another year or so when they you know, I just I do think I had a year to a year and a half of runway where it just didn't feel like a lot of people around me were using it as much. And even to this day when I speak with people, sometimes I'm blown away of where it reminds me of where I was a year and a half or two years ago, you know, versus truly starting like the way it can build things for you know, getting to the place where I understood the energetic side. And believe me, there was a learning curve when Anthropy came out and Claude came out and I started using that in co work and was like it was frustrating at first. I had to think about things differently. ⁓ so there's you know, and then you get used to it and it just feels like second nature. So I just I hold a little space that hopefully most more people will get to this place that you called Goldilocks. It's just that I was out able to do it without anybody forcing me in any way and I got to kind of like muck my way through it and figure out what worked for me. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. So in a way you're kind of seeing into the future for a lot of folks in terms of where they're heading on this trajectory of understanding and experimenting with AI. And it sounds like the results are really promising. ⁓ I guess what I'm curious about then is when you look out beyond your own your own work and your own operation, ⁓ and you're working with your clients, with with other teams, how are you seeing AI change or impact the way that people are? leading or working together or relating with each other. speaker-0: well a couple things. I do I want to call this out because I've thought a lot about, you know, sugarcoating AI, this and that. I I think unfortunately right now we have a we kind of have a one-note conversation with AI. I too am scared about AI like anybody else. I am sitting here talking about these tools that I've found that supported me to do the day to day work like in the internet. Internet came out or other things came out. I, you know, I The truth is I also know enough to know that it's a sliver of the power this is offered that I'm using and that in the wrong hands at geopolitical levels, the way we deal with data and information and agents, that scares me too. So I just want to say that I think we're having this one note conversation. I think we need to start teasing out some different conversations, the application that, you know, I think we are moving into this beautiful, you know, transition of the workplace that is gonna be painful and on the other side is something interesting is gonna be there. I'm also worried about who's in who's running these things, where are the guardrails, who's in control. So I think we have to get better at having different conversations. And my my conversations go back, you know, core of what I do, my my mission is to help the world work better by improving how we work. And I think about it from that lens. I'm as worried about it as anybody else. I have t I have a daughter going to college right now, another one is going into high school. I am worried about what that's gonna mean for their careers. Are we preparing our kids the right way? So I just want to hold some space that I hold some of the same concerns and worries, but I also sometimes will say, and we can be worried about that. And I understand why young people, like even what we just spoke about, you mentioned, you know, gosh, you get to use all the skills and things you've learned and done it faster. And and I think to myself, But what I might miss if I was 20 right now, right? With AI. So I I hold all of that. I want this conversation to be seen as, you know, through the lens that I'm seeing it right now, which is with all of that, not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We have this amount you know, new powerful tool, and how can it support us and what we're trying to do in our organizations? ⁓ what am I seeing right now? You know, I think when it comes to leadership, well, there's a couple things. On the negative side of what I'm seeing. I feel like there was a conversation we weren't having enough before AI, which was around our struggle and challenges with like how are we even developing leaders and and managers in our organizations? And most people, this was a common conversation, you know, you get promoted because you're good. I mean, that'd be going on forever. And the reality was we kept putting people in positions of authority and power and management because they were good at their job, but not because, you know, the fact we never leaned into a professional class of managers. people that are truly trained like to do it and do it well and and the importance on the years of throwing bodies at it and and really wrecking not wrecking, but really the challenges and careers oftentimes because you were just happened to be with the wrong manager. AI came out, I'm at these conferences, I'm I'm I'm in the the scene of HR and culture. And I feel like that conversation went away completely and all we're talking about is AI and the technology. And it it kind of a six or seven months ago hit me and was like, wow, it's kind of scary that now more than ever, we need we may have fewer managers, air quotes going up, but gosh, they're gonna have to be much better now. And we're still not talking about how do we develop managers and leaders and all we're talking about is like the tech, the tech, the tech. so I think that's that's still a challenge. And when I think about it, the truth is everybody's gonna have to be a manager soon. Everybody's gonna have to think about managing agents at some level. I don't care if you're entry level, you're gonna be asked to like your work is going to be about you managing tools that are helping you do the work. So again, some core level of the organization planning you know, strategy when it comes into to being a leader and a manager should be started with entry level. And by the time you're a senior leader in an organization, you are managing people that are managing people that are managing agents that are all over the place. So like I think that we may have fewer managers, but I think that that's something that bothers me and I feel like it disappeared in our in our fever with the technology and the unknown. ⁓ on the flip side, I think that I think that there's a tool. Like most people probably have gotten to the place now, like I said, like kind of V1 usage of just chatting with it and having just something to bounce ideas off of. You know how how nice it is now? I think about all the emails. Even to this day, if you took everything that I just put out on my verbally before it got put into an email, with it not saying, Hey, look, okay, why don't you soften it up a little bit? This is the point you're trying to get across. that that that layer of simply being able to go just share what's on my mind. But if when when I used to put that into an email, I'd step in it sometimes, like most people. The wrong tone, the wrong thin for the situation, too much about me and not about the situation. So where I'm going with that is like that's a small example of I think where it's helping in coaching and guiding, even at a subtle level. And I I heard something, I think it was a year and a half ago at the Better Up conference, but research was showing that, you know, men are typically pretty adverse to coaching. You know, the idea of going and asking for help kind of goes ⁓ you know, counterintuitive to some of the conditioning and you know in our culture of you know, you you get all that, right? But with AI, more men, particularly than women, were going and using it for coaching and support. because they didn't have to worry about how they perceived by others. That to me is like one of those that's I think probably somewhere and we're gonna see over time, things like that are helping that that people who probably had more power that were more averse to support and help are willing to go get it because they don't feel like they're getting judged on it. And that's probably a big a hypothesis is that's a big part of what is the problem with the leadership authority management problem we have. So I would say that I think I think we're seeing more of that. More what I mean, every senior even the the organizations I work with, even if they're a little late to the game, they're all in it now. They're all trying. They're thinking about it. The CEOs especially, often very early to the game, but think they're kind of like far along now and excited and barking orders and but they're in there. They're trying and and I I think that It's probably it's providing a sounding board in places where there was no sounding board before. yeah, that's that that's probably my f how I'd first answer that. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. So that's interesting. I appreciate what you brought up in terms of leadership development and manager capacity being more important now than ever, even though I think sometimes we're seeing middle management get thinned out and, you know, layoffs and all that. But what you're saying is it's sort of a paradox. It's like the the more that everyone becomes a manager, the more we also need to have really competent, thoughtful, skillful leaders orchestrating those teams and the teams of agents under them. speaker-0: And remember I said in the beginning, we do need to tease the the the idea of any a leader can be anybody. You can show up day one into a job and have some level of lead you know, maybe you do something really well and people are like inspired, right? So I think we should see leadership as something anybody can have. Management is usually something given to you and to manage it's organization. It's how do you think about it, is how are you organized, how are you communicating? Some very kind of hard skills. So, you know, staying clear on those two that everybody is gonna be asked to manage more. you know, so and those those hard skills. The leadership piece I think is probably the coaching and support, but like just to manage something, come up with a project plan, get yourself organized, those kinds of things, yeah. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So what do you think are the most important human elements of leadership that maybe become more valuable now as AI is getting more powerful? speaker-0: Look, I think that o okay, so before I answer that, this you know, in this journey for me, you know, and one of the things you know is that I also organize events, I put on dinners, I bring people together. I also love music, I love live music, and where I'm going with that is there I I force myself often, I feel like the conversation has been so focused on AI, AI what it's doing, AI what it's gonna do, AI us. And not enough people, I think the gift here is AI is also kind of allowing us to stop and go, then things we took for granted, what's uniquely human? What does AI not replace? Right? So like I'll be at a concert and I'll think to myself, I don't see a world anytime soon where AI is replacing this. Yeah. Even if you told me you could put robots on stage, they can play music just as well. I don't I I don't I still believe I'll be paying mu money to go see live music in 10 years. Right? The humanness about it. Like, like, and I think when I do a dinner and everybody's engaged and they're not on their phone, Phones and I'll say to the group, you know, this is an AI. Like, so we're so I start from thinking like letting this how like almost allow me to appreciate now that we have this super tool that does all this stuff, and the things like are not so relationships, like the relationships between humans, and I think this thing that was just taking for granted for our entire existence, maybe the gift here is gonna force us to look at that. So You and I know and anybody that's worked with AI knows it. There's something, the flattening. It's not I don't kid myself, and this is where it scares me with young people. I understand that they can we can we can go down some scary paths. But in mass, in general, in people that have had you know been exposed and have appreciated human connection. You know, so I'd say the same things like the salesperson on the call with the client. You know, Dan, the other day I had a situation was, you know, last November, ⁓ with with a refrigerator. We speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: We bought a new refrigerator. It was a whole situation, whatever. I don't need to go into it. And it was with Best Buy. So and then the it wasn't, it wasn't showing up when it was supposed to. And we're without refrigerator. So it was a pretty pretty tense moment over Thanksgiving. so eventually, when it wasn't showing up when it's supposed to, I went on this whole chain and eventually had a conversation. It was the first time that I was clear that I was having a conversation with an AI agent. And we went through the whole thing and it confirmed it'll be there tomorrow. Okay. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: Tomorrow it didn't show up. So now I'm furious. I finally it was so hard I got a person on the phone. And I was saying, you know, I spoke to someone yesterday and they and I was like, no, I didn't. What I did yesterday was interacted. Might as well have like went on your website and like submitted something and got a response. I have nobody to hold accountable. I didn't talk to anybody. Like what and it was that moment of like, we are far away. There are certain things that like I don't care how smooth it may sound. I talked to a computer. I didn't talk to a person. So I don't buy them or anywhere near time where I'm going to be making a complex sale or doing something where I never deal with a human, right? That humans, we are biased to want to connect and relate to one another. Again, this is going to be these aha's that we realize I heard the other day there's some sort of term, I don't know it, but in the in the like in the sci-fi world of like if a computer gets too close to being a human, we'll kill it. Like that's a theory, right? That it becomes a threat. But like what's that really at? It's it's that I think We're gonna learn that no matter how good it can put a string of letters together and words together, that a relationship, a biased relationship or unbiased, meaning somebody will be honest with you versus great question, Craig. I mean, we always joke in my family about the first two sentences, like, wow, you're really thinking hard about that trip to the grocery store. And you're like, thanks for the pleasantry. but I mean I think I think most people know it's inauthentic, which is fine. I need it as a tool. I don't need it to be authentic. So I think we all need to focus on look at your work, look at your job and say what's uniquely like what's something that I don't buy right now that that ⁓ a computer's gonna do. If all you do is input data into a computer at work I'd ask myself really hard, is there anything else you do? Is there relationships you hold? But if not, I'd probably be concerned about my role. You know, I think it is about the interpersonal connections and relationships between people. And I think it's gonna be about cre I also the other thing that I said early on was, you know, we grew up in a time, you know, that revenge of the nerds, right? And tech and all that. I think we're we're moving into revenge of the creatives. I think the more creative you are, ⁓ the way you string an idea together, the way you can leverage this tool. You know, you said to me in our last conversation about writing and feeling like writing's going flat, and I agree with that. But believe me, that's gonna allow space for an amazing writer to to jump out again. Because when everything's so flat, if somebody comes along and does it and it's so clearly not that Right, that but what is that? That's gonna be the creativity, not the automation side of it. So I think for all of us to just think about that, what is what is uniquely creative about you that's hard to replace and what's uniquely human and relational about you that's hard to replace. speaker-1: Yeah. I think an important thing to add here is how are we cultivating that unique creativity, right? How are we cultivating our originality? Because one of the things that I've found is really interesting in my own engagement with AI is that I'll start to s to use the the same language and the same flatness in the way that I'm communicating and start to feel like it's normal because that's what I've become accustomed to. And so my own creativity actually at times has gotten a little muted. And I've had to step back from that and be like, wait a minute. I don't want to lose this capacity. This is the essence of who I am. So I'm going to just out of principle, I'm going to write this entire thing myself, you know, and not work with AI on it. Or I'm going to go for a walk today and capture everything on voice note, but not be an interactive dialogue. Because I actually want to think beyond the limits of all of human wisdom that has been captured in these systems, right? I want to think in ways that might produce something different and une unexpected. You know, and I think there's this really interesting story that Alan Watts actually shares, you know, this famous sort of philosopher from the the nineteen fifties and sixties, where he says, you know, if we could go off and create any life that we wanted. We might choose to go have all these lives that we fantasize about, but at the end of the day, we would come back and we would choose to have a life that we couldn't predict, where we wouldn't know the answer, we don't know what's gonna happen, because that is actually what helps us feel alive. That's actually what is exciting and meaningful and gives our lives purpose. Right now we have so many answers. We have so many so much direction, right? But what I think is gonna be more valuable than ever before, to your point, is the spontaneity, the unexpected, the insight that is so poignant that it lifts out of the noise of the flatness of the conversation, right? And so I I wanna double down on what you said and just say, where can we cultivate that originality and that creativity in ourselves so that we don't just fall into this ocean of mediocrity, but we Find the way that we can be of service and uniquely add value. speaker-0: You know, you said something early, and it's true. Like, when we're talking about the value of the work, like, let's be clear, until a year ago, the value of the work was putting those numbers into that spreadsheet. The value of the work was the the educational system we've designed was built to create that because you could go off and create value. Like, right, so I think we also have to some empathy of like nothing was wrong, the equation's shifting very quickly. So as you were talking, I think part of the answer is we're probably gonna have to rethink our educational system to have young people enjoy creativity before it's muted. So that when the day comes and they're in these tools, they feel the same thing you just said of like, I feel that I'm slipping away. I'm gonna go for a walk and record something. Like, so they've already tasted kind of the uniqueness. I mean, by my fear is that we just conditioned robots to use AI, and that would be weird. I think we need to, you know, already we're gonna go through something really hard, and I think the speed of it's gonna be really scary, and I think it's gonna be there's gonna be a lot of There's gonna be a lot of stuff that gets burned down, but I think I do believe that on the other side there's a lot of stuff we don't see. I just think the speed, you know, they talked about when the when the when the internet came along, just the we had a lot more time. Just because you sat there and you were typist, it wasn't like your job was gone y the next day, you know, that took time for you know, first you start typing on a computer and word. So I just think it's the speed is is scary. But I think we cultivate creative I mean, I don't think we need to think about this as some management exercise. I think creativity is uniquely human and maybe we need to start like it it begins with how do we think about that and how do we reprogram ourselves and our educational system to have young people get more creative, think about that, enjoy that. So when the time comes, we've we've flexed that muscle that they don't want to they wanna have the same feeling you had of like, nope, don't want to that. I'm gonna go get it all out v voice or whatever. I'm gonna sit down with a pen and paper for a minute and get it out. and then I'll move to to the computer. So I mean I think that's the big thing is is, you know, or are we just going to create robots, but I think we need to see it as something we nurture in people that I believe if we t if if it becomes too binary, then it's just the next Next like control thing we do with people versus like creativity, it's always been there. It doesn't need to be I think it's just ensuring that people understand what their creativity is, have it flourish so when the time comes they understand like this whole point of this conversation, what's uniquely you and what's not, and they've they've got to understand that earlier so they can bring their unique gift and you know, we're we're probably gonna have a lot more companies, just smaller companies, you know. speaker-1: Yeah, and think, you know, one in interesting thing to remember is of course, there's a massive disengagement problem in organizations. It's not like most people love their jobs right now. So we've gone through having these careers where people are typing or they're data entrying or all the I've done a lot of those myself, right? As I've been developing my own career and it's exhausting, right? It doesn't feel like it's leveraging my skills and my talents. And and yet it has felt like a necessary part of Earning a living and being able to sustain your life. And so I think there's something also that's available here as a unique opportunity for us to question what is work? What why are we even doing what we're doing? And can we rethink parts of kind of the roles that we that we have in organizations to be like you said, to be leaders inherently, to be managers in terms of of at least of agentic ⁓ you know workforce, if not colleagues, but also Can we bring originality and spontaneity and the strategic sort of wise perspective that you can only gain through lived experience? Can we bring that to the table? That becomes the differentiator rather than pure productivity. speaker-0: Yeah. Revenge of the creative, Dan. You know, I think that what you're gonna see is more people pop out. Because of creativity. Somebody's gonna make music with AI. And I know every I know lots of people can make music, but somebody's gonna make music that's so cool with AI that no one else thought about. Just like when we started to do sampling and technology hit and EDM, like, and I remember in the beginning, like, well, I don't get it, it's just samples. Yet there are some people that are highly respected and regarded for the creativity and how they used it. We're gonna see the same thing. ⁓ it's just hard for us to imagine. All we can see is what we're losing, we can't see what we're gaining. So I think again, some of it's gonna happen intentionally with us leaning into creativity and some of It's gonna be reinforced by the environment of seeing these new levels of creativity with these tools that even if I gave you AI and said, Go do the same thing, you couldn't do it. And that's gonna be really interesting. speaker-1: Right. Yeah. So I'm curious to hear from you, just bringing it back full circle to you as a leader. you know, as this technology becomes more powerful, how are you thinking about your role and responsibility and how that's changing? speaker-0: my role and responsibility. I you know, I you talk about a leader. I think in my life I've learned of the things that I do well and delete and to to to do them well openly so other people can see and ask questions or I've been inspired by people and and also but I don't do well. So I think my role is having conversations like this is to continue to do this on my own journey. And as I feel like I've gotten far enough along where there's something to share, being more open about it. So hopefully I can help somebody else reframe or speed that that year and a half that I took, maybe it will help somebody get in i in eight months. ⁓ not fighting it, asking difficult questions. ⁓ you know, but I look, I believe we're on the the tip of the iceberg of probably the biggest transformation in our workplaces since the to the since the industrial revolution. And I think a lot of people are kind of coming around and agreeing with that. ⁓ I my work has always been around workplace transformation development to make it better for for for humans, which I believe is also better it can have better outcomes for organizations. So in some ways a lot doesn't change. It's just there's a new factor that's come in. And now my role is to stay as connected as possible, to listen to what my clients and organizations are thinking about, talking about, struggling with, staying connected using these tools and helping those organizations think through this. understanding their people aside from the judgment what they think of it. If everybody's frustrated with the tools they've been given and they're not using them, great. So you've invested in all the tools, but what about the behaviors? so I I really I try I don't think a ton about that question other than am I clear? Can I look at myself in the mirror every day and say I'm I'm in alignment with who I am, my my values and how I want to live my life and like this is the idea of accountability and integrity. ⁓ and can I sort of I picture myself on a surfboard. you know, for this part of my career and can I just ride this wave and stay authentic and align with who I am, ⁓ and support the the purpose, which is to help the world work better by improving how we work. And now I've found, you know, through COVID and through other things that as long as I stay centered on that I can adapt and change, that my work here on this planet remains the same and and and I trying not to fight it, but just kind of keep asking that question, looking at the reality of the now and saying, how do I continue on that purpose and path? speaker-1: Yeah. Beautiful. Well, my last question for you is what is the question you're sitting with right now? Like about your identity or your growth as a leader in an AI accelerated world? Is there something that's, you know, eating at you or keeping you up late at night or that you're working with? speaker-0: I think I think the biggest one is is thinking, you know, as a parent, ⁓ I I think gr greed and get mine has become a problem. We all swim in the sea of this, if especially if you in any way, shape, or form is prescribe to for profit capitalism. Like it's just part of the world we live in. And my fear is are we really gonna do that even to the detriment of our children? Like, what have we become if, you know, even us as workers are just like, how do I get mine? and we're not thinking for a minute about Are we supporting our young people? Like how are we bringing them in? Is there some social responsibility? Is it only 100% bottom line? Can I cut everything? Like, what about down the road? Like when ever we all retire. So I think the thing I think with the most is like from my perspective, from the workplace perspective, not, you I told you I have the same fears I think a lot of people have about, you know, what this could do in the wrong hands and surveillance states and all that. But at a at a workplace level, ⁓ Is are we so short-sighted that are we gonna like are we really throwing our our kids under the bus here or is somebody are we gonna step up and like be at least responsible with them and push for reform in our education system and how we work. Some of it's gonna happen naturally, but like how much how how much pain and like are we what are we gonna put our our kids through? So that's probably the biggest one I sit with right now is like it's clear to me that if we if we're not intentionally talking about it, this is gonna have a massive impact on a generation of of of young people and those things cost and they'll come back and and and cost us one way or another. So how am I slash how are we being more responsible to that question? speaker-1: Yeah, I mean I think we exist in a very individualistic culture and the idea that, you know, I need to go out and get mine, I'm in competition with you and everyone else, it creates this performative dynamic around AI adoption as well, where it's like, I did all this stuff and automated a month of work in twenty minutes and I'm doing all this and like, you know, ask me about my toolkit 'cause I'm I got it all figured out. And I think what that is what that's hiding is the fact that no one really knows. the answers to some of these really challenging collective questions. Mm-hmm. And and so we're rushing into a future where we're gonna have collective impacts that we've not spent a lot of time thinking about because we've been so focused on how do I get mine. speaker-0: Yeah. I mean someone you know, somebody said the other day, whenever new technology comes out, we kinda have to stumble on a big catastrophe before we get our shit together. Like, you know, we figured out nuclear power and energy. We didn't build nuclear power before we ⁓ built a nuclear bomb. Right? How about any of that? Right. And then after Hiroshima, the world finally stepped back and started like having nuclear proliferation and talking about it. And unfortunately it's probably gonna be the same here that we're gonna probably have to have some sort of something major happen before we have the hard conversation. I hate to say that, but I think that's kinda how people are, and I think we're dealing with a new power. But I I thought that That was funny the way they put it. Like, isn't it interesting that we we solved the nuclear problem and the first thing we do is build a bomb before we built nuclear energy? Like so us. speaker-1: Well on that ⁓ cheerful note, I wanna say thanks Craig for being with us. Good to have you. speaker-0: Yeah, thanks for having me. Wow, what a nice long form conversation. Like went places I don't typically go, so I appreciate you thinking about this and asking these questions and pushing me to think about it. speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. Alright, we'll talk soon. Yeah, you too. Thanks for listening to Human Equilibrium. If this conversation sparks something for you, I invite you to keep exploring with me at humanequilibrium.ai. There you can find the field guide on wise leadership in the age of AI, take the free human equilibrium assessment, and explore my work with leaders and teams to strengthen judgment, emotional clarity, and relational presence in an AI accelerated world. Until next time, stay curious, stay human, and lead wisely.