Latest / Human Equilibrium: Wise Leadership in the Age of AI / What Do We Want Work to Feel Like in the Age of AI? – with Analiese Brown
Transcript
- speaker-0: AI has contributed to this feeling that everything's speeding up. I think one of the things that feels like it's getting lost in that is just incidental human connection. I think there's just a real opportunity to look at this through a more empowered lens of what do we as humans want to be true versus simply what is now technically possible? I guess those are two different questions that will lead us to two very different places. 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. 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 Annalise Brown. Annalise is the Chief People Officer at Camp Minder, where she spent the last decade. Helping to build a company people actually want to work for, not just one that says the right things about culture. She's led the team through acquisitions, leadership transitions, a pandemic, and all the messy growth that comes with scaling a SaaS company. Most recently, she's been involved with Camp Minder's company-wide rollout of AI, helping to stand up an AI steering committee, and building the change management to help people adapt it. In a human-centered way. Her work has been covered in Forbes, Inc., and several books on modern leadership. As a proud Latina in the C suite, she's especially passionate about opening doors for people who've historically been shut out of power and building workplaces that give more than they take. Annalise, welcome to the show. speaker-0: Thank you so much, Dan. It is such a pleasure and a treat to be here with you and thank you for that wonderful introduction. I'm very much looking forward to the conversation today. speaker-1: Likewise. So I'd love to start out just by hearing a little bit more of your story and how you came to do the work that you're doing today. speaker-0: Yeah, well I actually studied cultural anthropology, not HR. So I was studying how humans build meaning and structure and systems, and it turns out that that's quite relevant to the modern workplace. So I've spent about 13 years building and leading people functions at growth stage companies. ⁓ first at Ship Compliant, including through their acquisition by Sobos, and as you mentioned, for about the past decade now at Camp Minder. So I've been head of human resources, head of people functions through, as you mentioned, ⁓ MA leadership transitions, a pandemic, and now through what I would call the most consequential shift I've observed in my career. ⁓ which is figuring out what AI does to how we work. So I didn't set out to study companies, I set out to study people, but companies are made up of people and I believe that will continue to be true ⁓ as we come to better understand what artificial intelligence can and can't help us do. So I believe the future of work is still human and that the question of our time is how do we Hold on to that humanity in the face of this change. speaker-1: Hmm. I love that that companies are made up of people, of course, and that the future is going to be ⁓ about humans as well. And so when you think about human leadership, I'm really interested to understand more of your your experience, your influences, kind of what's shaped the way that you lead. speaker-0: Yeah, that's a really great question. one of the influences that comes to mind for me is Kim Scott's approach to managing with radical empathy. ⁓ and I think empathy, you know, no no matter how well a AI tool or agent might be able to emulate empathy, there is still something that can only be felt in empathy from another human being. so her approach to radical empathy, which is about combining high expectations with high levels of support. So I really coach my team hard to own their decisions instead of escalating to me. And I have high expectations for what they deliver, but at the same time, the high support means empowering them with the guidance they need, the resources they need, the budget they need to be successful. ⁓ I'm also a dancer, and so when I think about what has influenced me as a leader, it's ⁓ someone who's always valued the power of movement and of that kind of creative expression. So I have taken that influence to help me understand what I call the somatics of the workplace, and one of the things that's come out of that. For me is just recognizing how important a regulated nervous system is and how that is really the best gift that we as leaders can give not only to ourselves but to our teams. So being able to, for example, ⁓ respond in a measured way to the hundreds of triggers that might ⁓ that we might experience in a given day versus reacting from a place of fear or anger. ⁓ and so I think that somatic work and that nervous system work has really shaped the way I lead. And then lastly, I would just say that I've been fortunate to work for leaders who really valued my input and my perspectives as an inherent part of strategy, ⁓ versus HR being kind of on the side or being an extracurricular. So being in the room, being part of those strategic conversations, being part of actually. running the business and held accountable to that has really shaped my ability to influence and do the work that I do. So for me, culture and strategy stopped feeling like two separate things a long time ago. That's become a really ⁓ big part of how I lead. speaker-1: Hmm. I love that. There's so many interesting threads that I could tug on here based on what you shared, but the one that comes to mind the strongest right now is this theme of the regulated nervous system. And I know that, you know, we can all feel, I think many of us at least are feeling this incredible acceleration that's happening where it just feels like there's, you know, work is compressing and responsibilities are piling up and There's this big push to adopt more and more AI technology to automate and augment our work. And as we do that, I think the tendency can be to feel like we're not doing enough. We're not moving fast enough. We're not adopting the way others might be. And it's almost like this competition of like who's got it figured out and where am I in in relation to my peers? And I think. All of that can lead to, as you noted, sometimes a feeling of fear or a dysregulated experience in your nervous system where it's hard to stay grounded and stay connected to that somatic awareness that actually enables wise decision making and clear and strong management with your team. And so I'm really curious to hear more about you mentioned dancing, like what are your practices? And how do you support your team to cultivate practices to enable a regulated nervous system? speaker-0: Yeah, that's a really great question. So in terms of my own practices, as I mentioned, dance is a big part of that. ⁓ I have participated in dance classes, dance troops, dance performances, and it's it's not only about the movement and the expression, but about the community and about connecting ⁓ with humans in that way and the just sort of gratification and sense of unity and purpose that comes in those moments for me. so dance being a big part of it, movement in general, I aim to move my body every day in some way, shape or form. ⁓ meditation is part of my practice, but really at a basic level, just tending to the body, you know, sleep. ⁓ nutrition, just the the the basics that kind of keep the machine running running well. and I aim to support my team in that too. We often start team meetings with an icebreaker question and I will oftentimes ask something like what's one practice that has been supporting you recently ⁓ outside of work or what's one self-care practice you'd recommend to others or ⁓ what's something kind you can do for yourself this week? So just kind of keeping that part of the conversation and demonstrating ⁓ that I value that, not only in myself, but also want to support it in the team. But I think, you know, going back to your earlier point about how AI has compressed and sped up our work in so many ways, and and what you said about that. Causing the feeling of being behind is so true. And I think there's only so much we can do from a self-care perspective to mitigate that. And in a way, it's kind of addressing the symptoms versus the underlying cause. And so I think we also have to back up and look at for ourselves what relationship we want to have with these technologies. And I think there is an introspective process that needs to happen. ⁓ for each person about the relationship that we want to have, what we are and aren't comfortable with, what we will and won't use AI for, how we will engage with it, and also I think maybe most interestingly, really surfacing what are the things about me as a human that I want to continue to Draw from and leverage in a human way. And then what are the things about the work that I do, whether it's my job or my household tasks or my finances, that actually I don't enjoy, I'm not good at, I would be happy to delegate. And those are the things that I think are ripe for exploring that relationship with AI. And I think ⁓ there is a process that folks need to go through for themselves to develop that right relationship. speaker-1: Yeah, I totally agree. And I'm really excited to get into all of that with you. I think it might be interesting just as a starting point to hear a little bit about how you are working with AI today. Like what are the use cases that you're finding most valuable and aligned with? speaker-0: Yeah. Well, there's kind of ⁓ two different levels ⁓ that I'll use to speak to that. One is on the operational and governance side and kind of this question of how companies are adopting AI effectively. ⁓ at Camp Minder I've been part of standing up ⁓ a AI steering committee. ⁓ and I have to give credit to our CTO Mary who's led that effort, but ⁓ I'm a part of the steering committee. And we, as a steering committee, also initiated the creation of several guilds. One is a technical guild, one is more of an operational cultural guild, and these are opportunities for employees to come together and share their voices around different use cases, different questions, different concerns. Through that, we've surfaced concerns about ethical and sustainable AI usage. We've developed ⁓ different policies around those things. We've had a number of ⁓ operational business questions that have then surfaced to the steering committee that we've been able to address as a leadership team. So it is not perfect. I think so many companies, Camp Minder included, are still figuring this out. But ⁓ I'm proud that we've at least identified some initial ways for folks to step back and look at the meta questions. Around AI and to surface issues and questions and have them be addressed. ⁓ And then I'll also speak to it kind of at the level of just use cases in my work and in my team's work. ⁓ I recently built a custom clause skill to help me manage a sensitive discovery review process working alongside outside council to make sure that we were going about it in. A compliant way. And that was very real, very high-stakes work that resulted in a in a meaningful outcome for the business. And I'm keeping this a little bit high level so that I don't divulge too many details. But ⁓ that was a a very interesting use case recently. My team also built a tool that I'm really proud of, which is a Claude tool that's connected to our career levels, our career tracks, and to our performance philosophy and some coaching inputs. So ⁓ this has meant that managers and team members, instead of booking time with my team, someone can go to that tool and ask in plain language ⁓ how to get to the next level in their career track or what they might need to work on or how to develop a growth plan for one of their direct reports. And they can get an answer that's grounded in our actual frameworks and philosophy, not just a generic internet, you know, career advice. and then we have visibility into the questions that people ask. So we can monitor and kind of flag if something comes up that needs human input. So we see that and we can step in. ⁓ so I think it's actually a great example of not trying to replace the judgment required by human input, but ⁓ discerning what maybe does and doesn't require that additional guidance and what the team and our managers might need from us as humans. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. That's awesome. I love hearing about the two sides of that, where it's not just like here, go off and use this tool and figure it out yourself, but it's here's a resource for you. And by the way, we're also paying attention and we'll help you to discern when you need our support versus, you know, go run off and don't talk to us. And so I think it's really cool that you found a way to, yeah, to be in that process of understanding. what is the right balance between those two elements ⁓ in a pretty important component of of the function. speaker-0: Yeah, thank you. ⁓ I I think so much of this is about balance and going back to my earlier comment about determining what are the repetitive tr ⁓ menial tasks that are ripe for that automation and then what are the tasks that we want to keep a human touch ⁓ very much a part of the equation. speaker-1: Yeah. So let's look at that a little bit more. The the piece of the human touch that you've decided strategically doesn't make sense to replace. Like where in your work are you deliberately choosing not to use AI and why? speaker-0: Yeah, so ⁓ this is such a great question and I think for me it comes down to any time that I need to build trust and understanding, that's a signal to me that my presence as a human and my human ability to empathize is very is is required and that I need to show up. that way, whether it's a hard conversation with a direct report, a difficult change communication, a ⁓ termination conversation, a employee relations issue. I might use AI to sharpen my thinking as I approach a conversation, but I have learned that The content and the way that I ultimately deliver that has to feel true to me as a person in order for the person receiving that and on the other side of that conversation to to to feel seen and to feel valued. And that's the experience that I want to and I'm committed to creating for the people around me. So I also have learned ⁓ kind of the hard way that it's Pretty transparent when a message or document was written by AI without much human involvement. So early on when ChatGPT was first released, we my my team and I recognized how quickly it could help us put together something like an internal communication. So we were using it for a lot of all-company announcements and Slack messages and documentation. And ⁓ technically they were fine, you know, they were well organized and logical, but I go back now and I cringe because they read a little bit like a corporate press release, and I just recognize now that that distinction and that that I'm sure people could feel that. So it's kind of that uncanny valley effect with the written communication where it sounds right, but people can feel that it wasn't it it it just isn't. quite human. And so I've become really cognizant about written communication and that even if I use AI to prepare or to improve a communication, that it ultimately needs to be ⁓ reviewed and edited by a person. speaker-1: I think that's really interesting because it's almost like this human radar that we have of is there another human on the other side or not? And this idea of you want them to be seen, you want them to feel seen, right? But if we're just throwing it through AI, we're not actually seeing. So there's something there of in the process of really being impacted by them. Right. And not just sort of expediting the response, but sitting with it and then choosing how you're going to to speak from that place. I think that's really interesting because like the cringe, I really relate to the cringe that you just described of, you know, ugh, this just doesn't feel like there's a human there that I'm talking to. And it just feels boilerplate, it feels corporate, it feels, you know, kind of flat. And I think What I'd be really curious to to learn more about is in this process, what what have you found helps to bring that language to life in a human way? Like is it is it certain ways of communicating or the language you use or the energy that you share it with? Like how do you actually convey having someone feel seen and cared for through your communication? speaker-0: Yeah, well, I think one thing that I've noticed about AI written communications is that they tend to flatten out the emotion or sometimes the kind of messiness of what's being communicated. And the truth is that so much of our human experience and so much of the way we experience the workplace Is messy and imperfect, and so it can feel like it's kind of this gloss or this sheen that's kind of obscuring that reality. And I think when we allow our communication to maybe be a little less perfect or a little less polished, ⁓ both written and otherwise, it it rings true. I think people can wreck people can more closely ⁓ experience the truth. in that because the truth is that our experiences are imperfect. so I think that's a piece of it. And I also think that there's there's I have I have yet to find an AI tool that can sit across the table from someone and observe the minutia of their tone of voice, their body language, the way their expression changes ever so slightly at a certain suggestion. And there is just ⁓ something about that that feels like it cannot be replicated and cannot be replaced. So it's the ability to observe the humanity in the person that you're in conversation with and respond to it accordingly. and say, hey, I hey, what happened just now? I just saw your face shift a little bit when I brought up this idea or whatever it might be. ⁓ and to and to respond to it in that way. And that's where I think a lot of value comes in conversation that ⁓ I just I haven't seen AI be able to do that. speaker-1: It's interesting that you bring that up because I think there are like AI screening interviews now and there are tools that will analyze somebody and use those like micro expressions and body language to try to come up with a picture of what their experience is. But the difference is that when I'm sitting across from a human, I'm experiencing their care, their presence, them seeing and listening. To me, when I'm sitting across from a you know a camera that's analyzing me, that feels more like an interrogation. So even if the data can be processed by either a human or a machine, the experience is fundamentally different. And I think so much of what I have historically said can't be replicated by AI is going it's already being replicated and it's going to be replicated more and more. Everything from decision making to Like we just talked about, body language and analysis of kind of what someone is experiencing as they're speaking. ⁓ all this all these terrains that we thought were only human, like technology is continuing to step into those spaces. But fundamentally, it just doesn't seem like there's ⁓ the same kind of connection whatsoever. Like the connection is much more one that's transactional. And that feels almost invasive rather than connective. speaker-0: Yeah, that's really well said. And I think it comes down to what we're optimizing for. ⁓ if we're optimizing for pure speed and productivity, then something like a ⁓ agentic interviewer might make sense because maybe we don't care exactly how it's making the candidate feel. Maybe we just care that we are able to conduct X number of interviews at low cost to the company, right? But and and some companies might make that decision and that that might be ⁓ the right decision for that company, but other companies might decide it's actually more important to us that candidates feel like they are having a human experience and not a transactional experience. And so we're not going to use those types of agentic interview tools. And I've seen them. I ⁓ I've seen videos of people being interviewed by them and it it's ⁓ and and maybe you're familiar with more advanced technology than I am, but it's it still feels light years away from what a human could be picking up about ⁓ the candidates delivery and their tone of voice and their eye contact and their Just all of those all of those little mannerisms. So I but you know, I'm I'm open to I think part of this whole journey is being open to that evolution and so I'm open to the tools evolving in a way that I haven't seen yet and that might surprise me. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Yeah, one of the funny things about AI is light years tend to go by in months. But what's fascinating, I think, to your point is that there's definitely still something important about that human connection in those conversations. And I would argue in a first interview, especially if you have a human-centered organization at this point, it matters that you have a good first impression. So one of the things that I think is really ⁓ strange about the way a lot of people are operating in an AI enabled environment is that it almost feels like it's about what can I get and how quickly and efficiently can I get it, rather than necessarily seeing that it's a give and a take and that you're constantly in a reciprocal relationship with the other. And so if all you're doing is trying to extract data to understand who to hire, that's only one side of the hiring journey. The other side is what is the experience that human is having in relating to this company and to me. speaker-0: A hundred percent. And I I think what you're bringing up, Dan, is actually such a great example of the ways that I think AI is just exposing companies' values and approaches as much as it is shaping those values and approaches. And what I mean by that is that if you're a company that already cared about the candidate experience, then this is how you're going to approach the question about you know, transactional ⁓ AI enabled interview process because you can't because in the first place you care about the experience the candidate's having. So it's that that's the underlying value. So again, it's kind of what you're optimizing for. And AI can't ⁓ necessarily change what the humans in the company value, but it can expose where they choose to ⁓ invest that effort. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that. It's like AI is the great amplifier and in a way also a great mirror of us as leaders and as organizations. And our values end up being some of the defining elements of what gets reflected or amplified. And so yeah, I'm just really curious now to hear a bit more, to get back into the tangible side of the work that you're experiencing now and and just Understand a bit more of what you're seeing in terms of how AI is changing the way people are leading, working together or relating with each other in your organization. speaker-0: Yeah, great question. ⁓ I think that, you know, as as we were just discussing, it not only exposes values, but I think it can also expose things like trust and things like working style and it can expose where maybe some of those underlying systems or cultural norms are fragile. ⁓ so for example. I have observed how with our rollout of AI tools and our push for AI adoption, we've seen some people really lean in ⁓ because that just might be their style. They might be the type of personality that is excited about change and embraces change. And we've seen others kind of hold back and feel more cautious and or more nervous or more ⁓ ⁓ I should say less confident about approaching that change. And then we have managers who are managing teams of people kind of at both ends of that spectrum and everywhere in between. So then they're working in different ways with different workflows and different levels of comfort with those workflows. And so this has really raised a management challenge. and it's something that requires not only support ⁓ but real real training and real efforts to equip managers with with with new and different skill sets than I think were required in the past. So it's ⁓ bringing some of those changes, bringing some of those disparate working styles to the surface. ⁓ I also think that i to the point about how AI has contributed to this feeling that everything's speeding up. I think one of the things that feels like it's getting lost in that is ⁓ just incidental human connection because I can now, you know, go into Claude and feed it inputs from five different systems and feed it inputs from you know, the notion pages of people who don't even know I'm ingesting their notion pages in this way, and I can produce an output that previously might have required that I connect with Eight different people in the organization. And so some of that just connection that happens incidentally when you have to work with different stakeholders and gather different perspectives and different opinions is no longer necessary to get to that output. But ⁓ then I think if you're careful, you can go pretty far with a project or with a ⁓ task without ⁓ gathering that real human input and and then it feels like you know you come forward with a polished deliverable but it's like well no one's seen it yet no one no one knew about it it's all it's like this notion page with 20 different notion pages nested in these links and it's too much for humans to really take in and absorb. So I've had to get and I've had to coach my team to get really intentional about Saying even just because we can produce a really polished deliverable using Claude doesn't mean that we should do that bypassing all of these opportunities for human input. So we have to slow down a little bit and say what are the milestones along the way where I might want to get on a call with my CFO and be able to observe what happens to her face when I propose a 500k spend. Right. Instead of just here's the notion page with the justification and let me know what you think. Those are two different experiences and they might lead me to to two really different places before I get to that final outcome. So ⁓ it's having to just be really intentional about not only the output but the process of getting to the output. speaker-1: Mm. Yeah, I love that you brought that up because there's something that I've been noticing that there's a there's an importance and there's a value in wrestling with the work that you're doing rather than just driving straight to the outcome. And to your point, there's a relational value. I think there's also a cognitive value. ⁓ and There's a value in terms of your capacity to actually stand behind and stand for the output that you have created. And so one of the things that I think is really interesting here is the circumvention of the relational piece, right? Like, ⁓ well, you just didn't have to talk to those eight people. You didn't have to see the reaction of, you know, that person. And so there's a way in which it can create a bit of an echo chamber. Of one where it's like, well, Claude thinks it's good, so I think I'm on the right track. And it keeps real you know, it has the the sycophantic way of like reinforcing your thinking and saying, wow, you're on to something great. And even if you remove that, there's still a way in which it's responding to you without much critique, without much perspective, right? Because it's really just predicting the next word. And so this is where I'm really curious about like. generative friction or useful friction and like from a relational perspective, what's actually really critical about slowing down a beat and experiencing and navigating through that friction proactively and intentionally rather than simply circumventing it. speaker-0: Mm. Yeah, well I think it's just, you know, AI or no AI, there's value in getting perspectives that differ from your own. And I think AI can actually complicate this because I don't know about you, but I n I've noticed that Claude, even without my direction, starts to kind of parrot my own words and ideas back to me and sort of reinforce the ways that I think, ⁓ what I what what my perspective is in the organization, what I think is important. ⁓ and to your point, there's this sycophantic effect where it it's just it becomes this kind of self-reinforcing loop. And so I think there's a lot of danger actually in getting to a really important decision, a really important deliverable, using Claude as your soul thought partner because you're in a way just kind of using your own brain as your own thought partner, right? Because you can only give it the context that you yourself can give it. and so there's so much value in just exposing those ideas earlier in the process to differing opinions, especially in people in culture work. ⁓ because we are not designing for the people and culture team, we're designing for the whole organization and we're trying to create solutions that work for a lot of different ⁓ personas and a lot of different people. And to do that we have to understand what those reactions, what those frictions, what those differing perspectives are in order to incorporate them. So ⁓ there's only so much I can do, even even when I give Claude the instruction to ⁓ you know, pick apart my idea or or bring a tell me where this could go wrong or play devil's advocate. It just it's still doing that only with the context that it has from what I've given it, not from being able to be inside the hearts and minds of other human beings. So ⁓ that's why I still think it's it's really important, as you said, to kind of generate that friction. speaker-1: Hmm. I want to go back full circle now. And at the start, you shared something about how you think the future of work is still human. And I'd love to understand a little bit more what you mean by that and how you think we create a future where humans are still, you know, at the center. speaker-0: Yeah. Well what I mean by that is that, you know, I've followed the discourse around AI in the workplace and how it for so many companies was kind of being heralded as something that could just completely automate as you know, entire jobs and that therefore they could get so much more done with less and with f fewer human beings and a lot of those companies even did corresponding layoffs. And then what we're now hearing and seeing is that pure productivity without real context and management ⁓ actually is not as valuable as we may have thought, and that that context and management still requires humans to point ⁓ the automated tools or the agents in the right direction. And so a lot of companies are now hiring back the humans that they laid off. And so when I say I think the future of work is still human, what I mean by that is I think maybe the work that humans do will evolve to focus more on the things that only humans can bring, ⁓ like creative expression or judgment or context or empathy, but that ⁓ those things will continue to be critical ⁓ if we want to actually get the right outcomes with AI. and as far as how we build that, that's the that's the multi billion dollar question right now. But what I what I believe is that the more that leaders and all of us can continue to look at this through the frame of where do we want to retain our humanity? What are those what are those areas where could AI do it? Yes, but do we want that? Do we want that experience as a culture or as a society? Do we want, for example, Candidates to be interviewed by robots? do we want to have entire decisions made without human input? and I think there's just a real opportunity to look at this through a more empowered lens of what do we as humans want to be true? And then can we make decisions based off of that desire for the way we want to experience work and life versus simply what is now possible, what is now technically possible. Because those are two different questions that will lead us to two very different places. speaker-1: Yeah, I really appreciate that framing and you know, I talk about stepping beneath the hype and the doom around AI because I think both of those cause a reactionary response in many of us. It to to the point earlier, it can throw us off of our center and and dysregulate our nervous systems. And then that can cause ⁓ it can make it a lot harder for us to feel like we have agency in choosing that path. And I think The opportunity here is to find that middle path that is grounded, that is connected to our values, that is relationally present, and from that place to be proactive about what we want to create. Because humans, we've always been creators. And sure, AI can now augment that creativity in really brilliant and exciting ways. But to your point, there's something foundational about human creation that is critically important to us building a future of human flourishing rather than just, you know, going with whatever the probable or possible outcome might be. speaker-0: Yeah, exactly. And I think it goes straight to the heart of what kind of world we want to live in. And so the more the more people who are asking themselves that question, and especially people in power and people who have the authority and the influence and the resources to actually change the way that works, that system works, and to have an impact on the kind of world that we're living in, the better. speaker-1: Yeah. So I'm really curious then to hear about how your thinking is evolving as you continue to recalibrate around this powerful, constantly advancing technology. Like how is that shifting the way that you're thinking about your role and responsibility as a leader? speaker-0: Yeah, well, I think the question, and I I just alluded to this always comes back to what are the systems or structures or norms that keep people excluded or that create that that contribute to the marginalization of people, whether it's in a society or in a workplace and ⁓ To me AI is just a dynamic that exposes those that exposes those realities as much as it is ⁓ a tool ⁓ that we're using in the workplace. So I think I don't have a clean answer for that, but I'm really wrestling with what it looks like to create great experiences and create inclusive experiences and create values-driven experiences when the system isn't made up of other human beings but also of technologies. So it's a to it's a totally different paradigm and it's it's forced me to have to look at what I do and and look at my role and my identity in many ways differently. So ⁓ I'm still figuring out what that looks like, but that's the question I'm sitting with. speaker-1: I think we're all in the same boat and anybody who tells you they've got it figured out, well they're probably trying to sell something. So speaker-0: Yeah. Well yeah, well said. I think the the the idea of being a hundred percent AI ready or of just having it all figured out is ⁓ it to me is kind of a red flag because it's changing so quickly that the the having it figured out part is just more about adaptability and flexibility and resilience than it is about any one specific approach or strategy. speaker-1: Yeah, and I think what you're speaking to here is the leadership and the change management side of AI adoption. It's the human side, right? And of course we have the tech stack, but what's the human stack? What's the what's the side that actually, maybe as we talked about earlier, starts with the grounding in a regulated nervous system, the practices that allow you to stay connected to your values and who you are and what you're here to offer in the world. the emotional awareness, right? The relational presence, these layers that when you stack them up can become powerful differentiators in your capacity to be an effective leader in the age of AI. And if all we're doing is talking about the tech, then we're missing the human stack, if you will, and we're missing the need to bring that wisdom and that experience to bear on the technology as it advances. And not only for the sake of can I be an effective leader today, but to your point earlier, where are we driving this ship? Because as a leader, no matter where you sit, whether you're in a a startup or an institution or government or a big company or an individual, you're you have a position of power and influence. You have people who are listening to you. And there's such an opportunity to step forward And from that place of self awareness and relational connectedness to say what you think is right and important and then to take action accordingly. speaker-0: Yeah, that's really, really well said. And so my hope is that more people in positions of power and influence use their voice in that way that you just described. And I think it's also why it's so important to create space for these conversations, this podcast, Human Equilibrium, being a perfect example of creating that space. So I really appreciate the work that you're doing to foster these conversations. speaker-1: Annalise Brown, it's great having you on the show. Thank you. speaker-0: Thank you so much, Dan. It's been wonderful and I've appreciated the conversation so much. speaker-1: Likewise. 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.