ТРАНСКРИПЦИЯ 🔗
WEBVTT
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.560
Hi change agents, I'm back in the US after my European exploits, and I thought I'd share a few stateside adventures from the past few years.
00:00:08.880 --> 00:00:17.519
I have shot hoops at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, definitely not as a pro athlete, but as a general counsel on the clock.
00:00:17.679 --> 00:00:22.000
I have done a scavenger hunt through San Diego with a few hundred sales leaders.
00:00:22.079 --> 00:00:27.600
I've also been asked on stage with no warning whatsoever to name my favorite Beyonce song.
00:00:27.839 --> 00:00:30.160
For the record, it's run the world.
00:00:30.399 --> 00:00:34.880
I have also held the hand of a tenant who was terrified of being evicted.
00:00:35.039 --> 00:00:38.399
I have sat with a parent fighting to keep custody of their children.
00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:44.640
I have talked an antitrust partner through a panic attack the morning of a hearing when documents went missing.
00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:47.280
And I have been a human paper shredder.
00:00:47.679 --> 00:00:50.079
Every one of those things was part of my job.
00:00:50.159 --> 00:00:58.159
And if you had watched me doing any of those and tried to infer my job from the task in front of me, you might have gotten it spectacularly wrong.
00:00:58.399 --> 00:01:04.640
Which is why when the LinkedIn Post or news story lands saying AI is getting so good at the work.
00:01:04.799 --> 00:01:06.480
What happens when the work goes away?
00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:07.760
I have a question.
00:01:08.079 --> 00:01:08.879
Which work?
00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:14.319
And why do we assume the whole thing disappears rather than some pieces of it changing?
00:01:14.560 --> 00:01:16.879
That's what I want to talk about today.
00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:33.599
The only thing moving faster than change right now might be my relentless curiosity about the possibilities it creates, the new worlds it opens, what to watch out for, and how we get more comfortable with discomfort and uncertainty.
00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:37.760
I'm Gabrielle Kohlmeier, and this is Technically Joyful.
00:01:37.920 --> 00:01:51.120
A space for us to build change capacity in the AI era, explore hard questions, find unexpected connections, useful ideas, and create the energy to shape what comes next.
00:01:51.359 --> 00:01:54.319
Let's get Technically Joyful.
00:01:55.359 --> 00:01:58.879
I take the fear underneath that question seriously.
00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:08.479
If AI can review the documents, do the research, draft the memo, analyze the contract, summarize the file, people are right to ask what happens to the associate?
00:02:08.719 --> 00:02:12.159
In other industries, the analyst, the doctor, the manager.
00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:13.680
What happens to me?
00:02:13.919 --> 00:02:16.560
But there's an assumption buried inside the question.
00:02:16.719 --> 00:02:20.080
When we say the work, what are we pointing at?
00:02:20.319 --> 00:02:25.280
Most of the time, I think we're pointing at the tasks we can see and measure.
00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:29.680
Read this, summarize that, draft this, review those.
00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:33.919
And when a machine does one of those faster, we conclude the work is gone.
00:02:34.240 --> 00:02:36.479
But was that the whole work?
00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:41.439
Or are we staring at the paper shredder part and mistaking it for the job?
00:02:41.680 --> 00:02:46.240
If you've been with me from the beginning of this podcast, you might have noticed a pattern.
00:02:46.479 --> 00:02:48.800
Spoiler, that is the whole plan.
00:02:48.960 --> 00:02:53.520
Notice the assumption, interrogate it, and choose a better one on purpose.
00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:58.400
We started with fear and moved towards curiosity in episode one.
00:02:58.719 --> 00:03:07.120
And Anna Gresel showed us in episode two what that looks like in practice, exploring before you know exactly where the exploration will lead.
00:03:07.360 --> 00:03:14.719
Then in episode three, we moved from figuring out everything alone toward connection, because no one has the whole picture.
00:03:14.879 --> 00:03:19.120
And Jeff Schaefer showed us in episode four another version of that connection.
00:03:19.360 --> 00:03:24.479
Building's not about dropping a tool into an organization, it's about seeing the system around it.
00:03:24.719 --> 00:03:32.400
People, processes, incentives, information, workflows, even teams of agents, and understanding how those pieces fit together.
00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:38.639
Then in episode five, we moved from wanting certainty toward building the map as we go.
00:03:38.800 --> 00:03:51.120
And Laura Belmont showed us in episode six, the joy of learning out loud, moving before everything is settled, letting people see you learn, being vulnerable enough to say, I'm learning this too.
00:03:51.439 --> 00:03:53.680
Fear toward curiosity.
00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:56.240
Isolation toward connection.
00:03:56.560 --> 00:03:58.800
Certainty toward exploration.
00:03:59.039 --> 00:04:04.560
Not because the first feeling disappears, but because we discover another way to move through it.
00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:06.960
Today's assumption is scarcity.
00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:08.479
There's a fixed amount of work.
00:04:08.800 --> 00:04:11.439
AI takes some of it, so there's less for us.
00:04:11.599 --> 00:04:14.879
And the shift I want to explore is toward abundance.
00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:17.360
Not don't worry, your job is safe.
00:04:17.600 --> 00:04:19.680
Not there will be endless jobs.
00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:21.360
Something more specific.
00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:26.720
When we define the work too narrowly, we also define our possibilities too narrowly.
00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:28.959
Quick ask and then we go.
00:04:29.199 --> 00:04:31.600
Who comes to mind while you're listening to this?
00:04:31.839 --> 00:04:33.360
Send the podcast to them.
00:04:33.519 --> 00:04:35.040
That's what this show is for.
Load full transcript
00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:40.079
Follow the show, leave a rating, takes 10 seconds and it helps people find us.
00:04:40.399 --> 00:04:45.439
And keep sending me your fun, surprising, tragically awful AI attempts.
00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:50.000
I'm loving them, especially when you're open to me sharing them on air.
00:04:50.319 --> 00:04:52.560
So back to the sales kickoff.
00:04:52.959 --> 00:04:58.639
My sales leaders understood something about their assignment that turns out to be the whole point of today.
00:04:58.879 --> 00:05:01.920
Their job was not just to hand down sales quotas.
00:05:02.079 --> 00:05:13.680
Their job was to create energy, teach lessons in a way people would actually remember, build competition and team cohesion, create empathy for the customer, help people see opportunity.
00:05:13.920 --> 00:05:19.600
The hoops and the scavenger hunt were not breaks from the work, were ways of doing the work.
00:05:19.759 --> 00:05:22.560
A scavenger hunt puts you into a different mode.
00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:28.240
You're scanning, improvising, looking for something you might otherwise just walk past.
00:05:28.480 --> 00:05:33.040
And doing it with other people, because your own field of vision is not enough.
00:05:33.199 --> 00:05:37.279
Those are useful habits for sales, and they're hard to install with a memo.
00:05:37.519 --> 00:05:38.800
I took that with me.
00:05:38.959 --> 00:05:50.079
As a market general counsel, later building legal organizations with lawyers around the world, not with clients, I am obsessively focused on what matters to and motivates the people in front of me.
00:05:50.319 --> 00:05:54.319
Counterparty across the table, my own team, a colleague in another function.
00:05:54.480 --> 00:06:00.879
What makes a lawyer in India feel connected to the goal and free to contribute beyond the rote application of what they were told?
00:06:01.120 --> 00:06:06.399
How does a lawyer in the Netherlands connect with clients in a culture that works very differently from their own?
00:06:06.639 --> 00:06:12.560
How do technologists and lawyers who don't naturally speak the same language start operating as one team?
00:06:12.800 --> 00:06:16.319
Those are not soft questions off to the side of the legal work.
00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:18.560
They're a critical part of the work.
00:06:18.800 --> 00:06:24.240
Over time, that pulled me deeper into the psychology of persuasion, motivation, and influence.
00:06:24.480 --> 00:06:27.600
Because getting the answer right was only part of the work.
00:06:27.759 --> 00:06:31.839
The answer had to travel through actual human beings.
00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:36.000
That was true of an integrity action plan I led to.
00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:39.040
On paper, my task was straightforward.
00:06:39.279 --> 00:06:41.040
Can they the legal requirements?
00:06:41.199 --> 00:06:43.199
Here is what selling with integrity means.
00:06:43.360 --> 00:06:44.959
Here are the state and federal rules.
00:06:45.120 --> 00:06:46.480
Here are the company policies.
00:06:46.800 --> 00:06:47.439
Done.
00:06:47.920 --> 00:06:50.240
But the actual work was much bigger.
00:06:50.480 --> 00:06:52.000
The email was a task.
00:06:52.240 --> 00:06:54.319
The work was changing behavior.
00:06:54.560 --> 00:06:58.639
The purpose was making sure customers were treated with integrity.
00:06:58.800 --> 00:07:15.600
So, yes, the legal and policy guidance mattered, but it also really mattered to work closely with brilliant communicators, other lawyers, stakeholders, to get senior leaders to put their names on it, to create scores so people could see how they were doing, and to go to the stores.
00:07:15.759 --> 00:07:20.560
I stood on the sales floors and I would ask people, are you getting the emails and the texts?
00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:21.600
Tell me about them.
00:07:21.759 --> 00:07:22.959
Do you know why this matters?
00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:27.120
Do you know how much we appreciate what you do for customers every day?
00:07:27.279 --> 00:07:34.800
I wanted to know whether the information stuck and whether it's stuck in a way that energized people instead of just overloading them.
00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:40.319
Sometimes the parts of the work that matter the most are the hardest ones to put on a task list.
00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:47.439
Trust, motivation, judgment, connection, knowing when someone is worried about something they haven't even said yet.
00:07:47.680 --> 00:07:53.680
I saw that very clearly at Verizon when I was the antitrust lawyer for a company we had just acquired.
00:07:53.920 --> 00:08:00.480
Of course, I did the analysis, the filings, the regulatory work, but I also spent time inside their business.
00:08:00.639 --> 00:08:06.000
I sat in their meetings, I learned what mattered to their lawyers and policy people and business people.
00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:11.680
And when we advocated for the company, I made sure they could see their concerns reflected in what we were doing.
00:08:11.920 --> 00:08:14.879
Later, I saw what that made possible.
00:08:15.120 --> 00:08:23.360
They came to me proactively with a concern about their own behavior, kind of thing that people can be tempted to bury because it's uncomfortable and frightening.
00:08:23.519 --> 00:08:24.480
They didn't bury it.
00:08:24.639 --> 00:08:25.600
They brought it to me.
00:08:25.759 --> 00:08:32.080
And because they did, we could investigate it, understand what happened, and address it before the concern became a crisis.
00:08:32.320 --> 00:08:35.600
The antitrust analysis was easy to identify as work.
00:08:35.919 --> 00:08:37.759
Trust was harder to see.
00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:41.039
But the trust changed the information I had access to.
00:08:41.279 --> 00:08:43.919
And that changed what I was able to do.
00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:51.840
And this is where I also want to be careful, because the point is not that machines do the technical tasks and humans do the nice relationship stuff.
00:08:51.919 --> 00:09:00.480
But the point is that we need to understand the whole system of work before we can intelligently decide what technology should change.
00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:05.440
Figuring out what the work actually is is a big part of my job now.
00:09:05.679 --> 00:09:07.759
It's a lot of what I do with clients.
00:09:07.919 --> 00:09:11.360
And my thinking on it keeps getting deeper and evolving.
00:09:11.679 --> 00:09:13.039
Here's where I'm at.
00:09:13.279 --> 00:09:14.399
There's purpose.
00:09:14.559 --> 00:09:16.639
Why is anyone paying for this at all?
00:09:16.879 --> 00:09:21.679
A client makes a better decision, a patient gets better, a tenant gets to keep their home.
00:09:21.919 --> 00:09:25.759
Then there's the work, everything that has to happen to get there.
00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:28.480
And then there are the components of that work.
00:09:28.799 --> 00:09:34.960
Some show up as explicit tasks: review the documents, draft the demand, run the analysis.
00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:36.879
Others are harder to count.
00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:42.240
Judgment, relationship building, noticing, translating, persuading, connecting.
00:09:42.480 --> 00:09:48.720
Those things may not have a billing code or a line on the job description that doesn't make them less real.
00:09:48.879 --> 00:09:53.039
And this is where the AI conversation can get distorted.
00:09:53.279 --> 00:09:56.639
When we ask, what happens when AI does the work?
00:09:56.879 --> 00:09:59.679
We're often counting only the visible tasks.
00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:03.600
AI takes some of those and we conclude the work is gone.
00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:06.480
But the work was always bigger than the job description.
00:10:06.639 --> 00:10:08.960
We just didn't always make the rest visible.
00:10:09.120 --> 00:10:12.960
And once you can see more of the work, you have choices.
00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:15.120
What should technology do?
00:10:15.360 --> 00:10:16.480
What should people do?
00:10:16.639 --> 00:10:19.279
What should people and technology do together?
00:10:19.519 --> 00:10:23.840
What are we doing today that doesn't need to be done at all anymore?
00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:27.039
What deserves more human attention, not less?
00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:33.519
And what valuable work have we been not doing because all of our capacity was consumed somewhere else?
00:10:33.759 --> 00:10:36.799
That's where abundance starts to get interesting.
00:10:37.120 --> 00:10:38.720
Now, abundance.
00:10:38.960 --> 00:10:44.720
I know that the word can sound like putting a cheerful sticker over a real problem, but that's not what I mean.
00:10:44.879 --> 00:10:51.519
The scarcity story gets much narrower when we mistake the visible task for the whole of the work.
00:10:51.759 --> 00:10:57.440
Because once we can see the work more fully, we can start deciding how we want it to happen.
00:10:57.600 --> 00:11:08.000
Which parts build judgment, which parts erode it, which parts build relationships, which parts get in the way, which parts are habits, which parts are bureaucracy wearing a suit.
00:11:08.240 --> 00:11:16.960
And when technology genuinely reduces the effort required for some of those components, it creates a choice about where that capacity goes next.
00:11:17.279 --> 00:11:22.799
That choice matters because the thing that remains stubbornly scarce is human attention.
00:11:23.039 --> 00:11:24.320
Where do we point it?
00:11:24.559 --> 00:11:43.360
Think about how many organizations say they don't have enough time for mentoring or even training, for real client conversations, for strategic thinking, for reflection, for experimentation, for improving systems, for asking whether the thing everyone is frantically doing should even exist.
00:11:43.840 --> 00:11:46.720
We've spent decades saying we're overwhelmed.
00:11:46.879 --> 00:11:51.120
Now we have tools that could potentially take some things off the desk.
00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:57.279
It would be a strange failure of imagination if the only question we ask is, how many people can we cut?
00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:02.559
What if another question is, what can we finally afford to pay attention to?
00:12:02.879 --> 00:12:04.960
That's the abundance I mean.
00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:19.279
Not endless jobs, not endless work, an abundance of design choices, an abundance of possible places to direct our attention, an abundance of questions we finally get to ask about the work we inherited.
00:12:19.519 --> 00:12:23.919
So, what happens when one of those visible tasks really does shrink?
00:12:24.080 --> 00:12:26.320
I can show you what that looks like in my own work.
00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:36.480
I used to spend a lot of time reading and then summarizing the report, the article, the legislation, the hearing, the 400-page whatever.
00:12:36.720 --> 00:12:40.159
That reading was where my thinking got built a lot of the time.
00:12:40.399 --> 00:12:48.399
Now I still read, I still engage with the material, but I may capture my key thoughts and have AI help with the synthesis.
00:12:48.559 --> 00:12:50.960
I was a little bit worried about that, to be honest.
00:12:51.120 --> 00:12:57.360
I was an outline queen in law school because outlining was how I sorted through thinking and made it stick.
00:12:57.600 --> 00:13:01.759
So I wondered what would happen if some of the synthesis moved to the machine.
00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:03.679
Would the thinking get weaker?
00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:05.919
For me, the opposite has happened.
00:13:06.080 --> 00:13:08.879
The note-taking and synthesis shifted.
00:13:09.039 --> 00:13:12.000
The engagement didn't disappear, it changed shape.
00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:15.840
Now, one of my favorite things to do is set up arguments.
00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:21.759
I ask an AI to take on one person's position and argue with me about whatever I'm working on.
00:13:21.919 --> 00:13:27.279
Then I bring in someone who would disagree with that first person,
and then I challenge both of them.
00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:33.360
I push back, I question the premises, ask questions, and I ask what neither one is seeing.
00:13:33.600 --> 00:13:42.000
Sometimes I'll throw in a fictional character, a Leslie Nope, or a Ted Lasso when I want a deliberately different lens or an ethical conscience.
00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:48.159
It is frankly a delight, and my thinking often comes out tighter and richer.
00:13:48.399 --> 00:13:51.840
The summarizing shifted, the thinking got more room.
00:13:52.080 --> 00:13:56.159
My nerdiness quotient also increased, but that was probably unavoidable.
00:13:56.480 --> 00:13:59.519
So your rep this week is a two-parter.
00:13:59.759 --> 00:14:00.960
First is the big one.
00:14:01.120 --> 00:14:06.159
The next time you finish a familiar task, pause and ask, what was the work?
00:14:06.399 --> 00:14:10.799
Not just what did I produce, but what judgment was this supposed to support?
00:14:10.960 --> 00:14:11.840
What relationship?
00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:12.799
What understanding?
00:14:12.960 --> 00:14:13.840
What outcome?
00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:16.799
What was this task actually in service of?
00:14:17.039 --> 00:14:22.559
The second is a short and easy two-word prompt to use with anything AI hands you.
00:14:22.879 --> 00:14:24.000
What's missing?
00:14:24.240 --> 00:14:26.480
A draft, a summary, an analysis.
00:14:26.639 --> 00:14:29.840
Before you use it, just ask what's missing.
00:14:30.080 --> 00:14:40.240
It will usually surface a list of possible gaps, context your AI may not have, questions it didn't consider, stakeholders it didn't account for, assumptions it made.
00:14:40.480 --> 00:14:42.960
But don't assume that the list is complete either.
00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:45.519
Use it as a prompt for your own attention.
00:14:45.679 --> 00:14:49.679
And then think about what's missing that the system can't know is missing.
00:14:49.840 --> 00:14:54.879
What do you know about the client, about the relationship, the culture, the history, the consequence?
00:14:55.120 --> 00:15:02.799
And if after your own review, you genuinely can't identify anything material that's missing, that's really useful information too.
00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:08.639
Maybe that was a task that didn't need that much of you, which can be its own kind of relief.
00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:17.200
So, a basketball court, a scavenger hunt, a terrified tenant, a partner who couldn't breathe, and a human paper shredder.
00:15:17.519 --> 00:15:21.600
None of those things standing alone would have told you what the work was.
00:15:21.759 --> 00:15:29.519
The scarcity story looks very different once we stop mistaking the visible task for the whole of the work.
00:15:29.840 --> 00:15:32.000
Ask, what was the work?
00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:36.080
And when AI gives you an answer, ask what's missing.
00:15:36.320 --> 00:15:40.639
You start to see more of what the output alone leaves out.
00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:47.440
And once you can see more of the work, you get to make better choices about what it becomes.
00:15:47.759 --> 00:15:52.559
The work is not only what we inherited, it's also what we decided to make next.
00:15:52.799 --> 00:15:56.080
And maybe abundance starts there.
00:15:56.240 --> 00:16:05.919
Not with a promise that nothing will be lost, but with the recognition that we still have choices about where our attention goes and what we choose to build.
00:16:06.320 --> 00:16:15.200
One quick note I am a licensed attorney, but nothing in this show is legal advice, and I'm not promising anyone specific results.
00:16:15.440 --> 00:16:19.039
I am promising to keep asking better questions with you.
00:16:19.200 --> 00:16:23.039
And that change agents is technically doing.